A Covenant With Abraham

To understand the new covenant, we have to go back almost 2,000 years before Jesus' earthly ministry to the time when Terah and his family -including Abram (later, Abraham) and Abram's wife, Sarai (Later, Sarah) -trekked from prosperous Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran in northern Mesopotamia.  They stayed there until Terah's  death. Then, at Jehovah's command, the 75-years old Abraham crossed the Euphrates River and traveled southwestward to the land of Canaan to live a nomadic life in tents.  (Genesis 11:31-12:1, 4, 5; Acts 7:2-5)  That was in 1943 B.C.E. While Abraham was still in Haran, Jehovah had said to him: "I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing.  And I will bless those who bless you, and him that calls down evil upon you I shall curse, and ll the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves by means of you."   Later, Abraham had crossed into Canaan, Jehovah added:  "To your seed I am going to give this land." -Genesis 12:2, 3, 7. 

The promise to Abraham was related to another of Jehovah's  promises.  Indeed, it made Abraham a key figure in human history, a link in the fulfillment of the first prophecy ever recorded . After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, Jehovah pronounced judgment on both of them, and on the same occasion, he addressed Satan, who had misled Eve, saying: "I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel." (Genesis 3:15)    Jehovah's covenant with Abraham indicated that the Seed through whom Satan's works would be brought to nothing would appear in the lineage of that patriarch.

Since Jehovah's promise was related to a seed, Abraham needed a son through whom the Seed could come.  But he and Sarah grew into old age and were still childless.  Finally, though, Jehovah blessed them, miraculously reviving their procreative powers, and Sarah bore Abraham a son, Isaac, thus keeping alive the promise of a seed.  (Genesis 17:15-17; 21:1-7) Years later, after testing Abraham's faith-even to the point of his willingness to offer his beloved son, Isaac,  in sacrifice-Jehovah repeated his promise to Abraham:  "I shall surely bless you  and I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore; and your seed will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves due to the fact that you have listened to my voice."  (Genesis 22:15-18)  This extended promise is often called the Abrahamic covenant, and the later new covenant would be closely linked to it.

In time, Isaac had twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Jehovah chose Jacob to be the ancestor of the Promised Seed.  (Genesis 28:10-15; Romans 9:10-13) Jacob had 12 sons. Clearly, it was now time for Abraham's seed to begin to increase.  When Jacob's sons were adults, many with families of their own, a famine forced all of them to move down to Egypt where, by divine providence, Jacob's son Joseph  had prepared the way.  (Genesis 45:5-13; 46:26, 27) After a few years, the famine in Canaan eased.  But Jacob's family stayed in Egypt-at first as guests but later as slaves. It was not until 1513 B.C.E., 430 years after Abraham crossed the Euphrates, that Moses led Jacob's descendants out of Egypt to freedom.  (Exodus 1:8-14; 12:40, 41; Galatians 3:16, 17)  Jehovah would now give special attention to his covenant with Abraham. -Exodus 2:24l 6:2-5. 

Next time: "The Old Covenant" 

From the Watchtower magazine, 1998