A Nation That Entered a Covenant with God
1. Nations today are too materialistic to form a treaty organization with whom?
IN INTERNATIONAL affairs it is customary for one state to enter a treaty with another state for mutual defense or peaceful relations or cultural exchanges or other considerations. A number of political states may enter an organization under a treaty, such as, today, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Warsaw Treaty Organization (or, Warsaw Pact), or the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). But what political state or nation today is in a covenant with God? Nations today are too materialistic to form a treaty organization with an invisible heavenly Being as a party to the treaty.
2. What questions do we want answered about a nation that entered a covenant with God?
2 Anciently, however, there was a real, live nation on earth that entered a covenant with the Most High God of heaven. This meant a covenant between an earthly party and a heavenly party, a visible party and an invisible party. Every covenant has a stated purpose. What was the purpose of that historic covenant between a nation on earth and the one living and true God in heaven? How was such a seemingly unbalanced covenant made? These are questions that we now want to get answered.
3. Who would be the proper one to arrange for the terms, mediator, conditions and time of such a covenant?
3 Being all-wise and all-powerful, the Most High God would be the proper One to offer or even to propose such a covenant with a nation of imperfect, sinful people. Under the circumstances, it would be fitting for Him to state the purpose of the covenant and to dictate its terms and to appoint a mediator to act between Him and men. He would set forth the conditions on which the covenant would continue and also choose the time for establishing such a covenant or compact. The time fixed by God long beforehand was in the sixteenth century before our Common Era (or B.C.E.).
4. On the occasion of making a formal covenant with Abraham over sacrifice, what time period did God foretell for his seed?
4 God had made a formal covenant over sacrifice with the forefather of this whole nation that was to be taken into a national covenant in due time. It was after Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, pronounced a blessing upon the militarily victorious Abraham that God brought Abraham into this formal covenant with Him over sacrifice. When giving Abraham strong assurance that the divine promise would be fulfilled upon Abraham’s descendants, God said to him: “You may know for sure that your seed will become an alien resident in a land not theirs, and they will have to serve them, and these will certainly afflict them for four hundred years. But the nation that they will serve I am judging, and after that they will go out with many goods. As for you, you will go to your forefathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they will return here, because the error of the Amorites has not yet come to completion.”—Genesis 15:13-16.
5. The long time that was to pass before Abraham’s seed would occupy the Promised Land allowed for what to take place?
5 Thus the taking over of the land by the natural seed of Abraham was put off for more than four hundred years. This long period of time would allow for the chosen natural seed of Abraham to grow to a people of many members, numerous enough to displace the Amorite occupants of Canaanland who were going from bad to worse in the “error” of their pagan ways. Although Abraham’s natural seed would grow to a people of great size in a land foreign to Canaanland, yet God would hold the land in reserve for them until the “error” of the promised land’s inhabitants had become so bad that they deserved to be purged out of the land. That God would give the territory to Abraham’s natural seed at the time ripe for it, Jehovah now guaranteed with a formal covenant.
“On that day Jehovah concluded with Abram a covenant, saying: ‘To your seed I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.’”—Genesis 15:18-21.
6. Would the national covenant cancel out the Abrahamic Promise, and what purpose would it serve as regards Abraham’s descendants?
6 In contrast with that divine covenant with but one man, Abraham, the covenant that God had in view was to be with a great nation of descendants from Abraham through the chosen line of descent. That national covenant was to be added to the Abrahamic Promise, which became binding when Abraham crossed the Euphrates River to the north and entered the territory that was included within the boundaries stated in God’s formal covenant with Abraham over sacrifice. (Genesis 12:1-7) The making of the covenant with the nation of Abraham’s descendants did not cancel out the Abrahamic Promise but was merely added to it. Wisely so, for not all the fleshly descendants of Abraham would prove suitable to share in the Abrahamic Promise as regards its fulfillment for the blessing of all the nations and families of the ground. Hence, the added national covenant would serve well as an aid or means to prepare the worthy ones to receive and loyally follow the true Messiah, the promised “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman,” when God sent and anointed this one.
