A covenant is an oath or promise that is made between human beings usually for mutual benefit. In the Bible, covenants are most often revered pacts between humans and God. Sanctions, which are consequences, answer these two questions: What do the parties receive if they obey; and What do the parties receive if they disobey. In the Old Testament books of Ruth, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, covenant sanctions are everything.
In Ruth, covenant sanctions play an extremely important part in her destiny. The story tells of an Israelite family that moved to Moab, which was a second-class pagan country, because of some hardship. Consisting of a father, mother, and two sons, the family was small. While out of Israel, the two sons married two native women. Unfortunately, soon after, all three men of the family died. The mother, Naomi, reluctantly told her two daughters in law to remarry. One of them, Ruth, refused, remaining faithful to Naomi and the Jewish religion, and traveled to Israel with her mother-in-law. To survive, they hungrily ate fruit from the ground at a rich relative’s property. Boaz, the relative, noticed Ruth’s upstanding character and was able to marry her because of an old Biblical law from Moses that stated that a relative should marry his relative’s widow. Ruth became the great grandmother of King David. Because Ruth obeyed the covenant of Moses, she was rewarded with great sanctions.
In the Books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, covenant sanctions describe the downfall of the Hebrew nation. Jeremiah contains the prophecies regarding what would happen to Israel if they continued to break the Mosaic Law. God felt as though Israel needed one last chance so He sent a powerful prophet to angrily yell at them. Because they disobeyed God’s covenanted will, the people of Israel were about to receive frightfully negative sanctions. However, it was too late for this once glorious nation, and God reluctantly sent the Babylonians, who sacked Jerusalem and scattered the Jewish people. Thus began the Diaspora. In Lamentations, the Israelites cried out with great anguish at the conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon. Pitifully, they mourned their exile from their homeland.
In another story, Jesus gives the famous Sermon on the Mount, in which he discusses positive and negative sanctions in every other sentence. He reminds the people of God’s holy covenant with Moses and passionately tells them that they must continue to follow the Law; but their righteousness must surpass that of the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees. In other words, do not follow the letter of the law, follow the spirit of the law. Clearly, Jesus holds covenants with God extremely important and expects them to be held up by acts of faith.
The Bible makes apparent that covenants and sanctions are extremely important between God and His people. This is shown by the story of Ruth, what happened to Jeremiah’s Israel, and the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. These stories illustrate the point that God’s covenants are undeniably irreplaceable. As shown in Lamentations, God does not take His promises lightly.