What is the Sinai Covenant in the Bible?

What is the Sinai Covenant in the Bible? Who was involved and what was its purpose? Is it the same as the Old Covenant that the Christian apostles allude to? And what is the difference between it and the New Covenant? In this article I provide a simple explanation for the non-scholar.

Types of covenants 

A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties. Informal covenants can be made by a verbal agreement. But important covenants are formalized when the parties sign a written document. A contract is a written covenant that is enforceable by law.

Modern societies use covenants in many areas of life: marriage contracts, property leases, and building and management contracts to name a few. These are covenants in which the parties obligate themselves to fulfill certain responsibilities, called the terms of the agreement. The outcome is conditional upon the parties fulfilling these terms. Covenants also spell out the consequences if a party fails to perform their responsibilities. If the failures are severe enough, a covenant can be revoked, freeing the other party from further obligations.

Other covenants are unconditional in which one party commits to do something without the recipients or beneficiaries having any obligations. These are more like promises, made by one party to another. A will is one type of unconditional covenant where the beneficiaries through no effort of their own inherit the property of a person upon that person’s death.

There are many examples of conditional and unconditional covenants in the Bible. Some are between humans, and some between God and humans. Unconditional covenants include God’s promise to Noah (Genesis 8:20-9:17), the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis chapters 12, 15, and 17), God’s covenant with King David (2 Samuel 7), and the New Covenant through Christ.

Sinai Covenant

After the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, God made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. It was a conditional covenant based on Israel’s obedience to the Mosaic Law. And it was revocable if the Israelites failed to keep it.

God made the Sinai covenant with the Israelites to establish their identity as God’s people and establish and preserve their nation. The agreement was with Israel the nation, not with individuals. Every individual was to see themselves as part of the larger community. Israel was to be set apart as God’s possession and to represent him on the earth:

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ (Exodus 19:5-6)

God made the Sinai covenant specifically with the Israelites and not with the Gentiles. At Sinai, he declared himself to be Israel’s God. And their relationship with God was to be a model and a witness to the surrounding Gentile nations so that they too could seek and know the Lord. They were to be a shining light for the Gentiles to follow.

Old Covenant

The Sinai covenant is traditionally known among Christians as the Old Covenant. The term “old covenant” is found only once in the Bible (2 Corinthians 3:14), but the name is also inferred in Hebrews chapters 8 and 9 when discussing the New Covenant which was established by Christ. Hebrews also calls the Sinai covenant the “first covenant.”

Unfortunately, the Old Covenant also came to be associated directly with the “Old Testament” which now refers to the 39 books of the English Bible written before the time of Christ. This is somewhat confusing since only four books of the Bible (the second through the fifth) record the provisions of the Sinai covenant.

Terms of the agreement

God gave the terms of the covenant to Moses on Mount Sinai. Thus, Moses was the mediator. The heart of these terms are found in Exodus chapters 20-23, beginning with the Ten Commandments which were written on stone. This section is sometimes called the “book of the covenant” or the “covenant code.”  But Israel was obligated to keep all of the laws given to Moses, which were elaborated on in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

The Sinai covenant also established a theocracy in which God would govern the nation of Israel through the enforcement of his civil laws. These laws dealt with crime and punishment, sanitation, treatment of diseases, and other civic and governmental affairs, found mostly in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

The Sinai Covenant shouldn’t be confused with the Law of Moses per se. The two are closely related but not the same, since the Mosaic Law had other purposes. The Sinai covenant was Israel’s agreement with God to keep the Law, but not the Law itself. The Law was the written code that governed their nation under that agreement. It was the standard by which they would be a separate people.

Blessings and curses

Under the Sinai covenant, God promised that if the Israelites kept the words of his law and carried out his commands, he would bless them. He would give them prosperity, bless their births, bless their livestock, and give success to their work. He would set them aside as his holy people, give them abundant rain and bless their crops, and protect them from their enemies. These blessings are recorded in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. All these promises assume that they would possess the land that God gave them, originally promised to Abraham (Genesis 13:14-17). After the Israelites entered the promised land, the land was divided into parcels to the 12 tribes as their inheritance (Joshua 11:23).

But if they didn’t obey God’s law, God would curse the work of their hands, their crops, and livestock (Deuteronomy 28:15-68). Complete failure to live up to the covenant could mean revoking it, and the end of Israel as a nation. This would occur by a foreign invasion and God scattering the people to the surrounding nations.

Ceremonial laws

God gave the tribe of Levi the priestly responsibility of carrying out the ceremonial laws and serving in the temple (Numbers chapter 3). The required animal sacrifices and grain offerings were many and varied, as recorded mostly in Leviticus. Some were to be performed every year, and others on certain occasions. Some were for the nation and others were for individuals. The animal sacrifices were to be the means of atoning for the people’s sins. Weekly and monthly offerings were required, as well as a number of yearly feasts or celebrations (Numbers 28 and 29).

Moses inaugurated and confirmed the Sinai Covenant thusly:

When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” …In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:19-20, 22)

The blood represented the life of the animal that was sacrificed to atone for the people’s sins:

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:11)

But under the Sinai covenant only the priests could approach God directly, and the people had mostly a ceremonial relationship with God, not a personal one. And the sacrifices the priests offered were only symbolic and not effectual in purifying the people of sin.

The greatest commandments

The most important laws dealt with the people’s moral behavior and their relationship with God, summarized in the Ten Commandments. The first of these were the commands to worship only the Lord God and him alone and to not misuse his holy name:

And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them…. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God…. (Exodus 20:1-5, 7)

The two greatest commands that summed up the whole law were to love God (Deuteronomy 6:5), and to love others (Leviticus 19:18).

