An Offer Noah Can’t Refuse (Gen 6:18)
The Flood
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18 But I will make my offer to you stand. וַהֲקִמֹתִ֥י אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י אִתָּ֑ךְ
Today’s post is sponsored by the word ברית brit, usually translated into English as “covenant.” Here’s what DCH has to say about it:
בְּרִית I 285.10.156 n.f.—covenant, agreement, or obligation between individuals (e.g. friends, spouses) or groups, ruler and subjects, deity and individual or people, etc.
This is one of the most important (and perhaps most “loaded”) words in the Bible. Let’s start our examination of it with Jeff Tigay’s comment to Deut 4:13, where Moses tells the Israelites, “He [YHWH] declared to you the covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Commandments” (NJPS):
In English “to command a covenant” sounds strange. In fact, the Hebrew term for covenant (berit) has three meanings, all based on the idea of obligation. It can refer to a promise (an obligation imposed on oneself), a stipulation (an obligation imposed on another), or a compact (reciprocal obligations accepted by two parties). All three senses of the word are operative in the formal relationship between God and Israel: the covenant (compact) consists of stipulations imposed by God upon Israel; Israel’s promise to obey the stipulations; and God’s promise to reward Israel.
People seem to think that etymology is the clue to what Biblical Hebrew words “really” mean, so here is an abridged version of the discussion of the etymology of ברית from the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament:
I. Etymology. The etymology of berith is not altogether clear. The derivations that have been suggested are these:
1. berith is a fem. noun from brh, “to eat, dine,” and refers to the festive meal accompanying the covenantal ceremony.
2. berith is identical with Akk. birīt, “between, among,” and corresponds to the Heb. prep. ben, which indeed occurs in connection with berith.
3. Most recently [okay, in this case “recently” means 1970] E. Kutsch suggested the derivation of berith from brh II, “to look for, choose.”
4. The most plausible solution seems to be the one that associates berith with Akk. birītu, “clasp,” “fetter.”
I will spare you the other 13,000 or so words from this article. Ron Hendel, in his just-published Anchor volume on Genesis 1–11, agrees that solution #4 is the most plausible and goes on to explain its use in our verse:
The word “covenant” (bərît), cognate with Akkadian birītu, “area between or held in common; link, clasp, fetter,” begins a major connective theme in the P source. The Noachian covenant, the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17), and its renewal in the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 6) are key steps in the reconstitution of cosmic order in P. The anticipation of the covenant theme is appropriate here, mingling the return to chaos with the promise of re-creation.
The 25,000 words devoted to “covenant” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary should assure you that the word is practically radioactive with significance, as should the fact that “testament” (in the expression “New Testament”) is an English variation on covenant as well, taken from the phrase בְּרִ֥ית חֲדָשָֽׁה brit ḥadasha ‘new covenant’ in Jer 31:31.
“Covenant” has a thoroughly religious sound in contemporary English, especially since the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited the kind of “covenant” that used to be written into real estate contracts forbidding the purchaser to sell the property to Jews or blacks. In the Bible, though, ברית has a much more basic meaning. It’s the variety of “covenants” and the fact that so many biblical covenants involve God as one of the parties that makes the word religious.
A ברית, however, does not have to involve God. When we get to Gen 14:13, we will find two characters name Eshkol and Aner identified as בַּעֲלֵ֥י בְרִית־אַבְרָֽם ba’alei-brit avram ‘Abram’s allies’. (A chapter later, in 15:18, we’ll find YHWH “cutting” a covenant with Abram just as one can “cut a deal” in modern English.) So it’s not an inherently theological word.
Now I’m going to scan through the 287 occurences of ברית in the Bible to see whom else we might be able to add to our list of people with whom God, under any name, makes a covenant:
Noah and (in Genesis 9) all his offspring, the whole human race
Abram (in Genesis 17) and his offspring, but as we later find out, that means …
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (per Exod 2:24)
the Israelites (Exodus 19, 24, and 34, renewed in Deuteronomy, and multiple times subsequently)
Pinḥas (= Phineas) the priest (Num 25:12)
David (per David himself in 2 Sam 23:5)
King Joash and the people (2 Kgs 11:17)
Sometimes the details of the brit are preserved in writing:
on the Tablets of the Covenant
in the Ark of the Covenant
on a Scroll of the Covenant
Now back to our particular “covenant.” The Hebrew literally says “my brit with you,” and “you” is in the masculine singular form: my brit with you, Noah. To answer the conundrum we were left with last time, God is not maintaining an implicit covenant he has already made with the entire human race. He does seem to be establishing a covenant with Noah.
What I understand that to mean in our case is that, having announced the imminent onset of the Flood, he is reassuring Noah that the instructions to build a box are intended to let him ride out the storm and survive the mass destruction that is shortly to ensue. In Tigay’s terms, God is making a promise to Noah — an unconditional promise, not requiring Noah to sign on to any particular relationship with God or to a particular code of behavior.
He does, of course, have to follow the instructions about building the box, unless he wants to drown. In that sense, God is making him an offer he cannot refuse. But he has no moral or legal obligations. This time, God’s offer is a pure promise.
We’ll see the word ברית brit a full seven times when we reach Genesis 9, giving us quite a number of opportunities to learn more about it in the not-too-distant future. I’m hopeful of continuing to write all the way through until we have a chance to discuss the covenant with Abram / Abraham. After Genesis is a different story altogether.
I’ll conclude with this definition of covenant, from The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion:
an agreement by which two contracting parties enter into a special kind of relationship (e.g., of solidarity, friendship, obedience, etc.).
I would say “two parties” without the implication that the relationship is a balanced one. Let me add that the article, in its brief bibliography, recommends Jon Levenson’s book Sinai and Zion. You can read about that in this long-ago, unrevised post on my other “Bible Guy” blog. We’ll go on with v. 18 of our story next time.