7. For what reasons would God not conclude the covenant with Abraham’s descendants before the end of those four hundred years?
7 The making of that additional national covenant would not take place before the passing of more than four hundred years from when God concluded this covenant with Abraham over sacrifice, because at that time Abraham did not have any offspring at all by his then barren wife, Sarah. Furthermore, God would not make a covenant with Abraham’s descendants when they were in servitude and being afflicted by a foreign nation. Especially so, when the making of the covenant called for that type of sacrifices that were detestable and objectionable to the nation afflicting them and enslaving them. (Exodus 8:25-27) First after God had judged adversely the oppressive nation and delivered his people and made them free to undertake a covenant with Him would God establish a covenant with them. This would be at the end of the foretold “four hundred years.” Thus we note that Jehovah God has marked off his own periods of time for the working out of his “eternal purpose” in connection with his Anointed One, Messiah.
8, 9. (a) What time period began at the weaning of Isaac, and how so? (b) The end of that time period was the time for what regarding Abraham’s natural seed?
8 Twenty-five years after Abraham entered the Promised Land, or at the age of one hundred years, he became father to his one and only son by his true wife, Sarah, this being, of course, by a divine miracle. This was in the land that did not yet belong to Abraham or to his son Isaac. It was when Isaac was weaned that affliction began upon the natural “seed” through whom the Messiah was to come. This was when Isaac’s nineteen-year-old half-brother Ishmael disrespectfully poked fun at the newly weaned Isaac. Such conduct showing jealousy could develop into a threat to the life of Abraham’s God-given heir, Isaac.—Genesis 16:11, 12.
9 According to time measurements, this beginning of the afflicting of the “seed” of Abraham in a land that was not theirs occurred when Abraham was one hundred and five years old and Isaac was five years old. That was in the year 1913 B.C.E. (Genesis 21:1-9; Galatians 4:29) Accordingly, the “four hundred years” of affliction upon the natural “seed” of Abraham would end in 1513 B.C.E. That would be the year for Abraham’s seed to go out from the land of the oppressive nation and start to return to the land of its forefathers, the Promised Land. That was the due time for God to establish the national covenant with Abraham’s “seed,” that he might bring them into the Promised Land as a nation in a binding covenant with Him. The time for this, at the end of the four hundred years, was also four hundred and thirty years after Abraham crossed the Euphrates River and the Abrahamic Promise took effect.—Exodus 12:40-42; Galatians 3:17-19.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL COVENANT
10. To what extent did Abraham’s natural seed grow in Egypt, but finally under what condition?
10 From when Abraham’s grandson Jacob moved with his household out of the land of Canaan, and down to the end of the four hundred years, Jacob’s descendants, the twelve tribes of Israel, found themselves in the land of Hamitic Egypt (not Arabic Egypt, as of today). As foretold by Jehovah God, affliction had come upon Abraham’s natural “seed” and had now grown very severe. The objective of this was to exterminate the people of God’s friend, Abraham. In spite of this, they had increased to become like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore, innumerable, as God had promised. Finally, they were able to muster up “six hundred thousand able-bodied men on foot,” fit for military service. (Exodus 12:37) No, God had not forgotten his covenant with his friend Abraham. He also kept to his announced time schedule. So He was ready for due action at the due time.
