The Mosaic Covenant
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, 2 but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.”
3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” 4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.
He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.””
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the 613 laws of the Torah on the top of Mount Horeb in the Sinai Desert (Mount Sinai). God gave Moses detailed instructions on how to make a large box, an “ark,” to carry the Torah in while the Israelites wandered in the desert for a 40 year period.
This video shows what the ark was like:
The Law, the Torah, were not simply a set of rules to govern people so as to control them, but they are God’s Covenant Conditions for the Mosaic Covenant. (*Covenant conditions are the stipulations of how each party within the agreement of the covenant are to act toward each other. There is always a contract detailing the benefits of remaining faithful to the other party as well as the ramifications for the party who breaks the covenant.)
I’ve read the Bible many times and God didn’t explain how they were to become holy before Him. It was simply that He would show them favor and that they would be blessed as long as they heeded the covenant and put Him first. God explained to His chosen people, through Moses, how observing the Law would help them remain in relationship with Him.
“Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the LORD, who makes you holy.”
As history bears out, the Israelites (Jews) seemed to have thought that fulfilling the Law was actually possible and, therefore, missed the point of the covenant altogether. God’s only provision for Himself, His one and only reservation, was that they would be His people and He would be their God and that He ‘would never leave them or forsake them.’ At the end of the day, God’s only benefit was the relationship with mankind He has desired since the Fall of Man. To be sure, God gave them incredibly stringent rules that could have only caused each person to throw up their arms and say, “I give up!” and God would have responded, “Now we begin!”
Photo by Austin Park on Unsplash
In the New Testament, we know Jesus made provision for us, as reborn Christians, that we would receive the Holy Spirit — the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus in all He did.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
However, there was no such promise from God back in the time of Moses. So, how were they to live in constant communion with God unless they were to live at the Temple? Not only that, but even the priests failed to honor God as commanded uncountable times! Honestly, what were they to do? They had the Law and they had prayer, but God had the righteousness and there was absolutely no way any human being was about to become righteous before God without His help — we call that help “the gift of grace.”
Since God has reached out to mankind to be our Friend and Covenant Partner, we often ask, “What do you want from me?” I asked this question a few times when I started my personal relationship with Him, even yelling at the top of my lungs in exasperation.*
The simple answer is that He wants us to love Him. He wants a relationship. The covenants are God’s way of not merely occasionally connecting with us like distant relatives, but throughout the day, everyday for the rest of our lives — and closer than a brother.
Along with the Covenant Conditions, God made it clear how to distinguish what to expect of Him for how they treated Him. This is that passage in Leviticus 26 that describes — with detail — God’s feelings about obedience and disobedience.
Let’s start with what they can expect of God by obeying him …
“‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.
2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.’”
Now those are awesome promises! Why would anyone want to blow that?
Image by hamiltonjch on Pixabay
Well then … here’s the set of promises God makes if they choose to disobey Him:
“‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.
21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.
40 “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”
Besides the atrocities, what do you notice as different between the two? You most likely noticed that the first list, the Promises of Obedience, were Heavenly in nature and the second list, the Promises of Disobedience, were Hellish. There is a reason for that — if the people rebelled against God, it is because they chose to side with the devil (Satan) and not Him, so God was going to let them have what they really wanted. In other words, if they chose to ally themselves with Satan and his demons, they get what the devil gets while those who choose God get what God has.
Furthermore, in verses 40 through 45, there were five levels of rebellion in the second passage. Sinful mankind’s desire for independence from God runs deep, but God’s desire for relationship, reconciliation, and restoration runs even deeper! God’s promises to restore a rebellious Israel is profound. It sounds like a loving Father who just wants to love on His children.
Hallelujah!
Prayer
Father God, thank You for Your covenant grace that provides for me and nurtures me and brings me to a place of peace with You! I deeply appreciate how You have always sought to bring me into a relationship with You and You have never turned a cold shoulder to me. I ask that you would help me see how You want to love on me today and please help me to love on others. Teach me, Lord, to love as You do. Make me a loving person. Help me to focus less on myself and my hurts and trust that Your plan for my life is coming to fruition even when I don’t see it. Thank You for Your covenant heart of love toward me as I sometimes struggle to handle the difficulties of life. Please help me make the decisions that must be made and help me stay focused on the path of righteousness You have planned for me. In Jesus’ holy name, amen.
* Rest assured, God is not offended when you fully express yourself. He knows how you feel. I always encourage people I counsel to let it out. One day, in deep prayer, I was ranting before the Lord as He encouraged me to, and suddenly, I thought I should tone it down. I told Him I had a lot of anger and was overwhelmed. He told me to hand it over to Him. I said this is a lot of big, dirty stuff. He said, “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.” I laughed and cried in joy at how loving and compassionate He is. Needless to say, I took Him up on His offer and have not been the same since. I encourage you to do the same. He’s a BIG BOY and He can handle all your stuff — for Pete’s sake, He was flogged, scourged, and crucified; what’s some emotional baggage to Him? :)
Banner photo by Fr. Barry Braum on Unsplash