Thomas Hobbes · Complete work
Religion, Chapter XVI, 1
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OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNDER THE OLD COVENANT
1 Superstition possessing foreign nations, God instituted true religion by the means of Abraham. 2. By the covenant between God and Adam, all dispute is forbidden concerning the commands of superiors. 3. The manner of the covenant between God and Abraham. 4. In that covenant is contained an acknowledgment of God, not simply, but of him who appeared unto Abraham. 5. The laws unto which Abraham was tied, were no other beside those of nature, and the law of circumcision. 6. Abraham was the interpreter of the word of God, and of all laws among those that belonged to him. 7. Abraham’s subjects could not sin by obeying him. 8. God’s covenant with the Hebrews on Mount Sinai. 9. From thence God’s government took the name of a kingdom. 10. What laws were by God given to the Jews. 11. What the word of God is, and how to be known. 12. What was held the written word of God among the Jews. 13. The power of interpreting the word of God, and the supreme civil power, were united in Moses while he lived. 14. They were also united in the high-priest, during the life of Joshua. 15. They were united too in the high-priest until king Saul’s time. 16. They were also united in the kings until the captivity. 17. They were so in the high-priests after the captivity. 18. Denial of the Divine Providence, and idolatry, were the only treasons against the Divine Majesty among the Jews; in all things else they ought to obey their princes.
Superstition possessing foreign nations, God instituted the true religion by the means of Abraham.
1 Mankind, from conscience of its own weakness and admiration of natural events, hath this; that most men believe God to be the invisible maker of all invisible things; whom they also fear, conceiving that they have not a sufficient protection in themselves. But the imperfect use they had of their reason, the violence of their passions did so cloud them, that they could not rightly worship him. Now the fear of invisible things, when it is severed from right reason, is superstition. It was therefore almost impossible for men, without the special assistance of God, to avoid both rocks of atheism and superstition. For this proceeds from fear without right reason; that, from an opinion of right reason without fear. Idolatry therefore did easily fasten upon the greatest part of men; and almost all nations did worship God in images and resemblances of finite things; and they worshipped spirits or vain visions, perhaps out of fear calling them devils. But it pleased the Divine Majesty, as we read it written in the sacred history, out of all mankind to call forth Abraham, by whose means he might bring men to the true worship of him; and to reveal himself supernaturally to him, and to make that most famous covenant with him and his seed, which is called the old covenant or testament. He therefore is the head of true religion; he was the first that after the deluge taught, that there was one God, the Creator of the universe. And from him the kingdom of God by way of covenants, takes its beginning. Joseph. Antiq. Jews, lib. I.. cap. 7.
By the covenant between God and Adam, all dispute is forbidden concerningconcerning the commands of superiors.
2 In the beginning of the world God reigned indeed, not only naturally, but also by way of covenant, over Adam and Eve; so as it seems he would have no obedience yielded to him, beside that which natural reason should dictate, but by the way of covenant, that is to say, by the consent of men themselves. Now because this covenant was presently made void, nor ever after renewed, the original of God’s kingdom (which we treat of in this place) is not to be taken thence. Yet this is to be noted by the way; that by that precept of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (whether the judicature of good and evil, or the eating of the fruit of some tree were forbidden), God did require a most simple obedience to his commands, without dispute whether that were good or evil which was commanded. For the fruit of the tree, if the command be wanting, hath nothing in its own nature, whereby the eating of it could be morally evil, that is to say, a sin.
The manner of the covenant between God and Abraham.
3 Now the covenant between God and Abraham was made in this manner, (Gen. xvii. 7, 8): I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. Now it was necessary to institute some sign, whereby Abraham and his seed should retain the memory of this covenant; wherefore circumcision was added to the covenant, but yet as a sign only, (verse 10, 11): This is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and thee, and thy seed after thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised, and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and you. It is therefore covenanted, that Abraham shall acknowledge God to be his God and the God of his seed, that is to say, that he shall submit himself to be governed by him; and that God shall give unto Abraham the inheritance of that land wherein he then dwelt but as a pilgrim; and that Abraham, for a memorial sign of this covenant, should take care to see himself and his male seed circumcised.
