I recently finished the book Abraham, Israel, and the Nations. The timing was perfect as it was a spectacular help in my preparations for my group study on covenants. Upon completion, I came to the realization that the author Paul Williamson is also the author of another book I have on the subject entitled Sealed with an Oath: Covenant in God’s Unfolding Purpose. I bought this book nearly a decade earlier on a visit to Dublin when Dana took us to a book store. This other book is much broader in scope and I suspect will also be an excellent addition to the study.
Here are some remaining extractions which I hope to raise for discussion in the group:
“Thus by changing the names of Abraham and Sarah, God was apparently heralding a change in their covenantal status. Abraham was no longer to be simply the father of one nation, albeit one that would be ‘great’ (Gen. 12.2) and ‘numerous’ (Gen. 13.16; 15.5); rather he and Sarah (cf. Gen. 17.16) would be the ancestors of ‘a multitude of nations’ (17.4). Therefore this important transition or change in Abra- ham and Sarah’s status clearly marks out the ‘covenant of circumcision’ as a new development in God’s covenantal dealings with Abraham.”
“Further evidence that this is indeed the case is found by Keil in the fact that even in Genesis 17 the covenant sign of circumcision was not confined to Abraham’s physical offspring, but extended to his entire household; that is, ‘his son Ishmael and all the slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house’ (v. 23, NRSV). Such an application of the sign of God’s covenant to these other members of Abraham’s household suggests that, like Ishmael, they enjoyed some sort of covenantal status; in some sense they too were included within the focus of this particular covenant.”
“Since v. 14 excludes from the terms of the covenant any male who, for whatever reason, has not been circumcised, it is evident that submission to the rite is presented in Genesis 17 as absolutely essential for every male member of the Abrahamic household or community. Any uncircumcised male was automatically in breach of the covenant and consequently excluded from the special divine-human relationship in- trinsic to it. However, it is unlikely that the physical sign per se implied that one was a member of the covenant community, given that circumcision was practised so widely in the ancient Near East. Furthermore, as well as being hopelessly inadequate to identify publicly the male members of the covenant family or community, circumcision apparently left the female members with no identifying label at all. Together these facts make it difficult to interpret circumcision in Genesis 17 either as a badge of identification or an initiation or ratification rite. The first makes the covenant too broad; the latter makes it too narrow.”
“It has been established, therefore, that the covenant spoken of in Genesis 17 differs from that depicted in Genesis 15 in at least three important respects: (1) it incorporates different foci; viz. promises of international significance, royal descendants, and a divine-human relationship; (2) it involves human as well as divine obligations; viz. the ethical obligation of moral blamelessness and the ritual obligation of circumcision; (3) it is of a more permanent character; viz. it is described as ‘everlasting’. For these reasons alone one should be most reluctant to equate the two covenants of which the chapters speak. In terms of promissory focus, the author and/or final editor of Genesis clearly distinguishes them.”
“Whereas Ishmael, as part of Abraham’s family, was himself included within the covenant community, this covenantal status was not explicitly extended to his progeny, as is clearly so in the case of Isaac (Gen. 17.19). Thus this eternal covenant was to be perpetuated exclusively through Isaac’s ‘seed’. It was in and through them (i.e. the special Abrahamic line of descent, beginning with Isaac) that the promissory aspects of this covenant would find fulfilment.”
Exodus 6:2-5
God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. 3I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty,a but by my name the Lordb I did not make myself fully known to them. 4I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. 5Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.It is undeniable, therefore, that the promised blessing is inextricably bound up with the concept of ‘seed’. This connection between the binding of Isaac, the promised heir of Abraham, and the blessing trans- ferred to Abraham’s promised ‘seed’ is of key importance. It was by obediently surrendering his promised heir that Abraham secured the blessing of his promised ‘seed’. The blessing promised here will find fulfilment not in Abraham himself, but rather in his ‘seed’.
Although Gen. 24.1 indicates that Abra- ham had experienced the divine blessing promised in Gen. 12.2, it is nevertheless clear that this statement needs qualification: the fulfilment relates only to blessing on a personal level (i.e. as relating to posterity and prosperity). Obviously the fulfilment of the larger dimensions of the promise (i.e. national and international blessing) is not to be sought within the lifetime of Abraham (or even within the book of Genesis as a whole). Thus, given the future dimension of both major elements of the promise in the book of Genesis, and the fact that the realization of the second promissory element was dependent on the realization of the first, it is natural that the divine guarantee in Gen. 22.16-18 should encompass the promise of nationhood.
