What is the Mosaic Law Covenant?

Answer 1

Quite alarming to see Christians answering on Judaism and TOTALLY offering wrong information.Firstly: the covenant is the ETERNAL covenant between the Jews and G-d. Abraham made the first covenant with G-d, and later Moses also made one, when G-d gave him the TORAH (holy Jewish text) at Mt Sinai. Millions of Jews all heard G-d speak, and this national revelation was the 'official' start of the Jewish faith.And to correct the Christians answering here:It was NOTHING to do with Jesus. Jesus does not feature in Judaism and never did.And no, it was NOT a 'blood' covenant - this is an absurd suggestion! The covenant is in the nature of a contract - the Jews promised to stay true to the one genuine G-d and in return, he promised to protect them and watch over them.It is called the 'mosaic' covenant because it was Moses who went up Mt Sinai and returned with the ten commandments written on the stone tablets. But to be clear: they are not the laws of Moses, they are the laws of G-D.Perhaps the Christians here could have the decency NOT to MISrepresent Judaism?

Perhaps one should realize that New Testament writers were Jews and referred to the Torah and Prophets to defend and prove the Christ was Jesus. So please not to offend your answer but you are incorrect concerning proper sealing of covanents. Concerning G-ds covanent, The Law or 10 Words, blood was shed for the covanent sealing. Moses, in Exodus, read the Book of The Covanent to Israel, they confirmed they would do as promised, and Moses then sprinkled the last half of the kept blood to confirm and seal the promises that the 12 tribes confirmed they would uphold before the heavens and earth.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer

http://www.gotquestions.org/Mosaic-covenant.html

Answer: The Mosaic Covenant is a conditional covenant made between God and the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19-24). It is sometimes called the Sinai Covenant but is more often referred to as the Mosaic Covenant since Moses was God�s chosen leader of Israel at that time. The pattern of the covenant is very similar to other ancient covenants of that time because it is between a sovereign King (God) and his people or subjects (Israel). At the time of the covenant God reminded the people of their obligation to be obedient to His law (Exodus 19:5) and the people agreed to the covenant when they said; �All that the Lord has spoken we will do!� (Exodus 19:8). This covenant would serve to set the nation of Israel apart from all other nations as God�s chosen people and was as equally binding as the unconditional covenant that God made with Abraham because it is also a blood covenant. The Mosaic Covenant is a significant covenant in both God�s redemptive history and in the history of the nation of Israel through whom God would sovereignly chose to bless the world with both His Written Word and the Living Word, Jesus Christ.

The Mosaic covenant was centered around God giving His divine law to Moses on Mount Sinai. In understanding the different covenants in The Bible and their relationship with one another it is important to understand that the Mosaic Covenant differs significantly from the Abrahamic Covenant and later biblical covenants because it is conditional in that the blessings that God promises are directly related to Israel�s obedience to the Mosaic Law. If Israel is obedient then God will bless them, but if they disobey then God will punish them. The blessings and curses that are associated with this conditional covenant are found in detail in Deuteronomy 28. The other covenants found in the Bible were unilateral covenants of promise, in which God bound Himself to do what He promised, regardless of what the recipients of the promises might do. On the other hand the Mosaic Covenant is a bilateral agreement, which specifies the obligations of both parties to the covenant.

The Mosaic Covenant is especially significant because in it God promises to make Israel �a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.� (Exodus 19:6) Israel was to be God�s light to the dark world around them. They were to be a separate and called out nation so that everyone around them would know that they worshiped Yahweh, the covenant keeping God. It is significant because it is here that Israel received the Mosaic Law that was to be a schoolmaster pointing the way towards the coming of Christ. (Galatians 3:24-25) The Mosaic Law would reveal to people their sinfulness and their need for a Savior and it is the Mosaic Law that Christ Himself said that He did not come to abolish but to fulfill. This is an important point because some people get confused by thinking that keeping the Law saved people in the Old Testament, but the Bible is clear that salvation has always been by faith alone and the promise of salvation by faith that God had made to Abraham as part of the Abrahamic covenant still remained in effect (Galatians 3:16-18).

Also the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Covenant did not really take away sins (Hebrews 10:1-4), it simply foreshadowed the bearing of sin by Christ, the perfect high priest Who was also the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-28). Therefore the Mosaic Covenant itself, with all its detailed laws, could not save people. It is not that there was any problem with the law itself, for the law is perfect and was given by a Holy God, but the law had no power to give people new life, and the people were not able to obey the law perfectly (Galatians 3:21).

