The Covenant and the Law, God and the People

Israel's history is marked, at least from the neo-Assyrian to the Persian periods (from Josiah to Ezra as far as personalized references are concerned), by a series of recurrent ‘treaties’ (covenants) stipulated between Yahweh and the people. The Deuteronomistic emphasis on the covenant, dating back to the times of Josiah, owes a great deal to the Assyrian loyalty treaty. In addition to the historically verified ‘assemblies’, in which the people were called upon to ratify a covenant with Yahweh (běrît Yahweh), such as those summoned by Josiah himself (and perhaps earlier by Hezekiah), by Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra, other covenants and assemblies were conceived and considered as ‘foundational’, located in the very distant past, ranging from Abraham's covenant, through Moses’ on Sinai and the assembly in Shechem in the time of Joshua, to the ‘promise’ (šěbû'āh) made to David (in Nathan's prophecy).

Over the course of time – both invented and real time – one observes an evolution. From being a covenant/oath whose purpose was Israel's acceptance of exclusive loyalty (hesed) to the only real God (Yahweh) in exchange for his benevolence (hēn ‘grace’), it changed, when this exclusiveness was no longer questioned, involving greater specificity in stipulations of behaviour: a change from a political and theological treaty to one more strictly legal and linked to the cult.