Covenant

The Framework of God's Grand Plan of Redemption

Daniel I. Block

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780801097881
• eBook ISBN:
  9781493429158
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Critique et interprétation bibliques

Christianity Today 2022 Award of Merit (Biblical Studies)

Southwestern Journal of Theology 2021 Book Award (Honorable Mention, Biblical Studies)

Leading scholar Daniel Block helps students of the Bible understand the big picture of God's covenants with humanity as they play out in both the First and the New Testaments.

After fifty years of teaching and preaching around the globe, Block brings a lifetime of study and reflection on the First Testament and relationship with God to this comprehensive volume. The book focuses on God's covenants as the means by which God has reached out to a fallen humanity. It examines the heart and history of God's redemptive plan and shows why the covenants are essential for our understanding of the Bible.

Part 1: The Cosmic and Adamic Covenants

Chapter 1
The Cosmic Covenant

Introduction

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). With this grand announcement, Act 1 of the cosmic drama began. I have carefully chosen the expression “cosmic drama”; what we are about to describe concerns all creation. Christians often view the world and the Scriptures from an anthropocentric perspective—as if human beings are the center of the universe and everything exists for them. Genesis 1:1 reminds us that God has been engaged in a project that is vastly greater than the human population. The spectacular astronomical discoveries made possible by the Hubble Space Telescope and other machines that humans have sent into space reveal a creation infinitely greater than our species of primates. While human characters dominate accounts of earthly history, biblical writers never lost sight of the grander vision.

This grander vision is especially prominent in the writings of the psalmists, sages, and prophets. Psalmists celebrate the wonder of YHWH’s creation in its entirety.1 They speak of the heavens and their expanse as spokespersons for the glory of God (19:1–6 [7]) and his righteousness (50:6; 97:6) and of the earth as belonging to YHWH.2 They marvel at his care for his creatures and his control of cosmic forces to accomplish this (Ps. 104). And they call upon the cosmos and all the creatures of earth to praise YHWH (Ps. 147). Sages (Prov. 8:22–31; Job 38:4–11) and prophets join them in glorifying YHWH as creator and sustainer of all things,3 and they see heaven as YHWH’s throne and the earth as his footstool (Isa. 66:1–2). Although the cosmos has been implicated in humanity’s rebellion and suffers intensely under the judgment of YHWH,4 the prophet in Isaiah 65:17–25 promised that one day YHWH would create a new heavens and a new earth where all humanity and all creatures will enjoy perfect shalom. Indeed, on the analogy of YHWH’s cosmic promise in Genesis 8:21–22, Jeremiah spoke of his irrevocable commitment to Israel (Jer. 31:35–37).

YHWH’s passion for the cosmos also reverberates through the New Testament. In what is probably the best-known text, God’s covenant commitment to the cosmos underlies the incarnation and saving work of the Son of God: “For God demonstrated his love for the world [Gk. kosmos] by giving his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world [kosmos] that he might judge the world [kosmos], but that the world [kosmos] might be saved through him” (John 3:16–17).

John often uses the word kosmos to refer to “the people who inhabit the world,” but the apostle also often uses words ambiguously and ambivalently. Western anthropocentrism blinds us to God’s greater goal in this passage: the redemption of the cosmos, a theme that Paul picks up in Romans 8:19–22. Building on Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21 and 2 Peter 3:10–14 speak of the destruction of the old world and the re-creation of a new one.

When we look at the sweep and progress of God’s redemptive plan revealed in Scripture, we recognize a glorious drama involving a series of easily identifiable acts:

Act 1:	The creation of the cosmos and its inhabitants, including humanity as the divine image and vice-regent
Act 2:	The rebellion and fall of the vice-regent, and with him all creation
Act 3:	The history of a people (Israel) commissioned as agents of grace in a fallen world
Act 4:	The appearance within time and space of the divine Son, through whose self-sacrifice God laid the foundations for the renewal of the cosmos
Act 5:	The re-creation of the new heaven and the new earth, fulfilling the original design

Like dramas played out on the stage, the Scriptures recount the story artfully. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, biblical authors and poets selected the details to include in the script, carefully arranged the scenes and acts, and skillfully crafted the details in keeping with intended rhetorical goals and desired portrayal of the primary characters. However, unlike dramas performed in our theaters, on this stage God is the primary character. Left to ourselves, the story would have ended with Act 2. But the good news is that God did not leave us to ourselves. By “ourselves” I mean not only humankind but also the world we occupy, which he charged us to govern on his behalf. Despite our rebellion and our betrayal of the divine mandate, God remained committed to the world he had created. This first chapter concerns Acts 1 and 2 of this drama. With his eye on the cosmos, the biblical dramatist sets the stage in Act 1 for all that follows (Gen. 1–2), and in Act 2 (Gen. 3:1–11:26) he presents God’s response to the crisis in the cosmos, taking action in the wake of his vice-regent’s horrific betrayal of both the Creator and the mandate/privilege granted him.