The next incident, Abraham’s rescue of Lot and his encounter with Melchizedek, is significant in relation to the promise of nationhood for two reasons: not only does it present Abraham acting as a king himself, but it also introduces us to the priest-kings of Salem, with whom the royal line descended from Abraham was ultimately identified (cf. Ps. 110.4). Thus in Genesis 14 the prospect of Abraham becoming a ‘great nation’ and having a ‘great name’ is to some measure foreshadowed.129 Yet it is only foreshadowed, for, as the following chapter makes clear, this promise of nationhood will not be fulfilled either in Abraham’s lifetime (15.15) or in the immediate future (cf. 15.13, 16).
It is this potential for confusion which necessitated the announcement in Genesis 17 that God would establish (i.e. perpetuate) a covenant, not with Ishmael, but with Isaac, the son who was yet to be born to Sarah (17.19-21). Unlike the earlier ‘covenant between the pieces’, however, this ‘eternal covenant’ involves mutual obligations, and en- compasses more than the promise of nationhood. This covenant con- cerns primarily the other main aspect of the divine promissory agenda set out in Gen. 12.1-3; viz. the promise that ‘through Abraham all the familes of the ground would obtain blessing’. Little, if any, attention has been paid to this international aspect of the divine programme involving Abraham in the intervening narrative.
Once again Abraham places in jeopardy all the promises, but primarily that relating to the promised ‘seed’, by the deceitful ploy of passing his wife off as his sister (20.1-18). Yet again God intervenes (cf. 20.18; 21.1), and the son promised to Abraham and Sarah is born at last (21.1-7). The special line of Abrahamic ‘seed’, anticipated in ch. 17, is finally established.
In the final composition of the book of Genesis, therefore, chs. 15 and 17 serve to introduce two separate yet related covenants. Together, these covenants solemnly guarantee that the divine promises made to the patriarch at the beginning of the Abraham narrative (12.1-3) will be fulfilled.
While these covenants have their own distinctive emphases they are not unrelated. Rather, they are connected: a royal descendant will come from the nation, and through this individual ‘seed’ of Abraham ‘all the nations of the earth will experience/acquire for themselves blessing’.
This suggests that whereas the promise of Abraham becom- ing ‘father of many nations’ is dependent in some way on the promise of ‘nationhood’, the latter is not dependent on the former. Abraham could become a ‘great nation’ without necessarily becoming ‘father of a multitude of nations’. He could not, however, become ‘father of a multitude of nations’ unless he first became the father of a ‘great nation’. The promise of nationhood, therefore, has chronological priority over the promise relating to the nations. The latter is dependent on the for- mer.
Thirdly, the different emphases in Genesis 15 and 17 mirror the two separate strands set out in the promissory agenda of Gen. 12.1-3. Each covenant picks up different aspects from the divine programme of anticipated blessing. Genesis 15 concentrates on the divine promise to make Abraham a ‘great nation’, whereas Genesis 17 focuses more on the divine promise that through Abraham ‘all the families of the ground will experience blessing’. Although these promissory aspects are to some degree related, each covenant pericope serves a different function within its present literary context. Genesis 15 guarantees the fulfilment of the first promissory aspect outlined in Gen. 12.1-3 (i.e. nationhood). Genesis 17, while encompassing this promissory aspect, anticipates a similar divine guarantee in relation to the second promise in the pro-grammatic agenda (i.e. the blessing of the nations). Such anticipation was necessitated by the need for clarification in relation to the identity of Abraham’s ‘seed’ and ‘covenant heir’.
As in the primaeval narrative and the post-Abrahamic patriarchal material,6 alternative lines of ‘seed’ are contrasted with the special line of ‘seed’ through which the catastrophe of Genesis 3 will be reversed and God’s creative purposes for all humankind realized.
This, in turn, would explain the transference of the Abrahamic promises to a future Davidic king in Psalm 72. In other words, the Davidic covenant serves to identify at a later stage in Genesis-Kings the promised line of ‘seed’ which will mediate blessing to all the nations of the earth.
How do subsequent divine-human covenants in Genesis- Kings relate to the covenants established between God and Abraham? To what extent are the distinctive promissory emphases of each cove- nant pericope (Gen. 15 and 17) fulfilled in Genesis-Kings? Is the ‘cove- nant between the pieces’ superseded in Genesis-Kings by the ‘covenant of circumcision’? While these issues lie outside the parameters of the present study, the fact that the relationship between Genesis 15 and 17 does have such widespread ramifications underlines how important this investigation is. As well as impinging on a theological appreciation of the Hebrew Bible, it has a significant bearing on the relationship between the two Testaments of the Christian Bible.