Fulfillments & Interpretations of Biblical Prophesies - The Mosaic Covenant - Grammatical/Historical Presentation

The Mosaic Covenant:

Grammatical/Historical Presentation

·         Promise—Israel would conquer and occupy the land of Canaan (Ex. 23:23-33; 31:1).

·         Recipients—the house of Jacob and the people of Israel; those brought out of Egypt, and their offspring (Ex. 19:3; 20:2, 22; 33:1).

·         Sign— the Sabbath in general, but in its weekly form in particular, is commonly regarded as the sign of the Mosaic Covenant.  Circumcision had been the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and though its practice continued, it was not the sign of the Sinaitic (Ex. 31:13; Ez. 20:12, 13).  It was ameliorated into the covenant as a sanctifying ritual, one that signified cleanliness and peculiarity among the peoples of earth; it remained a symbol of the self-maledictory oath that God took on Abraham and his offspring’s behalf—one which Christ would eventually end up suffering because God does not cover His eyes to iniquity (Ex. 34:7).  This testifies to the idea that the successive covenants were not agents of abrogation for one another, but they were rather a process of accumulation having their culmination in the New Covenant.

·         Conditions

o        Israel had to obey God’s commands to remain His treasured people; they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:5-6).

o        Israel was to obey the Decalogue (Ex. 20:3-19).

o        Circumcision—though not the sign of the Mosaic Covenant specifically, it was still regarded as a cultic practice.

            Curses—Israel is warned not to disobey the stipulations of God’s covenant for fear of physical sickness and impoverishment; military defeat and physical oppression, and finally, exile from the land (Lev. 26:14-33; Deut. 28:15-68).