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According to the
According to the biblical story, in Abram’s most important encounter is recorded when the made a covenant with him. The day started with a vision where Abram expressed his concerns about being childless. God then reminds him of his original promise to make him a father of a “great nation” and then revealed that he would have a son born to him. ()
Later that day, at the drawing of the evening, Abram fell into a deep sleep where he encountered God again. God then prophesied to Abram that the nation born to him would be removed to another land where they must be trialed for four hundred years and afterward, they would be greatly blessed with many possessions and occupy their own land. This prophecy was that of the Israelites in subjection to Egypt, for four hundred years, before returning back to Canaan to claim it as their own. () It was at this drawing of the night hour that Abram entered into a covenant with Yahweh who declared all of the regions of land that his offspring would claim:
The covenant was formalized as God commanded Abraham to divide livestock and poultry into two pieces.
According to the Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, the covenant of the pieces or covenant between the parts () is an important event in Jewish history. In this seminal event God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
revealed himself to Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jew ...
and made a covenant with him (in the site known nowadays as Mount Betarim
Mount Betarim ( he, הר הבתרים, ''Har haBetarim'') is one of the peaks of Mount Dov (known also as "Jabal Ross"). According to one Jewish tradition this is the site of the covenant of the pieces between Abraham and God. According to Muslim ...
), in which God announced to Abraham that his descendants would eventually inherit the Land of Israel
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...
.
This was the first of a series of covenants made between God and the Patriarchs
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certa ...
.
Biblical narrative
According to the biblical story, in Abram’s most important encounter is recorded when the made a covenant with him. The day started with a vision where Abram expressed his concerns about being childless. God then reminds him of his original promise to make him a father of a “great nation” and then revealed that he would have a son born to him. ()
Later that day, at the drawing of the evening, Abram fell into a deep sleep where he encountered God again. God then prophesied to Abram that the nation born to him would be removed to another land where they must be trialed for four hundred years and afterward, they would be greatly blessed with many possessions and occupy their own land. This prophecy was that of the Israelites in subjection to Egypt, for four hundred years, before returning back to Canaan to claim it as their own. () It was at this drawing of the night hour that Abram entered into a covenant with Yahweh who declared all of the regions of land that his offspring would claim:
The covenant was formalized as God commanded Abraham to divide livestock and poultry into two pieces.
Modern scholarship
Covenants in biblical times were often sealed by severing an animal, with the implication that the party who breaks the covenant will suffer a similar fate. In Hebrew, the verb meaning to seal a covenant translates literally as "to cut". It is presumed by Jewish scholars that the removal of theforeskin
In male human anatomy, the foreskin, also known as the prepuce, is the double-layered fold of skin, mucosal and muscular tissue at the distal end of the human penis that covers the glans and the urinary meatus. The foreskin is attached to the g ...
symbolically represents such a sealing of the covenant."Circumcision." Mark Popovsky. ''Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion.'' Ed. David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden and Stanton Marlan. New York: Springer, 2010. pp.153-154.
See also
*Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaac ( he, , ), or simply "The Binding" (, ), is a story from Genesis 22 of the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical narrative, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Moriah. As Abraham begins to comply, having bound Isaa ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Covenant of the pieces Abraham Book of Genesis Animal sacrifice Lech-Lecha Covenants in the Hebrew Bible Theophanies in the Hebrew Bible