The Hebrew story continues with Moses leading the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and miraculously through the Red Sea where Pharaoh’s armies are destroyed. e leads them into the wilderness where they will learn about how to make agreements with God (also called a covenant). But what is a covenant? It is believed that the Hebrew script was originally made of pictures. Because the Hebrew people believed in mapping their language back to physical things they used pictures of common things that simple people would understand.

The word covenant is an example of this. Picture a tent that also represents the family that resides inside the tent. Then picture a head which, when combined, have the meaning of a “family of heads.” Plant families like wheat and barley have a cluster of seeds at the top of the stalk called “heads.” These grains were used for food for both man and livestock. When the livestock were fed they became fat which represented fullness. When you take these root ideas and go to the actual word picture for covenant it builds on this idea through picturing what was common in ancient times when an agreement between two parties was made.

A sacrifice of a choice, fatted animal was cut in two and the parties of the covenant would pass through the pieces. If one party failed to meet the agreement of the covenant, then the other could do the same to them as was done to the animal. The animal was a part of the survival of the family unit. It was an extension of it’s fullness and prosperity. This was a family-based agreement that meant something significant the way our verbal agreement with a handshake once did. People would say “my word is my bond,” and they meant it. Now we use our signature to confirm legal agreements.

The images of tents and families and grain and fattened animals hidden behind this animal sacrifice provide a picture of the significance the ancient cultures held when making agreements. The faithfulness and commitment to those agreements was extremely important for trust. When people broke agreements back then it impacted the family unit and often seriously impacted their ability to survive. Promise and commitment was, and is, the fabric of a healthy society.