11. Whom did God raise up to be a leader for Israel, and how had this one tried to show himself a leader?
11 Who should now be their visible leader? God did not choose the chieftain of the tribe of Judah as if that were obligatory because of the Kingdom blessing that Jacob had pronounced upon Judah. (Genesis 49:10; 1 Chronicles 5:1, 2) Instead, the Most High God, with his inherent right of choice, selected a fit man of the tribe of Levi, Moses the great-grandson of Levi. (Exodus 6:20; Numbers 26:58, 59) Forty years prior to the end of the four hundred years, Moses decided against the court life of Pharaoh of Egypt and threw in his lot with his Israelite brothers and offered himself to them as their leader to lead them out of slavery. “He was supposing his brothers would grasp that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not grasp it.” God had then not sent Moses to deliver the enslaved people. Moses was obliged to flee from Pharaoh’s effort to kill him. He took refuge in the land of Midian and married and became a shepherd for his father-in-law.—Exodus 2:11 through 3:1; Acts 7:23-29.
12. When and where did Moses become Jehovah’s “anointed one,” and with what mission?
12 Forty years passed, and Moses became eighty years of age. Then while Moses was shepherding on the Sinai Peninsula, God’s angel made a miraculous manifestation to Moses at the foot of Mount Horeb, about two hundred miles southeast of the present-day Suez Canal. Here, at Horeb, Jehovah God spelled out his name, as it were, to Moses, saying: “‘I Shall Prove To Be What I Shall Prove To Be.’ . . . This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘I Shall Prove To Be has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:2-14) Thus God appointed Moses as His prophet and representative, and Moses could now correctly be called an “anointed one,” or “messiah,” the same as his forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Psalm 105:15; Acts 7:30-35; Hebrews 11:23-26) Jehovah indicated that Mount Horeb was where He would bring Moses’ people into a covenant with Him, for Jehovah said that Moses would bring them out of Egypt to this mountain, there to serve Him.—Exodus 3:12.
13. How was Pharaoh brought to the point of ordering the Israelites to leave Egypt?
13 Because of Pharaoh’s repeated refusals to let the Israelites go free, Jehovah brought a series of plagues upon him and his people. The tenth and last plague was the one that broke the stout heart of Pharaoh and his resistance. This plague laid low in death all the firstborn ones of the Egyptian families and of their domestic animals. The Israelites were spared from the death of their firstborn because they obeyed Jehovah God and celebrated the Passover meal, their first one, in their homes. Jehovah’s angel of judgment, beholding the blood of the Passover lamb splashed on the doorposts and upper crossbeam of their homes, passed them by, and death did not invade the family circle. Nahshon, the father of Salmon, of the tribe of Judah, was spared alive, also Nadab, the firstborn son of Moses’ older brother, Aaron. But Pharaoh’s firstborn son died. In grief and under insistence by the bereaved Egyptians, Pharaoh ordered the unharmed Israelites out of the country.—Exodus 5:1 to 12:51.
14. What time periods ended on that first Passover day, and what did God order with respect to that night?
14 That eventful Passover night of the year 1513 B.C.E. brought to an end simultaneously a number of marked periods of time. The four hundred years of the afflicting of Abraham’s natural seed in a land not theirs ended. Two hundred and fifteen years of residence in Egypt from the entry of the patriarch Jacob ended. Four hundred and thirty years counted from when Abraham crossed the Euphrates River and began dwelling in the Promised Land ended. No wonder we read: “And the dwelling of the sons of Israel, who had dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came about at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it even came about on this very day that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt. It is a night for observance with regard to Jehovah for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. With regard to Jehovah this night is one for observance on the part of all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.”—Exodus 12:40-42.
15. How did God deliver the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians, and what did they then sing?
15 As a piece of strategy, Jehovah by means of Moses led his liberated people to the shore of the upper western arm of the Red Sea. Imagining that the Israelites were trapped, Pharaoh and his charioteers and horsemen went in pursuit and closed in upon their escaped slaves. But Almighty God caused a passageway to open up and during the night the Israelites went through the dried seabed to the shores of the Sinai Peninsula. When the Egyptians were permitted to drive into the escape corridor, God brought back the waters of the Red Sea upon them and drowned them and their horses. God’s word had not failed, that He would judge that nation of oppressors of the natural “seed” of Abraham. (Genesis 15:13, 14) Safe on Sinai’s shores, the witnesses of the judgment of Jehovah sang: “Jehovah will rule as king to time indefinite, even forever. . . . Sing to Jehovah, for he has become highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has pitched into the sea.”—Exodus 15:1-21.
