Covenant Ceremony: Cutting, Blood, and Salt

What It Means to 'Cut' a Covenant

In Hebrew, covenants are not 'made' or 'established' - they are *cut* (*karat berit*). This unusual phrase has puzzled readers, but its meaning becomes clear in covenant-ratification ceremonies: animals were slaughtered and divided, and parties to the covenant passed between the pieces. The act of cutting the animals gave the covenant its name and its binding force.

This practice was not unique to Israel. Cuneiform texts from Mari (18th century BCE) and Alalakh describe similar covenant-sealing ceremonies involving the killing of animals, sometimes called 'killing a donkey' (*hayaram qatulum*) to ratify a treaty. Hittite suzerainty treaties, Egyptian boundary treaties, and Aramaic vassal texts all involve solemn oath-rituals with animal sacrifice. Israel's covenant practices existed within a broader ancient Near Eastern framework while developing distinctive theological content.

Genesis 15: The Covenant of the Pieces

The most dramatic covenant ceremony in Scripture is in Genesis 15. God instructs Abraham to bring a heifer, goat, ram, dove, and pigeon. Abraham cuts the larger animals in two and arranges the halves facing each other, creating a corridor between them. When the sun sets and Abraham falls into a deep sleep, 'a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces' (Genesis 15:17).

The smoking fire pot and torch represent the divine presence - the same imagery as the pillar of fire and cloud in Exodus. The significance of God alone passing through the pieces (Abraham does not walk through with God) is that God takes the full burden of the covenant oath. In normal treaty ceremonies, both parties walked through the pieces - the symbolic meaning being 'may I become like these animals if I break this covenant.' When only God walks through, he is saying: 'If this covenant is broken, may the curse fall on me.' This is the theological foundation Paul draws on in Galatians 3:13 - Christ becomes 'a curse for us.'

Jeremiah 34: The Broken Covenant

Jeremiah 34:18-20 preserves the curse formula explicitly: 'the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant they made before me - I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts.' King Zedekiah and the Jerusalem aristocracy had freed their Hebrew slaves (as the law required in Deuteronomy 15) and then re-enslaved them. By doing this, they broke a covenant they had ratified by passing between animal halves. The curse - becoming like the divided animal - meant death. The historical outcome (Jerusalem's fall and the people's exile) is presented as the covenant curse coming into effect.

Exodus 24: Blood Covenant at Sinai

The covenant at Sinai (Exodus 24:3-8) involves a different sealing ritual: Moses reads the Book of the Covenant aloud, the people affirm it, and Moses then sprinkles half the blood of sacrificed oxen on the altar (representing God) and half on the people. 'Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you' (Exodus 24:8). This blood-sprinkling physically unites the parties - both altar and people are covered in the same blood.

The author of Hebrews (9:19-20) explicitly connects this to Christ's death: 'he sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant.' The Last Supper words - 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many' (Mark 14:24; Matthew 26:28) - echo both Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah 31:31's 'new covenant,' creating a deliberate overlap.

Salt Covenant

Numbers 18:19 and 2 Chronicles 13:5 refer to a 'covenant of salt' - a covenant confirmed with salt. Salt was used in ancient treaty ceremonies because it was a preservative, symbolizing permanence and incorruptibility. Leviticus 2:13 requires salt on every grain offering: 'You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your grain offering.' Ezekiel 43:24 similarly requires salt for burnt offerings.

In the ancient Near East, sharing salt (and thus sharing a meal) created a bond of loyalty. Arabic *milh wa ni'ma* ('salt and favor') expresses the obligation created by eating together. Jesus's instruction that his disciples are 'the salt of the earth' (Matthew 5:13) may carry covenantal overtones: disciples who have shared the covenant meal are themselves covenant-sealing agents in the world.

The New Covenant at the Last Supper

Jeremiah 31:31-34 is the only explicit 'new covenant' (*berit hadasha*) prophecy in the Hebrew Bible: 'I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them out of Egypt... I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts.'

At the Last Supper, Jesus takes the Passover cup (the third of four cups in the Seder - traditionally the 'cup of redemption') and says: 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood' (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). The phrase is a direct citation of Jeremiah 31:31. The Passover context recalls the Exodus - the event the Sinaitic covenant was built on. Jesus is presenting his death as the covenant-sealing ritual of the new covenant: his blood functions as the Exodus 24 blood that unites the parties, while he himself functions as the Genesis 15 party who absorbs the covenant curse.

Dead Sea Scrolls Evidence

The Qumran community understood itself as the community of the 'new covenant in the land of Damascus' (*Damascus Document*, CD 6:19; 8:21). The phrase 'new covenant' appears in multiple Qumran texts, indicating that Jeremiah 31's prophecy was being actively interpreted in sectarian Judaism during the Second Temple period. The Community Rule (1QS) describes the annual covenant renewal ceremony in which members 'enter the covenant' by reciting blessings and curses - a direct echo of the Deuteronomy 27-28 covenant ceremony. This context helps locate the Last Supper within a world already intensely focused on covenant renewal.

Parallel Cultures: Hittite Suzerainty Treaties

Klaus Baltzer and George Mendenhall in the 1950s-60s identified a structural parallel between Hittite suzerainty treaties (14th-13th century BCE) and the Mosaic covenant in Deuteronomy and Joshua. Both have six elements: preamble (identifying the great king), historical prologue (what the king has done for the vassal), stipulations, deposit and periodic reading of the document, witnesses, and blessings/curses. Deuteronomy follows this structure almost exactly. Whether this proves direct literary borrowing or parallel cultural conventions remains debated, but it firmly situates the biblical covenant in a recognizable ancient legal framework.

Scholarly Sources

George Mendenhall's *Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East* (1955) launched the comparative covenant study. Klaus Baltzer's *The Covenant Formulary* (1971) develops the Hittite treaty parallel. Dennis McCarthy's *Treaty and Covenant* (1978) is the most thorough analysis. For the Last Supper covenant context, Joachim Jeremias's *The Eucharistic Words of Jesus* is essential. The Damascus Document and Community Rule from Qumran are in the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition.

• Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (1955)
• Baltzer, The Covenant Formulary (1971)
• McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant (1978)
• Jeremias, Eucharistic Words of Jesus
• Damascus Document (CD) 6:19