The Background to the Cosmic Covenant (Gen. 1–2)

The Hebrew word for “covenant,” bĕrît, occurs for the first time in Genesis 6:18. The Hebrew construction is ambiguous. “I will establish my covenant with you” could mean that God will confirm a previously existing covenant with Noah as the covenant partner. Because the usual idiom for “making a covenant” translates literally as “to cut a covenant” (kārat bĕrît), and the present idiom involving hēqîm, usually means “to establish” a (preexistent) covenant, many assume that the covenant must have been made with Adam. However, we should not rule out other options too quickly, for several reasons: (1) The preceding narrative has been silent on any antecedent covenant. (2) The boundaries between the two Hebrew idioms sometimes blur in the First Testament. For example, Deuteronomy 29:1 [MT 28:69] uses “to cut a covenant” (kārat bĕrît) for a covenant ritual that obviously involves the renewal of an antecedent covenant (on which see further below).5 (3) If a covenant involves a ritual that creates a relationship that does not exist naturally, then a covenant would have been unnecessary and superfluous in the scenes described in Genesis 1–2. It would be superfluous because the entire cosmos was functioning as God intended. Even though Genesis 1–2 casts Adam (the italicized form of the word signifies humanity) in the role of “vassal” vis-à-vis God, the divine “Suzerain,” this does not make the relationship covenantal.

However, we could also interpret “I will establish my covenant with you” as elliptical for “I will establish my covenant [with the cosmos] with you.” The context seems to support this interpretation. In addressing Noah and charging him to build an ark to preserve the created species in the forthcoming deluge, God obviously treated the man at the end of the genealogy that began with Adam (Gen. 5:32) as his vice-regent, with responsibility for the well-being of the rest of creation. A cosmic interest pervades the flood account.6 God’s promise to establish his covenant with his creation and do so “with you” assumes that the person who had served as the agent of creation’s survival of the deluge would also serve as the agent in the establishment of God’s covenant with creation (cf. 9:9–17). The role of Noah in the elliptical clause in 6:18 is like that of Moses in relation to YHWH’s covenant with Israel (Exod. 34:27). Just as Moses would function as the administrator who transcribed the covenant terms and through whom YHWH reconstituted his relationship with Israel, so Genesis 6:18 anticipated and 9:8–17 portrays Noah as fulfilling that role.

Although the notion of covenant is absent from Genesis 1–2, the accounts of creation are vital to the present project; they offer a glimpse into the reality that was lost in Act 2 and hint at the realities that God would seek to reconstruct through the covenants that will form the framework of the divine drama of cosmic judgment and redemption. The texts that describe the world as it came from the Creator’s hands provide necessary background for understanding the cosmic covenant instituted in Genesis 9.

Israel’s Cosmological Catechism (Gen. 1:1–2:4a)

The Boundaries of the Literary Unit

Biblical scholars widely recognize that Genesis 1 and 2 involve two contrasting images of creation, differing in their literary style, portrayal of God, description of Adam/Adam’s role, and placement of vegetation in creation. Scholars also agree that the division between Genesis 1 and 2 is misplaced. Although most treat 2:3 as the true conclusion to chapter 1, it is preferable to locate the boundary between 2:4a and 2:4b. The formula “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created” in 2:4a obviously signals a transition. Because elsewhere this “genealogical formula” always serves as a heading to what follows,7 most interpreters understand the formula here as introducing the remainder of chapter 2 and beyond. However, because the structure of headings and conclusions (colophons) may be identical (cf. Lev. 26:46 and Deut. 12:1), the form alone is not determinative, especially when the common usage does not fit this context. Since Genesis 2:4–25 does not recount the generation (tôlĕdôt) of the heavens and the earth but focuses on the first man and woman, we should be cautious about dismissing the evidence of a single exception.

Several additional considerations reinforce the treatment of 2:4a as a colophon (titular conclusion) rather than a heading. First, the merismic reference to the heavens and the earth (haššāmayim wĕhāʾāreṣ, meaning “all things”) functions as a “bookend” matching the same phrase in 1:1. Significantly in 2:4b, where both words recur, they appear without the article and in the reverse order (ʾereṣ wĕšāmayim). Second, the verb bārāʾ, “to create [specially],” is missing entirely in the literary subunit that is defined by the next occurrence of the genealogical formula (5:1), but this is the seventh occurrence in this context,8 where occurrences match the days of creation. Third, if we treat 2:4a as the conclusion to the preceding, verse 4b becomes the introduction to what follows, resulting in a remarkable syntactical parallel between the opening to chapter 1 and the opening to the newly defined chapter 2: both units begin with adverbial temporal clauses. Thus 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is paralleled by 2:4b, “On the day of YHWH Elohim’s making of earth and heavens.” However, the change of verb from “to create” (bārāʾ) cosmic time and space to “make” (ʿāśâ) a home for humanity suggests that the second builds on the first (2:4b). Fourth, the narrative s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1: The Cosmic and Adamic Covenants
• Part 2: The Israelite Covenant
• Part 3: The Davidic Covenant
• Part 4: Covenant in the New Testament
• Conclusion
• For Further Reading
• Bibliography of Works Cited
• Author Index
• Hebrew and Greek Expressions Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture and Ancient Sources Index
• Back Cover