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.