In that covenant is contained an acknowledgment of God, not simply, but of him who appeared unto Abraham.
4 But seeing that Abraham, even before the covenant, acknowledged God to be the Creator and King of the world; (for he never doubted either of the being or the providence of God); how comes it not to be superfluous, that God would purchase to himself with a price and by contract an obedience which was due to him by nature; namely, by promising Abraham the land of Canaan, upon condition that he would receive him for his God; when by the right of nature he was already so? By those words therefore, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee, we understand not that Abraham satisfied this covenant by a bare acknowledgment of the power and dominion which God had naturally over men, that is to say, by acknowledging God indefinitely, which belongs to natural reason; but he must definitely acknowledge him, who said unto him, (Gen. xii. 1, 2): Get thee out of thy country; &c. (Gen. xiii. 14): Lift up thine eyes, &c.: who appeared unto him, (Gen. xviii. 1, 2), in the shape of three celestial men; and (Gen. xv. 1), in a vision; and (verse 13), in a dream, which is matter of faith. In what shape God appeared unto Abraham, by what kind of sound he spake to him, is not expressed. Yet it is plain that Abraham believed that voice to be the voice of God and a true revelation, and would have all his to worship him, who had so spoken unto him, for God the Creator of the world; and that his faith was grounded on this, not that he believed God to have a being or that he was true in his promises, that which all men believe, but that he doubted not him to be God, whose voice and promises he had heard, and that the God of Abraham signified not simply God, but that God which appeared unto him; even as the worship, which Abraham owed unto God in that notion, was not the worship of reason, but of religion and faith, and that which not reason, but God had supernaturally revealed.
The laws to which Abraham was tied were no other, but those of nature and that of circumcision.
5 But we read of no laws given by God to Abraham, or by Abraham to his family, either then or after, secular or sacred; excepting the commandment of circumcision, which is contained in the covenant itself. Whence it is manifest, that there were no other laws or worship, which Abraham was obliged to, but the laws of nature, rational worship, and circumcision.
Abraham among his own was the interpreter of the word of God and of all laws.
6 Now Abraham was the interpreter of all laws, as well sacred as secular, among those that belonged to him; not merely naturally, as using the laws of nature only, but even by the form of the covenant itself; in which obedience is promised by Abraham, not for himself only, but for his seed also; which had been in vain, except his children had been tied to obey his commands. And how can that be understood, which God says (Gen. xviii. 18, 19): All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him; for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment: unless his children and his household were supposed to be obliged to yield obedience unto his commands?
Abraham’s subjects could not sin in obeying him.
7 Hence it follows, that Abraham’s subjects could not sin in obeying him, provided that Abraham commanded them not to deny God’s existence or providence, or to do somewhat expressly contrary to the honour of God. In all other things, the word of God was to be fetched from his lips only, as being the interpreter of all the laws and words of God. For Abraham alone could teach them who was the God of Abraham, and in what manner he was to be worshipped. And they who after Abraham’s death were subject to the sovereignty of Isaac or Jacob, did by the same reason obey them in all things without sin, as long as they acknowledged and professed the God of Abraham to be their God. For they had submitted themselves to God simply, before they did it to Abraham, and to Abraham before they did it to the God of Abraham: again, to the God of Abraham, before they did it to Isaac. In Abraham’s subjects therefore, to deny God was the only treason against the divine Majesty; but in their posterity, it was also treason to deny the God of Abraham, that is to say, to worship God otherwise than was instituted by Abraham, to wit, in images made with hands,20 as other nations did; which for that reason were called idolaters. And hitherto, subjects might easily enough discern what was to be observed, what avoided in the commands of their princes.
God’s covenant with the Hebrews at Mount Sinai.