16. What did God propose to encamped Israel at Horeb, and what was the purpose thereof?
16 It marked a special day when the Israelites came, in the third lunar month (Sivan) after leaving Egypt, into the wilderness of Sinai and encamped at the base of the “mountain of the true God,” Horeb. That is where Jehovah told Moses that they were to serve him. (Exodus 3:1, 12; 19:1) The prophet Moses was now called upon to act as the mediator between God and the encamped people. Jehovah now proposed a covenant between Himself and the people and set forth the purpose of the covenant. To Moses, up on Mount Horeb, He said: “This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and to tell the sons of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, that I might carry you on wings of eagles and bring you to myself. And now if you will strictly obey my voice and will indeed keep my covenant, then you will certainly become my special property out of all other peoples, because the whole earth belongs to me. And you yourselves will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”—Exodus 19:3-6.
17. What procedure shows whether Jehovah forced the covenant upon the saved Israelites?
17 The Most High God did not force this covenant upon the Israelites. He left them free to choose whether to enter a covenant with him or not, even though he had saved them from Egypt and the Red Sea. Become a “special property” to Jehovah? Become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” to Him? Yes, that is what the Israelites then desired to do. Hence, when Moses told the representative men of the people about God’s proposed covenant, then, as we read, “all the people answered unanimously and said: ‘All that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do.’” Moses now reported the decision of the people to Jehovah, who then proceeded with the establishing of the covenant as agreed to.—Exodus 19:7-9.
18. On the third day therefrom, what did God declare to Israel?
18 On the third day after that Jehovah, by means of his angel on Mount Sinai there in Horeb, declared to the assembled Israelites the Ten Words or Ten Commandments. These commandments we can read for ourselves in Exodus 20:2-17.
A GREATER MEDIATOR FORETOLD
19. (a) Because of the spectacle, what did the Israelites request of Moses? (b) What did Moses say in response?
19 The occasion was a spectacular one! “Now all the people were seeing the thunders and the lightning flashes and the sound of the horn and the mountain smoking. When the people got to see it, then they quivered and stood at a distance. And they began to say to Moses: ‘You speak with us, and let us listen; but let not God speak with us for fear we may die.’” (Exodus 20:18, 19) The response of God in compliance with this request of the frightened Israelites is set out more fully in Deuteronomy 18:14-19. There, after telling the Israelites that God had not given them magicians and diviners as go-betweens between Him and them, Moses continued on to say:
“But as for you, Jehovah your God has not given you anything like this. A prophet from your own midst, from your brothers, like me, is what Jehovah your God will raise up for you—to him you people should listen—in response to all that you asked of Jehovah your God in Horeb on the day of the congregation, saying, ‘Do not let me hear again the voice of Jehovah my God, and this great fire do not let me see anymore, that I may not die.’ At that Jehovah said to me, ‘They have done well in speaking what they did. A prophet I shall raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you; and I shall indeed put my words in his mouth, and he will certainly speak to them all that I shall command him. And it must occur that the man who will not listen to my words that he will speak in my name, I shall myself require an account from him.’”
20, 21. (a) Was it easy for Israel to believe there would be another prophet like Moses? (b) In what way was this future prophet to be like Moses, and on what scale?
20 A prophet like Moses, with whom God spoke, as it were “face to face”? It may have been hard for the Israelites to accept such an idea, when Moses himself told them what God had said. Yet, that is what Almighty God said that he would raise up for his people. ‘Like Moses’ would not mean merely equal to Moses. The promised prophet could be like Moses, and yet be greater than Moses.
