Noah, Abraham, Sinai, David, the new covenant: they read like many covenants, but they are one, offered again and again, and each time we see more of God and of what he offers us.
Quotations from the King James Version. Counts are the Hebrew and Greek texts’ own, word by word, from STEPBible’s TAHOT and TAGNT (CC BY). The words are on berit and diatheke. Pictures in the Verné slovo woodblock style, generated by AI image and video models from our own scene descriptions; synthetic narration; music composed with ElevenLabs.
Berit: the one Hebrew word
The Hebrew word for covenant is berit H1285. It stands 284 times in the Old Testament, in twenty-seven books, from Genesis to Malachi. God first says it to Noah, before the flood:
But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
Noah: the bow in the cloud
After the flood God gives the covenant a sign, and he makes it with every living creature of all flesh upon the earth (Genesis 9:16).
I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.
Abraham: one man
Then God speaks to one man. He brings Abram outside and shows him the stars:
Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So your offspring will be.”
Abram believed the LORD (Genesis 15:6), and the promise reached past his own family: in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3).
Sinai: a nation
At Sinai the offer comes to a whole people:
and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
There God also proclaims who he is:
Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
David: a king
The offer comes next to a king. God swears to David, and Nathan brings the word that his house and his kingdom will stand forever (2 Samuel 7:16).
“I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant,
The exiles: a new covenant
The people broke the covenant and went into exile, and there the offer came again. Jeremiah promised a covenant written on the heart:
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
The cup: the blood of the covenant
On the night before he died, Jesus took the cup:
Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
The Greek word in that verse is diatheke G1242. It stands 33 times in the New Testament, and the King James writes it covenant twenty times and testament thirteen, so its reader can miss that the new testament in the cup is the new covenant Jeremiah promised. The letter to the Hebrews calls the blood of Jesus the blood of the everlasting covenant (Hebrews 13:20).
Everlasting: the fifteen verses
The King James says everlasting covenant in fifteen verses. They name the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:16), with Abraham (Genesis 17:7), at Sinai (Leviticus 24:8), with David (2 Samuel 23:5), to the exiles (Jeremiah 32:40), and in the blood of Jesus.
The first promise and the last
The covenant's first promise is also its last. God told Abraham that he would be a God unto him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:7). At the end of the Bible the same words return:
I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
The quotations on this page are shown in your own translation, so their words may differ from the King James the film reads.
Every place the word stands is on its Strong's page, H1285 for the Hebrew and G1242 for the Greek.