8 To go on now, following the guidance of the holy Scripture; the same covenant was renewed (Gen. xxvi. 3, 4) with Isaac; and (Gen. xxviii. 13, 14) with Jacob; where God styles himself not simply God, whom nature doth dictate him to be, but distinctly the God of Abraham and Isaac. Afterward being about to renew the same covenant by Moses with the whole people of Israel, (Exod. iii. 6): I am, saith he, the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Afterward, when that people, not only the freest, but also the greatest enemy to human subjection, by reason of the fresh memory of their Egyptian bondage, abode in the wilderness near mount Sinai, that ancient covenant was propounded to them all to be renewed in this manner (Exod. xix. 5, 6): Therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, (to wit, that covenant which was made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob); then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people; for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. And all the people answered together, and said, (verse 8) All that the Lord hath spoken, will we do.
From thence God’s government was called a kingdom.
9 In this covenant, among other things, we must consider well the appellation of kingdom, not used before. For although God, both by nature and by covenant made with Abraham, was their king, yet owed they him an obedience and worship only natural, as being his subjects; and religious, such as Abraham instituted, as being the subjects of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their natural princes. For they had received no word of God beside the natural word of right reason; neither had any covenant passed between God and them, otherwise than as their wills were included in the will of Abraham, as their prince. But now by the covenant made at Mount Sinai, the consent of each man being had, there becomes an institutive kingdom of God over them. That kingdom of God, so renowned in Scriptures and writings of divines, took its beginning from this time; and hither tends that which God said to Samuel, when the Israelites asked a king (1 Sam. viii. 7): They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them; and that which Samuel told the Israelites (1 Sam. xii. 12): Ye said unto me, nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king; and that which is said, Jer. xxxi. 31: I will make a new covenant, &c. although I was an husband unto them; and the doctrine also of Judas Galilæus, where mention is made in Josephus’ Antiq. of the Jews, (Book xviii. chap. 2), in these words: But Judas Galilæus was the first author of this fourth way of those who followed the study of wisdom. These agree in all the rest with the Pharisees, excepting that they burn with a most constant desire of liberty; believing God alone to be held for their Lord and prince; and will sooner endure even the most exquisite kinds of torments, together with their kinsfolks and dearest friends, than call any mortal man their Lord.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Molesworth’s index is omitted.
OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNDER THE OLD COVENANT
1 When superstition held foreign nations, God established true religion through Abraham. 2. The covenant between God and Adam forbids all dispute over the commands of superiors. 3. The manner of the covenant between God and Abraham. 4. That covenant acknowledges not God in general, but the God who appeared to Abraham. 5. Abraham was bound by no laws besides those of nature and the law of circumcision. 6. Abraham interpreted the word of God and all laws for those who belonged to him. 7. Abraham’s subjects could not sin by obeying him. 8. God’s covenant with the Hebrews on Mount Sinai. 9. From that time God’s government was called a kingdom. 10. The laws God gave the Jews. 11. What the word of God is, and how it is known. 12. What the Jews held to be the written word of God. 13. The authority to interpret the word of God and the supreme civil power were united in Moses during his lifetime. 14. They were also united in the high priest during Joshua’s lifetime. 15. They remained united in the high priest until the time of king Saul. 16. They were also united in the kings until the captivity. 17. They were united in the high priests after the captivity. 18. Denial of divine providence and idolatry were the only treasons against the Divine Majesty among the Jews; in everything else they were bound to obey their princes.
When superstition held foreign nations, God established true religion through Abraham.
1 Conscious of their own weakness and struck by the wonders of nature, human beings generally believe in God as the invisible maker of all invisible things; they fear him too, finding no sufficient protection in themselves. But their imperfect use of reason and the violence of their passions so clouded their minds that they could not worship him rightly. Fear of invisible things, when severed from right reason, is superstition. It was therefore almost impossible for human beings, without God’s special help, to avoid both the rock of atheism and the rock of superstition. Superstition springs from fear without right reason; atheism, from a belief in right reason without fear. Thus idolatry readily took hold of most people, and almost all nations worshipped God in images and likenesses of finite things. They also worshipped spirits or empty visions, perhaps calling them devils out of fear. But, as we read in sacred history, it pleased the Divine Majesty to call Abraham out of all mankind, so that through him he might bring people to his true worship. God revealed himself to Abraham supernaturally and made with him and his descendants that celebrated covenant called the old covenant or testament. Abraham is therefore the founder of true religion: he was the first after the flood to teach that there was one God, Creator of the universe. With him begins the kingdom of God founded on covenants. Joseph. Antiq. Jews, lib. I.. cap. 7.