The Mosaic Covenant is also referred to as the Old Covenant (2 Corinthians 3:14; Hebrews 8:6, 13) and was replaced by the New Covenant in Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Hebrews 8:8; 8:13; 9:15; 12:24). The New Covenant in Christ, is far better than the old Mosaic Covenant that it replaces because it fulfills the promises made in Jeremiah 31:31-34 as quoted in Hebrews 8

Answer

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

"Till heaven and earth pass" Jesus says that the Old Testament laws are binding on everyone.

5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Misquote of

Jer.31:32 Jer.31:32, "Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, 'ALTHOUGH I WAS A HUSBAND UNTO THEM', saith the LORD."

Heb.8:9 "Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and 'I REGARDED THEM NOT", saith the Lord."

See Related Links

See the Related Links for "Are the laws of the Old Testament still binding?" to the bottom for the answer.

Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi

Everyone is familiar with Moses receiving the ten commandments in two stone tablets from God in Mount Sinai. However, this story is originally Babylonian.

One of the most well known ancient code of law was the Code of Hammurabi, so name after the Amorite king Hammurabi who lived around 1700 BC. On the great Babylonian stone monument, known as the stele of Hammurabi, a drawing inscribed on it shows the great Amorite King receiving the tablets of the law from the sun god, Shamash.

Answer 2

The covenant of circumcision is part of the Mosaic Law (Leviticus ch.12), but is the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis ch.17). The Jewish practice of circumcision is the removal of the foreskin in males of eight days of age. There is no Jewish tradition of female circumcision and there is wide-scale Jewish and non-Jewish revulsion towards it.

Answer:

The origin of Jewish circumcision is in the Torah. God told Abraham "every male among you shall be circumcised" (Gen. 17) as part of the covenant between God and the Jewish people.

Since that time, virtually all Jews have observed the command of circumcision (Genesis ch.17) for close to four millennia, even in times of religious persecution under the Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Soviets and others. Circumcision is the indelible sign of God's covenant with Abraham and is just as important as Yom Kippur in terms of the stringency which the Torah places upon it. And similar to Yom Kippur, it is one of the observances which are common to Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews alike.

While we do not keep God's commands because of physical benefits, it is still interesting to note that:

Circumcision has been known to offer virtually complete protection from penile cancer. According to a recent review article in the New England Journal of Medicine, none of the over 1,600 persons studied with this cancer had been circumcised in infancy. In the words of researchers Cochen and McCurdy, the incidence of penile cancer in the U.S. is "essentially zero" among circumcised men.

Also, research at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore have shown that circumcised men are six to eight times less likely to become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Researchers believe that protection is due to the removal of the foreskin, which contains cells that have HIV receptors which scientists suspect are the primary entry point for the HIV virus. (Reuters, March 25, 2004)

Several studies reported that circumcised boys were between 10-to-39 times less likely to develop urinary tract infections during infancy than uncircumcised boys. In addition, circumcision protects against bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections and a variety of other conditions related to hygiene. The extremely low rate of Cervical cancer in Jewish women (9-to-22 times less than among non-Jewish women) is thought to be related to the practice of circumcision.

As a result of studies like these, a number of prestigious medical organizations such as the California Medical Association have recognized the benefits of circumcision.

As an operation, circumcision has an extremely small complication rate. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (1990) reported a complication rate of 0.19 percent when circumcision is performed by a physician. When performed by a trained mohel, the rate falls to 0.13 percent or about 1 in 800. When a complication occurs, it is usually due to the bleeding, which is easily correctable. No other surgical procedure can boast such figures for complication-free operations.

One reason why there are so few complications involving bleeding may be that the major clotting agents, prothrombin and vitamin K, do not reach peak levels in the blood until the eighth day of life. Prothrombin levels are normal at birth, drop to very low levels in the next few days, and return to normal at the end of the first week. One study showed that by the eighth day, prothrombin levels reach 110 percent of normal. In the words of Dr. Armand J. Quick, author of several works on the control of bleeding, "It hardly seems accidental that the rite of circumcision was postponed until the eighth day by the Mosaic law."

Answer 3

It is a blood covenant. Read Exodus 24:3-8.

For a discussion of blood covenants, see related link, below.