The Blessing

“And I also have heard the groanings of the sons of Israel, whom the Egyptians are enslaving. And I have remembered My covenant.” Exodus 6:5

Remembered – What did God remember? You’ll answer, “The covenant with Abraham, of course.” You’re right, but do you realize just what this implies? What is unique about the covenant with Abraham and why is it so important that we remember what God remembered on the day He spoke with Moses?

First, the covenant with Abraham doesn’t depend on Abraham at all. It is God’s covenant with Himself. Abraham is simply the beneficiary of God’s self-endorsed promise. So, right at the top of the list, this promise can never be broken. As long as God is God, His promise to Abraham will endure.

Secondly, the promise God makes isn’t just about Abraham. God promises to bless all the nations through Abraham. That means that Abraham’s offspring are the sole means for the nations’ blessing. When Israel is cursed, the nations are cursed. When Israel is blessed, the nations are blessed. Now, of course, the Church has used Sha’ul’s insight about the true children of the promise in order to claim that physical Israel is not really the focus of this spiritual condition. But this interpretative shift ignores the fact that physical Israel is the central emphasis of almost the entire biblical narrative. There is very little emphasis of the eternal nature of spiritual Israel in the Scriptures. The Hebrew worldview is about God’s redemption and restoration here, not in the ethereal heavenlies. So, this part of the covenant promise is very much a geo-political issue. As the story of the exodus proclaims, nations oppose the God of Israel with terrifying consequences.

Finally, Bonhoeffer’s insight is important here. God has established an irrevocable relationship between the Gentiles and Israel. Israel’s responsibility to God is to be His emissary of the grand plan of redemption. The Gentiles do not come to God except through this promised covenant for “in Abraham will all the nations be blessed.” We Gentiles have a relationship with the Most High God only because He chose Israel to be the bearer of His offer of peace. We are inextricably interwoven in the obedience of Israel to the God of Israel. As the rabbis say, “If the Gentiles only knew that they would suffer through Israel’s sin, they would establish two armies so as to guard every Israelite from wrong-doing.”

God remembered. Since Hebrew is a dynamic language, this hardly means God simply recalled His promise. The verb zakar is not to be translated as the mental process of thinking about something. For God, remembering entails doing something about it. This should not surprise us. After all, zakar is also the word for “male,” the one who is to remember and obey. When God remembers His covenant, He acts to bring it about. He advances once more the divine connection between Israel and all the rest of us. That divine connection is the reason we are counted as His. Let’s remember who we are.

Topical Index: remember, zakar, Israel, covenant, Gentiles, Exodus 6:5

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