The First Covenants

In the prehistory of Israel, God is known as “the God of heaven, and the God of the earth” (Genesis 24:3). His primary relationship to man is as his Creator. He is also a God of his word, who makes and keeps covenants. By his covenants he shows who he is and will be, and what he expects of man in return.

God’s first covenants with man were made in Eden. The first preceded man’s fall, the second followed after. The first covenant, often called the Edenic covenant, defined man’s duties to God and nature.

Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Expressly stated within this covenant was the one thing man was forbidden to do. But Adam willfully disobeyed God and as a result, he severed their spiritual union. God might have disowned his creation then and there, but instead he chose to initiate a new covenant, often called the Adamic covenant. With this covenant, God condemned man and woman to a life of hardship but he also foretold his plan for mankind’s redemption.

Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

After the Flood God reaffirmed portions of the Edenic covenant with Noah and his sons. With the Noahic covenant God ensured man’s dominion over the planet.

Genesis 9:1-2:
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

The Noahic covenant included God’s unconditional pledge that “neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood” (v. 11). God then sealed his covenant with a heavenly token.

Genesis 9:12-13:
And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

So long as this earth hangs in space, God will keep this covenant.

Genesis 8:22:
While the earth remain-eth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

The first two millennial days center on the lives of Adam and Noah, the fathers of the human race. The covenants God made with these men were a blessing to all the people of the earth. But with the advent of Day Three, God’s covenants would be exclusive to a peculiar people – his chosen people – Israel.

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The Rise and Fall of Israel