In my previous article, I touched on the Ancient Near East covenants from the Late Bronze Period that Abraham, Moses and the Israelites were familiar with. We saw how Israel’s storytellers borrowed from their form but turned them inside out in framing God’s covenants. It’s one thing to recognize how ancient empires used covenant to control their subjects, it’s another to admit how easily we’ve done something similar, and how that can cause us to mishear God’s promises.
Somewhere along the way, covenant became contract again.
The Contractual Reflex
In Western culture, we are creatures of contract. Everything — from mortgages to marriages — conditioned on performance: You do your part, I’ll do mine. It’s efficient for business but toxic for faith.
We read God’s promises like policy documents.
We pray like clients expecting service.
We measure faith by results.
And when life doesn’t play out on our schedule, disappointment sets in — not only with ourselves, but with God. We quietly suspect the divine partner hasn’t held up His end of the deal.
But that was never the covenant Yahweh made.
God’s Covenant Isn’t the Art of the Deal
The biblical covenant isn’t a deal between equals. It’s the faithfulness of the strong partner freely given to the weak one — a relationship that seeks communion rather than compliance. That’s why the prophets kept calling Israel back to hesed.
The Hebrew concept of “hesed,” is difficult to define into English. It’s a concept deeply grounded in a relational culture that we in the modern, Western world, struggle to wrap our minds around.
Hesed – The Heartbeat of Covenant
Every empire had its glue.
Fear kept treaties intact. Threats kept subjects loyal. The gods were invoked to strike down anyone who failed their oath.
But when Israel began to speak of covenant with Yahweh, another word quietly entered the story — a word no empire would have come up with: ḥesed.
It’s the Hebrew term often translated steadfast love, faithful mercy, or loving-kindness. Yet none of those quite capture it. Hesed is more than a single word. The concept embraces loyalty (faithful to the bond), action (bringing help, deliverance and provision into the relationship) and persistence (enduring commitment to the relationship).
In a couple months, my wife Lorna and I celebrate 45 years of marriage – hesed. Hesed is the tenacious love – toward kin folk, not random acts of kindness toward strangers. It’s love that refuses to let go, even when the other breaks faith. In every ancient covenant, the weaker partner carried the risk. In Yahweh’s covenant, the stronger one shoulders the burden. When God confirmed His pact with Moses he declared:
“Yahweh, God compassionate and gracious, long-tempered, big in commitment and truthfulness.”
— Exodus 34:6 (John Goldingay’s First Testament Translation)
Israel would eventually turn from its loyalty and commitment to their relationship with God. Let’s track their shift away from God’s unrelenting love.
From Joshua to Judges and Kings
During Joshua’s leadership, Israel’s entry into and settlement in Canaan were shaped by God’s fulfillment of His pact with Abraham marked by community obedience, national unity and renewing the Sinai covenant (Joshua 24). Joshua led the people with a relational model that depended upon God’s character and shared identity (He would be their God and they would be His people) rather than the political control and centralized human authority of the empire around them.
Judges: The Covenant Breaks Down Leading to Empire Drift
After Joshua’s death, Israel eventually turned from its loyalty and committment to their relationship with God. They experienced cycles of disobedience, division, Canaanite cultural influences (adopted political and religious practices) and fragmented communities. The judges acted more like warlords, they lacked the covenantal, priestly authority that Joshua exercised. Instead the book of Judges highlights a familiar phrase of the time: “everyone did what was right in their own eyes,” underscoring the collapse of the community covenant structures. Sounds familiar to Canadian cultural Christianity.
Kings: The Empire Returns
During the period of the Judges, a young boy by the name of Samuel was chosen by God to be his special steward, he grew up to be God’s prophet and priest and served God and Israel. Toward the end of Samuel’s life the people said, “Here, you’ve gotten old and your sons haven’t walked in your ways. Now appoint us a king to exercise authority for us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). Samuel resisted, insisting it was a horrible idea but God instructed him to do so. The people weren’t rebelling against Samuel, they were rebelling against God. The people wanted the protection and prosperity of the surrounding empire, they trusted systems of control — kings, temples, treaties — instead of the living God.
Fear replaced faith. Manipulation replaced mercy.
The same drift plagues us still.
We quote promises as guarantees.
We treat prayer as leverage.
We measure fruitfulness by outcomes instead of faithfulness.
But Jesus didn’t come to renegotiate the contract. He came to embody the covenant. He doesn’t come to the table to offer a better deal, but a better way — a life rooted in relationship.
Jesus’ Covenant Invitation
So when He says, “Ask in My name,” Jesus isn’t offering a magic formula or a legal right. He’s inviting us into His own covenant life with the Father — a relationship of trust, alignment, and shared purpose.
To recover that ancient hearing is to rediscover what prayer truly is.
Prayer is not transaction but participation.
Not demand, but dwelling.
It is the fruit of covenant intimacy — the shared life where what God desires becomes what we desire.
Over a thousand years later, John writes of Jesus, he reaches back to this same heartbeat:
“The Word became flesh… full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) The phrase “grace and truth” is the Greek version of the Hebrew concept of ḥesed. In Jesus, covenant ḥesed takes on flesh and blood.
When covenant became grace, everything changed. And that’s what Jesus is describing in John 15:
“Abide in Me, and I in you… If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
Those aren’t the words of a contract; they’re the language of communion.
They speak of a mutual indwelling — the life of God flowing to us, through us, and back to God in love and fruitfulness.
Next time, we’ll listen to Jesus’ words in John 15 and explore how prayer becomes the living expression of covenant grace.