The covenant between God and Adam forbids all dispute over the commands of superiors.
2 At the beginning of the world God reigned over Adam and Eve not only by nature but also by covenant. It seems, then, that he wanted obedience beyond what natural reason itself would dictate to be given only through covenant, that is, with human consent. Since this covenant was immediately broken and was never afterward renewed, the kingdom of God considered here does not begin with it. Yet we should note in passing that by his command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—whether the prohibition concerned judging good and evil or eating the fruit of an actual tree—God required simple obedience to his commands, without disputing whether what he commanded was good or evil. For without the command there is nothing in the nature of that fruit to make eating it morally evil, that is, a sin.
The manner of the covenant between God and Abraham.
3 The covenant between God and Abraham was made as follows (Gen. xvii. 7, 8): “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you in their generations, as an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give you and your descendants after you the land where you live as a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” A sign was needed to preserve the memory of this covenant for Abraham and his descendants. Circumcision was therefore added, but only as a sign (verse 10, 11): “This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you, and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.” The covenant, then, requires Abraham to acknowledge God as his God and the God of his descendants—that is, to submit to his government. God, for his part, promises Abraham the inheritance of the land where he then lived as a stranger; and Abraham must see to it that he and his male descendants are circumcised as a memorial sign of this covenant.
That covenant acknowledges not God in general, but the God who appeared to Abraham.
4 But Abraham had acknowledged God as Creator and King of the world even before the covenant, never doubting either his existence or his providence. Why, then, would it not be superfluous for God to purchase by a promise and a contract obedience already owed him by nature, promising Abraham the land of Canaan on condition that Abraham accept him as his God, when he was already God by the right of nature? By the words “to be God to you and to your descendants after you,” therefore, we do not understand that Abraham could fulfill the covenant merely by acknowledging the power and dominion God naturally has over human beings, recognizing God in general as natural reason directs. He had to acknowledge specifically the one who told him (Gen. xii. 1, 2), “Leave your country,” etc.; who told him (Gen. xiii. 14), “Lift up your eyes,” etc.; who appeared to him (Gen. xviii. 1, 2) in the form of three heavenly men, (Gen. xv. 1) in a vision, and (verse 13) in a dream. This is a matter of faith. Scripture does not say in what shape God appeared to Abraham or what kind of sound he used in speaking to him. Yet plainly Abraham believed the voice to be God’s voice and a true revelation. He wanted all who belonged to him to worship, as God and Creator of the world, the one who had spoken to him in this way. His faith rested not on a belief that God existed or kept his promises—things everyone believes—but on his conviction that the one whose voice and promises he heard was God. Thus “the God of Abraham” meant not simply God, but that God who appeared to him. Likewise the worship Abraham owed God under that name was not the worship of reason but of religion and faith: something supernaturally revealed not by reason but by God.
Abraham was bound by no laws besides those of nature and the law of circumcision.
5 We read of no laws, secular or sacred, given by God to Abraham or by Abraham to his family, either then or later, apart from the commandment of circumcision contained in the covenant itself. Plainly, then, Abraham was obliged to observe no other laws or worship beyond the laws of nature, rational worship, and circumcision.
Abraham interpreted the word of God and all laws for those who belonged to him.
6 Among those who belonged to him, Abraham interpreted all laws, sacred as well as secular. This authority was his not merely by nature, through his use of the laws of nature, but by the very terms of the covenant, in which Abraham promises obedience for his descendants as well as himself. That promise would have been empty if his children were not bound to obey his commands. And how else can we understand what God says (Gen. xviii. 18, 19): “All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him; for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment”? Surely his children and household are understood to be obliged to obey his commands.
Abraham’s subjects could not sin by obeying him.
