COVENANT (an O. Fr.

See also:

• FORM (Lat. forma)

form, later convenant, from convenir, to agree,

See also:

• LAT

Lat. convenire)  , a mutual agreement of two or more parties, or an undertaking made by one of the parties . In the Bible the Hebrew word ;'i., With, is used widely for many kinds of agreements; it is then applied to a contract between two persons or to a treaty between two nations, such as the covenant made between Abimelech and Isaac, representing treaty between the Israelites and the Philistines (Gen. xxvi, 26 seq.); more particularly to an engagement made between God and men, or such agreements as, by the observance of a religious rite, regarded God as a party to the engagement . Two suggestions have been made for the derivation of With: (I) tracing the word from a root "to cut," and the reference is to the primitive rite of cutting victims into parts, between which the parties to an agreement passed, cf. the Greek 8pK1a T4u/6w, and the account (Gen. xv . 17) of the covenant between God and Abraham, where "a smoking furnace and burning lamp passed between the pieces" of the victims Abraham had sacrificed; (2) connecting it with an Assyrio-Babylonian biritu, fetter, alliance . Beath was translated in the Septuagint by Sta9ijarl, which in classical Greek had the meaning of "will"; hence the Vulgate, in the Psalms and the New Testament, translates the word by testamentum, but elsewhere in the Old Testament by foedus or pactum; similarly Wycliffe's version gives "testament" and "covenant" respectively . The books of Scripture dealing with the old or Mosaic, and new or Christian dispensation are sometimes known as the Books of the Old and the New Covenant . The word appears in the system of theology developed by Johannes Cocceius (q.v.), and known as the " Covenant " or " Federal " Theology, based on the two Covenants of Works or Life made by God with Adam, on condition of obedience, and of grace or redemption, made with Christ . In Scottish ecclesiastical history, covenant appears in the two agreements signed by the members of the Scottish Church in defence of their religious and ecclesiastical systems (see COVENANTERS) .