21 From the Israelite prophets after Moses and all the way down to Malachi there was no prophet like Moses and none greater than Moses. (Deuteronomy 34:1-12) But what about the promised Anointed One, the Messiah, who would be the “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman”? (Genesis 3:15) God was evidently speaking about this one when, at Mount Sinai, he spoke to Moses about a future prophet like Moses. Like Moses, this Messianic “seed” would be a Mediator between God and men, but greater than Moses. Certainly the worshipers of the one living and true God need to have more done for them now than was done for ancient Israel by Moses. So Moses prefigured the Greater Prophet of Jehovah who was to come.
22. Why would the coming prophet like Moses be against using images in worshiping God?
22 At that time Jehovah God also said to Moses: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen that it was from the heavens I spoke with you. You must not make along with me gods of silver, and you must not make gods of gold for yourselves.’” (Exodus 20:22, 23) Beyond all denial, this is a command against using lifeless, speechless, man-made images in the worship of the God who has spoken from heaven itself. It strongly emphasizes what God said in the second of the Ten Commandments, as stated in Exodus 20:4-6. The Messianic Prophet like Moses would be against such use of religious images.
23. Why is that covenant with Israel commonly called the Law Covenant?
23 Before the establishing of the covenant by means of his mediator Moses, God gave him other laws in addition to the Ten Commandments. These were set out in Exodus, chapters twenty-one through twenty-three. They were written down in a scroll or “book,” which was on hand when the covenant was to be formally established. Since this covenant was specially marked by the giving of divine law for God’s chosen people to keep, it was a covenant of law and is commonly called the Law Covenant. Its law code or set of laws in arranged form is Scripturally spoken of as “the Law.”
24. How long after the Abrahamic covenant was the Law covenant made, and is the Abrahamic Promise still valid?
24 Since the Law of this covenant with Israel was introduced in the form of the Ten Commandments just about fifty or fifty-one days after the Passover night in Egypt, it could properly be said that the Law “has come into being four hundred and thirty years later [after the Abrahamic covenant of 1943 B.C.E.].” The giving of the Law to Israel after such a long interval did not invalidate the Abrahamic covenant, “so as to abolish the promise.” (Galatians 3:17) God’s promise to bless all the nations and families of the ground in Abraham’s “seed” still stands. It will not fail!
25. Upon whom was the Law covenant made binding, and by the application of what to it?
25 Let us be sure to note that the Law covenant with Israel was made valid, solemnly binding upon the parties to the covenant, by the applying of the blood of the sacrificial victims. The record in Exodus 24:6-8 tells us: “Then Moses [as the mediator] took half the blood and put it in bowls, and half the blood he sprinkled upon the altar. Finally he took the book of the covenant and read it in the ears of the people. Then they said: ‘All that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do and be obedient.’ So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people and said: ‘Here is the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has concluded with you as respects all these words.’”—Note also Exodus 24:3.
26. What was represented by the applying of the blood to God’s altar, and what by the sprinkling of the people with the blood?
26 The altar that Moses had built at the base of Mount Sinai represented Jehovah God, to whom the sacrifices had been offered upon this altar. Hence, by the applying of half the blood of the animal victims to the altar, Jehovah God was representatively brought into the covenant and bound by it as a party to it. On the other hand, by the sprinkling of the other part of the sacrificial blood upon the people, they also were brought into the covenant as the other party thereto and were solemnly bound by it to fulfill those terms of it that applied to them. Thus by the blood the two parties, God and the nation of Israel, were united in a covenant.
27. What, in connection with the establishment of the Law covenant, proves that the Israelites did not walk into it ignorantly or under compulsion?
27 The nation of Israel did not walk into this covenant ignorantly or under pressure and compulsion. The day before the solemnizing of the covenant with blood they had had God’s words and decisions related to them and had accepted these. As Exodus 24:3 states: “Then Moses came and related to the people all the words of Jehovah and all the judicial decisions, and all the people answered with one voice and said: ‘All the words that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do.’” The following day, after Moses read the “book of the covenant” in the hearing of all the people, they repeated their acceptance of God’s Law, after which they were sprinkled with the sacrificial blood. Now it was obligatory upon the whole nation of Israel to do what God had stated when proposing the covenant, saying: “Now if you will strictly obey my voice and will indeed keep my covenant, then . . . ”—Exodus 19:5, 6.