The Israelites’ response

Thus, the Sinai Covenant required righteousness and godliness through obedience to God’s laws. After Moses told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice,

“Everything the Lord has said we will do.”  (Exodus 24:3)

God gave his laws to the nation of Israel, and in response they promised God they would keep them. But as we know from the Bible stories, most of them didn’t keep the most important commandments. As Scripture records, many Israelites under the covenant were not true believers in the Lord, only some were.

Flaws of the Sinai Covenant

As explained in the New Testament, the Sinai Covenant was flawed by design:

• God didn’t intend it for everyone; he made it only with Israel (Romans 9:4, Hebrews 9:1-10).
• It was temporary and wasn’t intended to be the final and lasting method of approaching God (Hebrews 8:5). Its effect was “fading” (2 Corinthians 3:7).
• The high priest had to make sacrifices continually again and again (Hebrews 10:1).
• The blood of animals couldn’t really cleanse the people’s sins. They only served as reminders of their need for forgiveness (Hebrews 10:3-4).
• It didn’t provide the power to keep God’s laws; it could only tell people when they kept or broke them. Thus, Paul described the Old Covenant as a ministry that condemns and brings death, not life (2 Corinthians 3:7-9).
• It was based on externals: laws written on stone, a physical temple, physical animal sacrifices, and external righteousness and obedience (2 Corinthians 3:3). These externals were only copies of the real (Hebrews 8:5).
• Only the Levites could serve as priests and only the priests had direct access to God and only once a year (Hebrews 9:7-8).
• Being a member of the nation didn’t guarantee a true personal relationship with the Lord. Thus, only some of the Israelites would truly know the Lord, those who sought God and responded personally to God’s grace (Romans 9:27, 10:11-13).
• The outcome was dependent on the people’s obedience to God, not God’s power or promise (Romans 10:5-9).
• The covenant was revocable upon Israel’s failure to keep it (Hebrews 8:7-9).

Why did God replace the Sinai Covenant?

In many ways, the Sinai covenant was like a marriage covenant, based on the love and faithfulness of both husband and wife. In the prophets, God likened his relationship with Israel to a marriage (Jeremiah 3:14). God also told the story of Israel’s unfaithfulness in the book of Hosea by using Hosea’s relationship with his unfaithful wife Gomer.

At one point in Israel’s history, God declared that he divorced Israel because of her unfaithfulness (Jeremiah 3:8-10). After many years of the Israelites’ failing to keep the Sinai covenant, God terminated it and made it obsolete. God destroyed the nation in 587 B.C. through the Babylonian invasion and the people’s subsequent exile to Babylon. Quoting Jeremiah 31:31-32, the author of Hebrews wrote:

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. (Hebrews 8:7-9)

The fault was not with God, his law, or his promises, but with “the people.” The people disobeyed God’s commands, were unfaithful to him, and thus showed they were incapable of fulfilling the terms of the covenant.

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.  (Hebrews 8:13)

What became obsolete? Not the law, but the agreement God made with the Israelites to keep the law. He removed that covenant because it could not produce righteousness in a sinful and rebellious people. This is obvious from the fact that the Israelites again and again failed to keep the law by rebelling against God. The people held to a superficial righteousness, but their hearts were far from God. Many resorted to idolatry and even human sacrifice to appease pagan gods.

Was God’s law cancelled?

It’s important to understand that God did not cancel the Law of Moses along with the Old Covenant. Although God made his covenant with Israel obsolete, he didn’t give the Mosaic Law exclusively to establish the nation of Israel. It also had other purposes. God’s moral law still is the rule of life, teaches us right from wrong, and convicts us of sin (Romans 3:20). It provides blessing and protects us from harm (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). Finally, it helps us see our need for forgiveness and leads us to faith in Christ (Galatians 3:24).

Jesus stated that his coming would not abolish the Law of Moses but fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). Paul also affirmed that the Law was good and still represents God’s standard of righteousness (Romans 3:31, 7:7, 7:14).

That doesn’t mean all people today are obligated to follow every detail of the Law of Moses. God meant for portions of the Mosaic Law to apply only to the Israelites under a theocracy. This is obvious when we consider the specific requirements for the temple worship, the animal and grain sacrifices, and the civil laws. None of these are possible today since neither the temple nor the theocracy exist. But the Mosaic moral and spiritual commands are universal and still in effect, as they reflect God’s standards for all people for all time.

God’s law did not change, but its role in relation to the nation of Israel changed. Its purposes were still valid, but God’s covenant with Israel concerning the law was now abrogated. God made a much better promise that transcended the Old Covenant by replacing it with the New Covenant.

Fully and permanently revoked?

It should also be noted that God made other covenants that paralleled or even superseded the Sinai Covenant. Covenants can also be partially revoked, with some terms remaining in effect.

So, did God revoke the Old Covenant with Israel entirely after they failed to keep its terms? Based on the nation’s history and the curses pronounced in Deuteronomy 28, Israel has now gone through several cycles of God’s judgment. The first was in 587 B.C. with the Babylonian invasion. But God in his mercy brought them back and their nation was established again (as recorded in the book of Nehemiah). Later, a more complete judgment came through the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the Jews’ dispersal to the surrounding nations.

The apostle Paul wrote that in the future, Israel will experience a resurgence after the “full number of Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25). God allowed the nation to be established again in 1948, but not as a theocracy. Although there is much speculation and argument over the future role of Israel as a nation in God’s plan, Romans Chapter 11 clearly states that God will once again have mercy on the Jewish people and will establish them again.

I hope this clarifies this topic for you.

Christ in Scripture is listed on Feedspot Top 200 Christian Blogs.