Elazar, Daniel J. Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel: Biblical Foundations and Jewish Expressions Vol 1. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. 1998

In describing the nature of covenant in Pentateuch literature Elazar examines the nature of each ensuing covenant God issues to the lineage and people of Israel. There are a series of covenants established with God’s people, some invoking previously established pacts that increase the constitutionalism of the law. The first mosaic covenant laid the foundations for the first polity in Israel, federated in the 12 tribes of Israel. These tribes were bound constitutionally but remained loosely aggregate and not constrictly bound. The essence of limited government existed in this first constitution because God himself would be considered the direct governor of all twelve tribes. Israel would eventually discard this loose constitutionalism for a regally established monarchy in order to mimic the physical power of other nations. Obviously, the centralization of this new government resulted in more authoritarian earthly figure, which reaped disastrous effects upon the nation of Israel as a whole.

When Moses returns from Midian to respond to God’s call to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, his first course of action is to seek out the elders of the Hebrew people and invoke the traditional covenants established with the patriarchs. The Hebrew elders rejected these old covenants, thus paving the way for the issuance of a new covenant at Mt. Sinai. By establishing this new covenant at Sinai God wanted to demonstrate his saving power by rescuing them from their Egyptian bondage. And secondly, to bring them out of slavery to become a free people who are able to capably consent to the covenant.

The nature of covenant must be made by two parties freely able to bind themselves in agreement. Covenants cannot be made by slaves because they require free consent, which a slave is not able to do. Thus, to establish a new covenant with Israel required that they be led out of bondage in order to fulfill the call to enter a new covenant. These newly freed people however would require a way to live as an organized society, something they were not privileged of doing bound as they were to Egyptian society.

Cultural organizational order is essential to the establishment of any covenant so that the covenant can be engaged freely (the stipulation for covenant) and not out of desperation. In order for a covenant to be entered into freely requires a certain willingness by both parties. Desperation denotes compulsion, thus a forcing of covenant agreement by obligation. Nowhere in desperation is there room to be freely selective and choosing of the covenant, and thus by consequence being motivated out of love and servitude. By their very nature, love and servitude are outward looking forces characterize by lack of self interest and thus interest in the other party.

Now we have arrived at a conclusion where the essence of the deuteronomic covenant is at the core of natural law. Biblical scholarship equates the essence of natural law with the essence of covenant, at the root of which is the moral law of the covenant. This moral ethic then bears the same character as covenant just by extension and therefore can be a natural outgrowth of the nature of covenant.