28. Which party to the Law covenant was put in question as to loyalty to its terms, and, to be holy, what was required?
28 Almighty God could be expected to be faithful to His part of this bilateral covenant, for He does not change. (Malachi 3:6) It was the Israelites who were put in question. Would they be loyal to God in carrying out what they expressed willingness to do? Would they be among the loyal ones that were to be gathered to Jehovah, in fulfillment of Psalm 50:4, 5: “He calls to the heavens above and to the earth so as to execute judgment on his people: ‘Gather to me my loyal ones, those concluding my covenant over sacrifice’”? (NW; NEB) Not as individuals, but as a whole people, as a nation, they had made this Law covenant over a set of sacrifices that were for all the people. Would they prove themselves to be “a holy nation”? To do this they must keep clear from this world.
29, 30. (a) Just by entering the Law covenant was Israel made a “kingdom of priests,” or what was the arrangement for priests? (b) What were fit males of the other families of the tribe of Levi made?
29 Just because of entering into this covenant with the Most High God they were not at once a “kingdom of priests.” They were by no means then a kingdom in which every male member was a priest to God in behalf of all the other nations of the earth. The prophecy of Isaiah 61:6 was not yet fulfilled toward them: “As for you, the priests of Jehovah you will be called; the ministers of our God you will be said to be. The resources of the nations you people will eat, and in their glory you will speak elatedly about yourselves.” Rather, according to the terms of the Law covenant, the qualified male members of only one family in Israel were made the priests, to serve in behalf of all the rest of the nation. This was the family of Moses’ older brother, Aaron, of the tribe of Levi. He was made God’s high priest, and his sons were made the underpriests. So they made up an Aaronic priesthood.
30 The fit male members of all the rest of the families of the tribe of Levi were made ministers to the Aaronic priesthood, to aid them in carrying on the religious services at the house of God, or tent of meeting, that was provided for in the Law covenant.—Exodus 27:20 through 28:4; Numbers 3:1-13.
31. Why were the Aaronic priests not also made kings in Israel?
31 Thus the tribe of Judah had no share in the priesthood of ancient Israel, because from this tribe was to come the Messianic “leader,” the one called “Shiloh” to whom “the obedience of the peoples will belong.” (Genesis 49:10; 1 Chronicles 5:2) So, in ancient Israel, the kingship and the priesthood were kept separate. Aaron and his sons were not made king-priests, thus being unlike Melchizedek.
32. What festivals were to be celebrated annually by Israel?
32 According to the Law covenant, three national festivals were to be celebrated by all the people at the tent or tabernacle of worship each year. “Three times in the year every male of yours should appear before Jehovah your God in the place that he will choose: in the festival of the unfermented cakes and in the festival of weeks and in the festival of booths, and none should appear before Jehovah empty-handed. The gift of each one’s hand should be in proportion to the blessing of Jehovah your God that he has given you.” (Deuteronomy 16:16, 17; Exodus 34:1, 22-24) The festival of the unleavened cakes was held in connection with the annual Passover supper that commemorated Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. The festival of weeks was held on the fiftieth day, that is, after the passing of seven weeks beginning Nisan 16; and the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were presented to Jehovah on that fiftieth (or, Pentecostal) day. The festival of booths (or, tabernacles) was also called the “festival of the ingathering” at the turn of the year. These annual festivals had their prescribed sacrifices to Jehovah.—Leviticus 23:4-21, 33-43.
