Terms Of The Covenant

Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, “Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse.” – Jeremiah 11:3 (NET)

So it was for God’s people, Israel (Judah in the time of Jeremiah). The curses under which they would find themselves are presented with utmost clarity in Deuteronomy chapters twenty-seven through twenty-nine. Because Jeremiah is predicting the coming destruction of Jerusalem and subjugation of Judah by the Babylonians, and because such subjugation and oppression can be located within the extensive list of curses that God promised to bring upon His covenant people if they did not keep the terms of the covenant, we can reliably affirm that God’s had not kept the terms of the covenant. To Judah in Jeremiah’s day, in reference to the terms of the covenant and its curses, God said, “Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors to keep when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace” (11:4a).

However, it would behoove us not to look down upon them or speak poorly of them because of this. They were unable to keep the terms of the covenant because they were human, and therefore subject to the same failings to be found in the head of our entire race, that being Adam. The covenant that Israel violated was not the first covenant to be violated. They were not the first to find failure when it came to God’s expectations. To find that occurrence, we go to the book of Genesis. There we read that “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it” (Genesis 2:15). This care and maintenance was a portion of God’s covenant with the being created in His image. Reading on, we find that “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die” (2:16-17). Of course, we are quite aware that the terms of this covenant were violated, and owing to that violation, because God is faithful to His covenants, all of humanity and creation came under a curse, as death made its entry into the world. The curse came upon God’s creation for the same reason that the curse came upon God’s people Israel. Terms of the covenant were not kept.

What God said to Judah through Jeremiah, God effectively said to Adam, which was “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement exactly as I commanded you. If you do, you will be My people and I will be your God” (Jeremiah 11:4b). Had Adam been faithful to the covenant conditions given to him, death would not have come upon him and the creation over which he was given dominion. Eden and God’s creation would have remained in the state of perfection in which it was delivered to man. If His chosen people were faithful, God promised to “keep the promise I swore on oath to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey” (11:5a). “Milk and honey” can also be rendered as “fertile fields and fine pastures,” which could also serve as a description of the land into which man had been placed before the curse of his failure caused it to be overrun with thorns and thistles.

We hear God speaking to the people of Judah, and to all of us as well, as He says, “I solemnly warned your ancestors (Israel & Adam respectively) to obey Me. I warned them again and again, every since I delivered the out of Egypt until this very day” (11:7). Obviously, Adam was not delivered out of Egypt, though He was placed, as Israel would be, in a land of God’s choosing. Their described paths converge again, as we read “But they did not listen to Me or pay any attention to Me!” (11:8a). Clearly, this could be said of both. “Each one of them,” God says, “followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do” (11:8b). For His covenant people, the punishment was the curse that Jeremiah insisted was on its way; and for Adam and all of humankind, the punishment was death. Why? Because God is faithful. God demanded and expected trust, but He did not receive it. He expected these creatures that had been made in His image to reflect His glory, but they failed.

For Israel and for Adam (and all the descendants of Adam), it could be said, “The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against Me… They too have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them” (11:9,10b). Both rebelled and fell into idolatry. Israel found themselves bowing to the gods of the surrounding nations, whereas Adam, beginning the idolatry with which each of us is afflicted, bowed down to and worshiped himself, making himself the measure of all things, in trustful worship of the creature rather than the Creator. The Lord’s response to this is consistent, as He says, “those gods will by no means be able to save them when disaster strikes them” (11:12b). A redeemer was necessary.