7 It follows that Abraham’s subjects could not sin by obeying him, provided he did not command them to deny God’s existence or providence, or to do something expressly contrary to God’s honor. In every other matter, they could receive the word of God only from Abraham’s lips, for he interpreted all God’s laws and words. Abraham alone could teach them who the God of Abraham was and how he was to be worshipped. By the same reasoning, those who after Abraham’s death were subject to the sovereignty of Isaac or Jacob could obey them in all things without sin, as long as they acknowledged and professed the God of Abraham as their God. For they had submitted to God in general before submitting to Abraham, and to Abraham before submitting to the God of Abraham; likewise they submitted to the God of Abraham before submitting to Isaac. For Abraham’s subjects, then, denial of God was the only treason against the Divine Majesty. For their descendants, denial of the God of Abraham was treason as well: that is, worshipping God otherwise than Abraham had instituted, namely in images made by human hands,20 as other nations did and were therefore called idolaters. Up to this point subjects could readily distinguish what to observe and what to avoid in the commands of their princes.
God’s covenant with the Hebrews on Mount Sinai.
8 To continue under the guidance of Holy Scripture, the same covenant was renewed (Gen. xxvi. 3, 4) with Isaac and (Gen. xxviii. 13, 14) with Jacob. In these passages God calls himself not simply God, as nature tells us he is, but specifically the God of Abraham and Isaac. Later, when he was about to renew the same covenant through Moses with all the people of Israel, he said (Exod. iii. 6): “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Afterward that people, more resistant to human subjection than any other because the memory of their Egyptian bondage was still fresh, camped in the wilderness near Mount Sinai. The ancient covenant was proposed to them all for renewal in these terms (Exod. xix. 5, 6): “Therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant”—that is, the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—“then you shall be my special treasure above all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” All the people answered together (verse 8): “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.”
From that time God’s government was called a kingdom.
9 Among other things in this covenant we should attend closely to the name “kingdom,” which had not been used before. For although God was their king both by nature and by the covenant with Abraham, they owed him only natural obedience and worship as his subjects, and such religious worship as Abraham had instituted as subjects of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their natural princes. They had received no word of God beyond the natural word of right reason, nor had God made any covenant directly with them: their wills had been included in Abraham’s will as their prince. But now, by the covenant made at Mount Sinai with the consent of each person, an instituted kingdom of God came into being over them. This was the beginning of that kingdom of God so celebrated in Scripture and in the writings of theologians. This is the point of God’s words to Samuel when the Israelites asked for a king (1 Sam. viii. 7): “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, so that I should not reign over them”; and of Samuel’s words to the Israelites (1 Sam. xii. 12): “You said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king”; and of what is said in Jer. xxxi. 31: “I will make a new covenant,” etc., “although I was a husband to them.” So too the doctrine of Judas Galilæus, mentioned in Josephus’ Antiq. of the Jews (Book xviii. chap. 2), in these words: “But Judas Galilæus first founded this fourth way among those devoted to the study of wisdom. In all other respects they agree with the Pharisees, except that they burn with an unwavering desire for liberty, believing that God alone should be recognized as their Lord and prince. They would sooner endure even the most exquisite tortures, along with their kin and dearest friends, than call any mortal man their Lord.”
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text). Molesworth’s index is omitted.
Of the Kingdom of God Under the Old Covenant
1 When superstition took hold among other nations, God established true religion through Abraham. 2. The covenant between God and Adam forbids disputes about the commands of superiors. 3. How God made his covenant with Abraham. 4. That covenant requires recognition not just of God in general, but of the God who appeared to Abraham. 5. Abraham was bound only by the laws of nature and the law of circumcision. 6. Abraham interpreted God's word and all laws for those under him. 7. Abraham's subjects could not sin by obeying him. 8. God's covenant with the Hebrews at Mount Sinai. 9. From then on, God's government was called a kingdom. 10. The laws God gave the Jews. 11. What God's word is and how to recognize it. 12. What the Jews regarded as God's written word. 13. In Moses' lifetime, he held both the power to interpret God's word and supreme civil power. 14. During Joshua's lifetime, the high priest held both powers. 15. The high priest held both powers until the time of King Saul. 16. The kings held both powers until the captivity. 17. After the captivity, the high priests held both powers. 18. For the Jews, denying divine providence and practicing idolatry were the only forms of treason against divine majesty. In everything else they had to obey their rulers.