33. When was the Day of Atonement held, and why did its sacrifices have to be repeated year after year?
33 Five days before the celebration of the festival of booths began, the annual “day of atonement” (Yom Kippur) was to be held, on the tenth day of the seventh lunar month as counted from the spring month of Nisan or Abib. That would be on Tishri 10. On this day an atonement would be made for the sins of the whole nation in covenant relationship with Jehovah, this being the one day of the year when the Aaronic high priest would go into the Most Holy of the tent of meeting and sprinkle the blood of the atonement victims (a bull and a goat) before the sacred ark of the covenant, which contained the written Law of Jehovah. (Leviticus 23:26-32; 16:2-34) Of course, the death and sprinkled blood of these subhuman animal victims could not really take away the sins of humans to whom such animals were put in subjection. It was for the very reason that the death and blood of those sacrificed animals did not actually take away the sins of the human kind that the Atonement Day sacrifices had to be repeated year after year.
34. What did the Law covenant show that God required for taking away human sin, and why could no Israelite offer what was required?
34 We can see the reason for this. In the Law covenant God plainly commanded: “If a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, branding for branding, wound for wound, blow for blow.” (Exodus 21:23-25; Deuteronomy 19:21) In other words, like should go for like, something of equal value for something of equal value. So an uncondemned human life would have to go for a human life that had come under condemnation. This is why it is written in Psalm 49:6-10: “Those who are trusting in their means of maintenance, and who keep boasting about the abundance of their riches, not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, nor give to God a ransom for him; (and the redemption price of their soul is so precious that it has ceased to time indefinite) that he should still live forever and not see the pit. For he sees that even the wise ones die.” There must be a corresponding ransom, and none of the sin-laden Israelites could provide that in order to redeem the perfect life that was forfeited by Adam.
35. What has happened to the Aaronic priesthood, and so where should the redemptive ransom sacrifice be looked for?
35 The Aaronic priesthood that offered mere animal sacrifices at the sacred house of God passed away nineteen centuries ago, in the year 70 C.E. when Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed by the Roman armies. There is nothing else to do but look to the Messianic King whom Jehovah God swore to make a “priest to time indefinite according to the manner of Melchizedek!” (Psalm 110:1-4) This one should be the “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman,” the seed whom God appoints and enables to bruise the head of the wicked one symbolized by that “serpent” in Eden. If this one were not to provide the redemptive ransom for all mankind, then there is no help for us humans, no outlook for eternal life in a righteous new order under Jehovah God. So, then, the animal sacrifices that were offered on Israel’s “day of atonement” down to the first century C.E. must be pictorial; they must picture prophetically the needed ransom sacrifice that was to be offered by the Messiah who becomes the Melchizedekian priest, the Bruiser of the serpent’s head.
36. Likewise, how must the festivals held under the Law covenant be viewed?
36 Likewise with those annual festivals that God’s covenant imposed upon ancient Israel. They were not mere meaningless occasions for national entertainment and relaxation. They had prophetic significance. Being happy occasions, they pictured the future happy provisions that God has made for mankind. The blessed meaning of them God makes known in his due time according to his “eternal purpose.”
A NATION WITH WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITIES
37. What opportunity did the Law covenant offer to Israelites?
37 However, could any Israelite gain eternal life for himself by keeping the Law of the covenant with God perfectly, without breaking even the slightest part of it? The Law covenant offered each Israelite the opportunity to prove that he could do so. In Leviticus 18:5 this opportunity is referred to, in these words: “You must keep my statutes and my judicial decisions, which if a man will do, he must also live by means of them. I am Jehovah.” So, if any Israelite kept the Law flawlessly and gained eternal life by his own works, he did not need the benefit of the sacrifices of the Law covenant. Neither would he need the blessing of the Abrahamic Promise. (Genesis 12:3; 22:18) Such a perfect Law keeper would establish his own righteousness and life merit.
38, 39. (a) What shows whether any of the Israelites gained life by keeping the Law perfectly? (b) Whose priestly services before God are therefore needed?
