The Genesis of Covenants

We live in a world of readers and writers.  Most children in my country can read and write - but in ancient days, most people - even most adults - could not read and write, so spoken words became very important.

When people could read and write they made deals with with each other in words.  Any type of agreement was rarely made in writing in the ancient world.  Every agreement was made with words - and this became a problem.

Let's say Bruce wants to marry Fred's daughter, and Fred promises Bruce his daughter in marriage. But in 10 years when Fred's daughter is 12 and old enough to marry (and they did marry young in those days) and when Fred's daughter is old enough to marry, Fred tells Bruce that he never made such a deal because he found a better suitor for his daughter.  Bruce has only his memory to bring to the agreement, and his memory cannot compete with Fred's denial.  So Bruce concludes that if he wants to make an agreement with someone else, he needs something bigger than simple words.

Words were not enough because people forgot or denied ever having said things.  So a new level of words had to come into the agreements to help raise the level of commitment.  People began to promise certain things - but even promises could and were forgotten and broken.  So a higher level of promise called vows were used.  But even vows were forgotten and broken - so the highest of all levels of words were established - covenants.

Covenants were made between two parties and included certain events that helped people to remember.  Those events may be a meal or some strange ritual - both of which would be remembered years later.

Large meals in those days were costly and rare, so were easy to remember even years later.  And when Bruce says,  "Do you remember the agreement we had, when we shared a meal together?"  Fred cannot easily deny.

WITNESSES

But even though they were so powerful, people could still deny or break promises, vows, and covenants; so on occasion there were witnesses to the agreement.

Finally, whether there were witnesses or not, another form of protection was developed.

CURSES AND BLESSINGS

There were no police or outside protectors of the covenant to make sure agreements were established, so people began to using curses and blessings to protect what was said.

In a world of words, blessings spoke good for people and future generations; but curses created bad things that were expected to happen from those who cursed.   People believed that blessings truly brought good things to their lives.  And most people believed that curses really brought bad things to people, so curses and blessings became the protectors of covenants.