Covenant and the people of Israel

In a minute

Jews believe God made a covenant, a lasting bond of loyalty and love, first with Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, and then at Mount Sinai with the whole people of Israel. God promised to be their God; they promised to live by God's teaching and to be "a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation". Jews believe this covenant has never been cancelled. Being "chosen" in Judaism means being chosen for a task and a responsibility, not for privilege, and the covenant with Israel sits inside God's earlier covenant with all humanity, made with Noah.

(This page is about Jewish belief and history as a people and a faith. It does not discuss modern politics.)

What it is and how it's lived

Three covenants

With Noah and all humanity. After the flood, God promised never again to destroy the world, and set the rainbow as a sign (Genesis 9). The rabbis taught that all people are bound by seven basic laws, the Noahide laws: not to worship idols, not to curse God, not to murder, not to steal, not to commit sexual immorality, not to eat flesh torn from a living animal, and to set up courts of justice. (Paraphrased; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a.) Judaism teaches that "the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come" (paraphrased; Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:2; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 8:11). Jews do not believe everyone must become Jewish to be close to God.
With Abraham. God called Abram (later Abraham) to leave his home and go "unto the land that I will show thee", and promised that through him "shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:1, 3). The sign of this covenant is circumcision (brit milah) on the eighth day.
At Sinai. After the exodus from Egypt, the whole people stood at Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments and the Torah. The rabbis taught that the souls of every future Jew, and every future convert, were present there too (paraphrased; Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 39a; Shabbat 146a).

A people and a faith

Judaism is unusual in being both. A person is Jewish by being born to a Jewish mother (in Orthodox and Masorti Judaism), or to a Jewish parent and raised Jewish (in Reform and Liberal Judaism, with some differences), or by conversion. Converts are welcomed as full members of the people; the Bible's Ruth, from Moab, who said to Naomi "thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God" (Ruth 1:16), became the great-grandmother of King David. A convert takes the name "son or daughter of Abraham and Sarah".

Judaism does not actively seek converts. Rabbis traditionally test a person's sincerity before accepting them, and conversion involves study, commitment to the commandments, and (for men) circumcision and immersion in a mikveh (ritual pool).

Jewish communities around the world have their own traditions: Ashkenazi Jews (with roots in central and eastern Europe), Sephardi Jews (from Spain and Portugal and the lands where they settled after 1492), Mizrahi Jews (from the Middle East and North Africa), and the Jews of Ethiopia, India, Yemen and many other places. Jews have lived in Britain since at least the 11th century; they were expelled in 1290, and the community was re-founded in 1656.

The land and Jerusalem in Jewish prayer

The covenant with Abraham included the promise of a land, and Jerusalem became the place of the Temple. After the Temple was destroyed (586 BCE, and again in 70 CE), Jews in exile kept Jerusalem at the centre of their prayers: synagogues face towards it, the grace after meals asks for its rebuilding, and the Passover seder and Yom Kippur end with "Next year in Jerusalem". For most of Jewish history this has been above all a religious hope, bound up with the coming of the Messiah. (See Hope.)

Its inner meaning

Why Israel? The Torah's own answer is humbling:

"The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people—for ye were the fewest of all peoples— but because the LORD loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore unto your fathers" (Deuteronomy 7:7–8, JPS 1917)

And the purpose is service. Abraham was chosen:

"to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice" (Genesis 18:19, JPS 1917)

The prophet Isaiah speaks of Israel as "a light of the nations" (Isaiah 42:6). Jewish thinkers have often said that chosenness means a heavier duty, not a higher status: the prophet Amos has God say that because Israel was known, more would be asked of them (Amos 3:2).

Key texts

"Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." (Exodus 19:5–6, JPS 1917)

Hebrew (Exodus 19:6, opening):

וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ־לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹשׁ

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." (Genesis 17:7, JPS 1917)

"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing." (Genesis 12:2, JPS 1917)

"All that the LORD hath spoken will we do, and obey." (Exodus 24:7, JPS 1917)

Common misunderstandings, answered gently

"Chosen people means Jews think they are better than others." Jewish teaching is that Israel was chosen for responsibility and witness, not superiority, and that the righteous of every nation are close to God. Every human being is made in God's image.
"You can't become Jewish." You can, by sincere conversion; converts are full members, and the Torah commands love for the stranger and the newcomer 36 times, more than any other commandment (paraphrased; Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b; the count of 36 is traditional; some count 46).
"Jewish identity is only about religion" or "only about ethnicity". It is both and neither alone: a covenant people with a shared faith, history, language and family memory, whose members practise in many different ways.

Across the movements

All movements affirm the covenant. They differ on who is Jewish by descent (Orthodox and Masorti: through the mother; Reform and Liberal in the UK: either parent, with a Jewish upbringing, under certain conditions) and on conversion standards, which are set by each movement's own rabbinic court (beit din).

Reflection

Abraham was told to "be a blessing". What would it mean for a family or a community to be chosen not for what it gets, but for what it gives?

In the other traditions

Christianity: Christians speak of a "new covenant" through Jesus (drawing on Jeremiah 31:31; 31:30 in Jewish Bibles), and many churches today affirm, with Paul, that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29, WEB): God's covenant with the Jewish people endures.
Islam: the Qur'an speaks of God's covenant with the Children of Israel: "Worship none save Allah (only), and be good to parents and to kindred and to orphans and the needy, and speak kindly to mankind" (Qur'an 2:83, Pickthall), and honours Abraham as the friend of God.

Watch