When superstition took hold among other nations, God established true religion through Abraham.
1 Awareness of their own weakness and wonder at natural events have led most people to believe that God is the invisible maker of all invisible things. They also fear him because they believe they cannot protect themselves well enough. But their limited use of reason and the strength of their passions kept them from worshipping him properly. Fear of invisible things, when it is separated from sound reason, is superstition. So without God's special help, it was almost impossible for people to avoid both atheism and superstition. Superstition comes from fear without sound reason. Atheism comes from a supposed use of sound reason without fear. Idolatry therefore spread easily among most people. Almost all nations worshipped God through images resembling finite things. They also worshipped spirits or imaginary apparitions, perhaps calling them devils out of fear. But as sacred history tells us, the divine majesty chose Abraham from all humanity. Through him God would bring people to worship him truly. God revealed himself to Abraham by supernatural means and made with him and his descendants the famous covenant called the old covenant or testament. Abraham is therefore the founder of true religion. He was the first person after the flood to teach that there is one God, the creator of the universe. God's kingdom established through covenants begins with him. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book I, chapter 7.
The covenant between God and Adam forbids disputes about the commands of superiors.
2 At the beginning of the world, God ruled Adam and Eve not only by nature but also through a covenant. It seems he wanted obedience beyond what natural reason requires to be given through a covenant, that is, with people's own consent. But this covenant was soon broken and was never renewed. So we cannot trace the origin of God's kingdom, as discussed here, to it. Still, one point is worth noting. By forbidding them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God demanded simple obedience to his commands, without debating whether what he commanded was good or evil. This holds whether he forbade them to decide good and evil for themselves or forbade them to eat the fruit of a particular tree. Without the command, nothing in the fruit's nature would have made eating it morally evil, or a sin.
How God made his covenant with Abraham.
3 God made his covenant with Abraham in this way (Gen. xvii. 7, 8): “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give you and your descendants after you the land where you are now a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” Abraham and his descendants needed a sign to help them remember this covenant. Circumcision was therefore added to the covenant, but only as its sign (verses 10, 11): “This is my covenant that you and your descendants after you shall keep with me: every male child among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise your foreskins, and this shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.” The agreement, then, was that Abraham would acknowledge God as his God and his descendants' God. In other words, he would submit to God's rule. God would give Abraham the land where he was then living as a stranger. Abraham, as a reminder of the covenant, would see that he and his male descendants were circumcised.
That covenant requires recognition not just of God in general, but of the God who appeared to Abraham.
4 Even before the covenant, Abraham recognized God as the creator and king of the world. He never doubted God's existence or providence. So why would God make a bargain to obtain obedience that Abraham already owed him by nature? Why promise him the land of Canaan on the condition that Abraham accept him as his God, when God was already his God by the right of nature? The words “to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” cannot mean that Abraham fulfilled the covenant merely by acknowledging the power and authority God has over people by nature. That would mean recognizing God in general, as natural reason already requires. Instead, he had to recognize the particular one who told him (Gen. xii. 1, 2), “Leave your country,” and so on; who told him (Gen. xiii. 14), “Lift up your eyes,” and so on; who appeared to him (Gen. xviii. 1, 2) in the form of three heavenly men; who appeared (Gen. xv. 1) in a vision and (verse 13) in a dream. These are matters of faith. The text does not say what form God took when he appeared to Abraham or what kind of sound his voice made. But clearly Abraham believed that voice to be God's voice and a true revelation. He wanted all his people to worship the one who spoke to him as God, the creator of the world. His faith did not rest on believing that God exists or keeps his promises, as everyone believes. It rested on his certainty that the one whose voice and promises he had heard was God. “The God of Abraham” therefore meant not simply God, but the God who had appeared to Abraham. Likewise, the worship Abraham owed God in that specific sense was not worship based on reason, but worship based on religion and faith, supernaturally revealed by God rather than discovered by reason.
Abraham was bound only by the laws of nature and the law of circumcision.
