# Deut 5:2,3 -- who are the fathers?



## nwink (Jan 27, 2011)

Deuteronomy 5:2,3 -- "The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today."

In this verse, it is clear that even though these Israelites weren't physically present at Sinai (or very old then), they were still part of the Mosaic covenant. Most of those who were at Sinai had probably died off by this point.

My question is what does the verse mean when the people say: "The Lord did NOT make this covenant with our fathers..." Is this meaning the Lord didn't make the Mosaic covenant with their distant forefathers...like the fact that Abraham wasn't physically present for the Mosaic covenant? Or do they mean their immediate fathers? But they're immediate fathers WERE there...their immediate fathers were physically present at the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant! 

Any light that could be shed on who they are referring to by "fathers" (and why the Mosaic covenant was not made with them) would be very helpful. *I am posting this in the Covenant Theology forum, so Covenant-Theology responses only please.*


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## Contra_Mundum (Jan 27, 2011)

There are two ways to read it: either that God had not made _this_ covenant with the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 12 sons) but with the current nation (which I regard as the weaker, but still acceptable sense); or that he did not make the covenant ONLY at Sinai (and therefore it was with the generation that has died--thus requiring some new covenant to make).

Moses' powerful rhetorical point seems to be that those who are alive, there, 40 years after Sinai, including a whole generation born during the Wilderness wandering, are in solidarity with the covenant-makers. God did not ONLY make covenant (and in an outward way) with their faithless fathers, so long ago. He made it with these folks who are alive right now, who have walked by faith through the trackless waste, not abandoned by the Pillar of Cloud & Fire, the Angel, and Tabernacled-presence of God. The "contrast" is between the faithless and the faithful. Those who are truly (eternally) dead are dead to the covenant. Those who are "alive this day" even include many who are in the blessed presence of God in heaven! The covenant was made with and for the living. And those who come to life later on are reckoned as being alive at Sinai, because the covenant is now and forever.

So too, someone in David's day, or Isaiah's day, or even Jesus day (or our day!) can say that the covenant of Grace, in all its manifestations, is not some old, outmoded, foreign thing--that its been too long, that it was made with them (those fathers) and not with US--this is wrong. No, it is with us, and we too stand at Sinai's base, or on Moab's plain, or with Abraham or David or Ezra, or sit with 12 Disciples as a new Covenant day dawns.


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