What was the meaning of the blood covenant?
The procedure for making a blood covenant can be found in Genesis 15:9,10. He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. The significance of this “cutting” of this covenant is found in Jeremiah 34:18. “The men who violated my covenant, who did not lift up my words of the covenant which they cut before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut into two and passed between.” When two parties wished to make a blood covenant they take the animal, cut the animal into two pieces. The two parties would then walk between the two pieces saying “I will do the terms of this covenant, if I do not, you may do to me what we did to this animal.” A common covenental phrase found in the Hebrew Bible is “make a covenant.” The Hebrew word for “make” is “carat” meaning “cut.” The Hebr
