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covenant

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covenant

Solemn agreement between two parties. In Judaism, it describes especially the relationship between God and the Jewish people, based on God's promise to Abraham and his descendants in the Book of Genesis: ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’. Jewish life and practice are based on the covenant relationship with God: God gives his laws, recorded in the Torah, and Jews have a special duty to keep those laws as their side of the covenant. brit milah (male circumcision) is a sign of God's covenant with Abraham that the prophet would be the father of many nations.

Jews believe that, as God's special people, God has intervened in history on their behalf - for example by freeing them from slavery in Egypt, bringing them to the land of Canaan, and taking direct action in other events described in the Hebrew Bible (the Tenakh). They believe that they should keep the covenant until such time as the Messiah is sent to rule over a peaceful world.

The term covenant also refers to other oaths such as that taken by the Covenanters.
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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
Now, if you and me was to walk over with yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board the Covenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss of time, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr.
Kidnapped by Stevenson, Robert Louis View in context
The months went by, binding stronger and stronger the covenant between dog and man.
White Fang by London, Jack View in context
It has also been doubted what was and what was not the act of the city; as, for instance, when a democracy arises out of an aristocracy or a tyranny; for some persons then refuse to fulfil their contracts; as if the right to receive the money was in the tyrant and not in the state, and many other things of the same nature; as if any covenant was founded for violence and not for the common good.
A Treatise on Government by Aristotle View in context
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