Covenants throughout Religions
Covenants: Lasting Implications of an Unoriginal ConceptCovenants can be found all through history. Even today covenants are created all the time between individuals and whole societies. The United States is under the obligation of covenants with nearly every nation of the world, either concerning military treaties or trade embargos. So too can covenants be found in the histories of all the world's great civilizations. These historical covenants can very often be directly paralleled with other covenants throughout history. The covenants the Israelite community can be directly compared to the Hittite Suzerainty-Vassal treaties. These covenants contain the same basic elements and were created to serve similar purposes. Both the Hittite and the Israelite covenants are agreements between greater powers (kings or God) and lesser people (lesser rulers or Israelites) created for the purpose of benefiting both sides of the agreement in one way or another. The Hittite Suzerainty-Vassal treaties contained six major parts, the Preamble, the Historical Prologue, the Stipulations/Organization, the Deposit and Reading, the Witnesses, and the Curses and Blessings. These treaties were established between powe
It is obvious that the 10 Commandments expressed in the Sinai covenant serve the purpose of the terms and conditions segment of the covenant. The Davidic covenant is basically a continuation of the covenants that had been made with Abraham and Noah wherein the lineage of a race was to be the reward for some service to God. The actual covenants were not unique in structure (as seen with the Hittite Suzerainty-Vassal treaties), but are still regarded by many to speak true today. The anointing of David as king led to the next major covenant in the Bible, the Davidic covenant. The covenants established in the Hebrew Bible changed the society and religion as a whole. God came to Nathan and told him to relay to David that David was to build God a home, a temple, in the holy city of Jerusalem, and in return for loyalty and services rendered David's lineage would forever reign over the people of Israel. The curses and Blessings of the Sinai covenant are found more at the beginning during the historical preamble when God speaks of being a jealous God who will judge the wicked, but show love to those who follow Him. One of the stipulations of these treaties usually demanded monogamy from the weaker of the two powers (no other agreements with powerful societies). The Sinai covenant is one of the best-known covenants in history, and I used to regard it as a completely original concept, but it followed exactly the structure of the covenants of the time period. Most important in the Hebrew Bible was the Sinai Covenant. Because of this covenant, the prophets could relate bad things happening in the community to curses laid out by god because the society did not keep up its end of the bargain established within the Sinai covenant. God then gives the provisions for deposit and reading and talks about how he prepared for the delivery of the commandments to the Israelites by causing the mountain to tremble and smoke. He had Moses bring Aaron with him to act as a witness (not to mention the thousands of Israelites waiting at the bottom of the thundering mountain).
Common topics in this essay:
Blessings Sinai,
Israelites Egypt,
Curses Blessings,
Hittite Suzerainty-Vassal,
Concept Covenants,
Mount Sinai,
David David,
Hittite Israelite,
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Hebrew Bible,
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purposes hittite,
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jealous god,
god lesser people,
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Acceptance Essays
