God Values Covenant

What does God value? One of the ways to discern what a person values is to see what makes them angry. In this post I will look at three situations where God was angry at Israel.

But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things; for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things; and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel. [Josh 7.1 RSV]

Was God angry at the entire nation of Israel just because one man got greedy? It is not that simple. God was angry because he had a special agreement with Israel concerning the city of Jericho, and the terms of that special agreement were broken. In the broader context of the Old Testament, God had made a covenant with Israel, where he would take care of Israel, and part of their response was to give to him the first fruits of any of their endeavors. First fruits included things like the first sheaf of grain from a field or the first born of every womb. In the more immediate context of the book of Joshua, God had promised to give the entire land of Canaan and all of its contents to Israel, but he claimed as first fruits the first city they conquered--which was Jericho. In Josh 6.17-19 [NET] God explicitly stated that all the gold and silver in Jericho belonged to him and said of anyone who took any of these things, "you will make the Israelite camp subject to annihilation and cause a disaster." God did his part and made it easy for Israel to conquer Jericho, but Achan disregarded the general covenant regarding first fruits and the special agreement regarding Jericho, so God was angry with Israel and brought a disaster to them as he had promised. His covenants and special agreements were very important to God.

This next situation takes place in the book of Exodus.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; 8 they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” ... now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; [Exo 32.7-8, 11 RSV]

It had been just a few months since God had led the people of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness up to the base of Mount Sinai.While at Sinai, the Israelites heard God's voice, and he gave Moses the terms of a covenant, the core of which was that he, Yahweh, would be the God of Israel, and they would have no other gods besides him. [Exo 20-23] Then Israel agreed to the covenant:

[Moses] took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that Yahweh has spoken will we do, and be obedient.” 8 Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.” 9 Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. 10 They saw the God of Israel...and ate and drank. [Exo 24.7-9, 11]

 Right after all this happened, Moses went up the mountain alone to be with God, and was gone for forty days. While he was gone, the Israelites got impatient and told Aaron to make them gods to go before them, and Aaron complied. He made a gold statue of a calf, of which the Israelites declared,
“These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” [Exo 32.4] They did this when the miracles of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea were still fresh in their memories. They did this while they were still eating manna that God provided them daily. They did this just a few weeks after they had all agreed to the covenant, and Aaron and seventy other leaders had seen God and had eaten in his presence. Not only did they make an idol with their own hands, and worshiped it, but they gave the idol credit for all that God had done for them. It is no wonder that God was angry. Not only had they trashed the covenant, the basis of their relationship with him, but they had insulted him in the process. I suspect God was feeling a lot of different emotions, and anger was just one of them.

The third situation that I want to talk about is in Jeremiah 3.1-3. God said to the kingdom of Judah:

¹ “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,
he may not take her back again.
Doing that would utterly defile the land.
But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods.
So what makes you think you can return to me?”
says the Lord.
² “Look up at the hilltops and consider this.
You have had sex with other gods on every one of them.
You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert.
You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.
³ That is why the rains have been withheld,
and the spring rains have not come.
Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute.
You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done. [Jer 3.1-3 ESV]

God is not happy with Judah's worship of other gods. To help Judah understand how he feels, he compares the covenant relationship he has with Judah with a marriage relationship, and depicts Judah as an unfaithful wife who has chosen to become a prostitute, selling herself to all the gods around her. He is angry that she has broken the covenant once again, but he is also jealous and brokenhearted.

However, there is one thing that God values more than covenant, and that is relationship. A covenant after all is just a framework in which a relationship takes place. Even though his covenant with Israel spells out in detail the disasters that will come upon her, he would rather extend mercy and restore the relationship, than destroying her, but she must first repent.

¹² ‘Come back to me, wayward Israel,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not continue to look on you with displeasure.
For I am merciful,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not be angry with you forever.
¹³ However, you must confess that you have done wrong,
and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You must confess that you have given yourself to foreign gods under every green tree,
and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord. [Jer 3.12-13 ESV]