38 However, even the prophet Moses died. Even the high priest Aaron died. And every other Israelite from the establishment of the Law covenant down to the passing away of the Aaronic priesthood in the year 70 C.E., yes, down till today, has died. Even nineteen centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple by the Romans the orthodox Israelites of today go through a form of celebrating the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. This in itself is an admission of their need of cleansing from sin, yes, their inability to keep the Law perfectly and gain eternal life by their own righteous works. And if they could not do this under the Law covenant, how could any of the rest of us imperfect humans do so?
39 In view of what the Law covenant made plainly manifest, we all stand condemned before the God whose activity is perfect. (Deuteronomy 32:4) As the prophet Isaiah said more than seven hundred years after the Law covenant was made with Israel: “All our righteousnesses are as a polluted garment.” (Isaiah 64:5, JPS) We all need the services of the promised Melchizedekian Priest, who is to be a priest forever.
40. What did Moses do on Nisan 1, 1512 B.C.E., with regard to God’s worship, and what then happened?
40 Turn back now to the year of the establishment of that covenant between Jehovah God and Israel by means of the mediator Moses. That lunar year ended, and Nisan 1 of the calendar year 1512 B.C.E. arrived. On that day Moses obeyed God’s command and had the “tabernacle of the tent of meeting” set up for God’s worship thereat to begin. Then Moses clothed his older brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons with their official garments and anointed them with the holy anointing oil to serve as high priest and underpriests. “So Moses finished the work. And the cloud began to cover the tent of meeting, and Jehovah’s glory filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to go into the tent of meeting, because the cloud resided over it and Jehovah’s glory filled the tabernacle.”—Exodus 40:1-35.
41. Of what was that manifestation an evidence, and when was the installation of the priesthood completed?
41 There was the visible evidence that Jehovah had accepted this structure of worship and had sanctified it to His purpose. On the seventh day of that first month of Nisan (or, Abib) the installing and empowering of the Aaronic priesthood was completed, and thereafter they could officially supervise all features of divine worship at the sacred tabernacle.—Leviticus 8:1 through 9:24.
42. Besides being their God for worship, what else was Jehovah then to Israel, without need of a visible representative?
42 Jehovah was the God whom that nation of Israel was commanded and under obligation to worship. He was not alone their God. He was also their royal Ruler, their King, to whom they owed submission and loyalty. Disobedience to His laws and commandments would therefore be insubordination and disloyalty. Confirming that fact, in Deuteronomy 33:5 the prophet Moses refers to the nation of Israel as Jeshurun or “Upright One” because of its entering into the Law covenant and says: “And there was a king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Israel together.” (Translation by The Jewish Publication Society of America) And, says the editorial footnote on that verse by the late Dr. J. H. Hertz, C. H.: “Thus began God’s Kingdom over Israel.” (Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Soncino Press, page 910) Jehovah was their invisible heavenly King. He needed no earthly visible human king to represent Him in Israel.—Genesis 36:31.
43, 44. How uniquely had ancient Israel been favored in comparison with all other earthly nations, and how could they therefore praise Jehovah?
43 How highly favored was this nation that was made up of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) and that had been brought into a covenant with the one living and true God! They had his true worship and enjoyed the prospect of becoming to Him a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
44 Said the prophet Amos: “Hear this word that Jehovah has spoken concerning you, O sons of Israel, concerning the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying, ‘You people only have I known out of all the families of the ground.’” (Amos 3:1, 2) It was an accurate comparison that the psalmist expressed in one of the Hallelujah psalms, saying: “He is telling his word to Jacob, his regulations and his judicial decisions to Israel. He has not done that way to any other nation; and as for his judicial decisions, they have not known them. Praise Jah, you people!” (Psalm 147:19, 20) The favored nation indeed had good reason to praise Jehovah by keeping his covenant. Whether they did so was now to be shown during what might be called the Era of the Law Covenant that had now begun.