I think we all know the 5 covenants that God made with us, all of which are found in the Tanakh: the Noahide, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New covenant. But in the book of D’varim (Deuteronomy), Moses states that the people there, that day who are listening to him, are also making a covenant with God.
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Throughout D’varim, Moses reiterates to love and obey God, and not to follow other gods. He reviews the Big Ten, he reminds the people that they are being given this land because of God’s promises to their ancestors, and not because they deserve it. In fact, he tells them they are stiff-necked and rebellious, and have been since he took them out of Egypt.
Moses tells the people that they are the ones- not their children- who saw with their own eyes all the miraculous works of the Lord that he did to the Egyptians, and that the covenant they are making that day with God will also be applicable to their children, as well.
This hidden covenant is found here:
D’varim 29:12-15: You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.
The Torah has all the commandments, regulations, laws, and ordinances that we are to follow, but D’varim is the recap of the previous 4 books. The first 4 give us the details on how to obey these laws, but D’varim is the one that pulls it all together and, as such, I believe that is why Moses treats agreeing to what he is saying in this one book as a separate covenant.
God’s covenants are never exclusive, they are always inclusive: each new covenant includes and builds on the previous ones. However, this covenant seems to be separate from the previous covenants.
How is it different?
Even though Moses says that God is making this covenant with the people, to be their God, it seems to me that this covenant isn’t from God to the people, but it is Moses’s idea, and that he is telling the people that they are making this covenant with God, the conditions of the covenant being that it won’t be just those people who are required to obey all that God has told them to do, but their children, as well.
I often think that the book Moses refers to throughout D’varim is just that one book- the book of D’varim, not the entire Torah, and that could make sense if we consider D’varim is a recap of the Torah. It reviews the travels, the miracles, the problems along the way, the giving of the Torah and the different times the people sinned, the Big Ten, the rules of Kashrut (Kosher), and many of the other laws and ordinances in the other books of the Torah.
Not to say that D’varim is all we need, no- the other books give us the detailed instructions on how to follow the laws in D’varim, so they are essential, but D’varim is sort of the entire Torah, in a nutshell. If I was to say what D’varim tells us to do, in 25 words or less, I would say “obey God and do not follow other gods” (that’s only 8 words).
So, there you have it. A separate covenant that is kind of hidden from general knowledge, but one that unquestionably affirms the Mosaic covenant is required for all those who wish to obey God, throughout all our generations.
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That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!