5 We read of no other laws, civil or religious, that God gave Abraham or Abraham gave his family, either then or later. The only exception is the command to circumcise, which is part of the covenant itself. Clearly, then, Abraham was bound by no laws or forms of worship beyond the laws of nature, rational worship, and circumcision.
Abraham interpreted God's word and all laws for those under him.
6 Abraham interpreted all laws, both religious and civil, for the people under him. This authority came not only naturally, through his use of the laws of nature, but from the covenant itself. In it Abraham promised obedience not just for himself but for his descendants too. That promise would have been pointless if his children had not been bound to obey his commands. God says (Gen. xviii. 18, 19), “All the nations of the earth shall be blessed through him. For I know that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the Lord's way by doing justice and judgment.” How can we understand this unless his children and household were supposed to obey his commands?
Abraham's subjects could not sin by obeying him.
7 It follows that Abraham's subjects could not sin by obeying him, provided he did not command them to deny God's existence or providence, or to do anything explicitly dishonoring to God. In everything else they had to get God's word from Abraham alone, because he interpreted all God's laws and words. Only Abraham could tell them who the God of Abraham was and how they should worship him. By the same reasoning, after Abraham died, those under the sovereign authority of Isaac or Jacob could obey them in everything without sin, so long as they acknowledged and declared the God of Abraham to be their God. They had submitted to God in general before submitting to Abraham, and to Abraham before submitting to the God of Abraham. Then they submitted to the God of Abraham before submitting to Isaac. For Abraham's subjects, then, denying God was the only treason against divine majesty. But for their descendants, denying the God of Abraham was also treason. That meant worshipping God differently from the way Abraham had established, namely through handmade images,20 as other nations did. Those nations were therefore called idolaters. Up to this point, subjects could readily tell which commands from their rulers they should follow and which they should avoid.
God's covenant with the Hebrews at Mount Sinai.
8 Let us continue to follow the account in holy Scripture. The same covenant was renewed with Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 3, 4) and with Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 13, 14). There God calls himself not merely God, as nature tells us he is, but specifically the God of Abraham and Isaac. Later, when he was about to renew the same covenant through Moses with the whole people of Israel, he said (Exod. iii. 6), “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Later still, the people were living in the wilderness near Mount Sinai. The recent memory of slavery in Egypt made them especially free in spirit and especially hostile to being subject to anyone. The ancient covenant was then offered to all of them for renewal in these words (Exod. xix. 5, 6): “If you truly obey my voice and keep my covenant”—the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—“then you shall be my special treasure above all peoples, for the whole earth is mine. You shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” All the people replied together (verse 8), “We will do everything the Lord has said.”
From then on, God's government was called a kingdom.
9 In this covenant we should pay special attention to the word “kingdom,” which had not been used before. God was already their king both by nature and by his covenant with Abraham. But as God's subjects they owed him only the obedience and worship required by nature. As subjects of their natural rulers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they also owed the religious worship Abraham had established. They had received no word from God other than the natural word of sound reason. Nor had they themselves made a covenant with God, except insofar as their wills were included in the will of Abraham, their ruler. But at Mount Sinai each person consented to the covenant, and God thereby became their king through an established kingdom. This is when the kingdom of God so often mentioned in Scripture and theological writings began. This is what God meant when the Israelites asked Samuel for a king (1 Sam. viii. 7): “They have not rejected you. They have rejected me as their king.” Samuel told the Israelites the same thing (1 Sam. xii. 12): “You said to me, ‘No, a king shall rule over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.” It is also related to the words in Jer. xxxi. 31: “I will make a new covenant,” and so on, “although I was a husband to them.” It is related, too, to what Josephus says about the teaching of Judas Galilæus in Antiquities of the Jews (book xviii, chapter 2): “Judas Galilæus was the first founder of this fourth school among those devoted to the study of wisdom. Its followers agree with the Pharisees on everything else, but they have a constant and passionate desire for freedom. They believe that God alone should be considered their lord and ruler. They would rather endure even the most painful kinds of torture, along with their relatives and closest friends, than call any mortal person their lord.”