It is worthy of note that when the Lord enters into covenant with
Abraham by means of a prescribed sacrifice (Gen. 15 : 7-18), it is
said that the Lord “cut a covenant with Abram”; but when the Lord
calls on Abraham to cut a covenant of blood-friendship, by the rite of
circumcision (Gen. 17 : 1-12), the Lord says, for himself, “I will make
[or I will fix] my covenant between me and thee.” In the one case, the
Hebrew word is _karath_ (כָּרַת) “to cut”; in the other, it is _nathan_
(נָתַן) “to give,” or “to fix.” This change goes to show that the idea
of cutting a covenant includes the act of a cutting--of a cutting of
one’s person or the cutting of the substitute victim--as an integral
part of the covenant itself; that a covenant may be made, or fixed,
without a cutting, but that the term “cutting” involves the act of
cutting.
Thus, again, in Jeremiah 34 : 18, there is a two-fold reference to
covenant-cutting; where the Lord reproaches his people for their
faithlessness to their covenant. “And I will give [to destruction] the
men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the
words of the covenant which they made [literally, ‘cut’] before me
[in my sight] when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the
parts thereof.” In this instance, there is in the Hebrew, a pun, as
it were, to give added force to the accusation and reproach. The same
word _’abhar_ (עָבַר) means both “to transgress” and “to pass over”
[or, “between”], so that, freely rendered, the charge here made, is,
that they went through the covenant when they had gone through the
calf; which is another way of saying that they cut their duty when they
claimed to cut a covenant.
The correspondence of cutting the victim of sacrifice, and of cutting
into the flesh of the covenanting parties, in the ceremony of making
blood-brotherhood, or blood-friendship, is well-illustrated in the
interchanging of these methods in the primitive customs of Borneo.[726]
The pig is the more commonly prized victim of sacrifice in Borneo. It
seems, indeed, to be there valued only next after a human victim.
In some cases, blood-brotherhood is made, in Borneo, by “imbibing
each other’s blood.” In other cases, “a pig is brought and placed
between the two [friends] who are to be joined in brotherhood. A
chief addresses an invocation to the gods, and marks with a lighted
brand[727] the pig’s shoulder. The beast is then killed, and after an
exchange of jackets,[728] a sword is thrust into the wound, and the
two [friends] are marked with the blood of the pig.” On one occasion,
when two hostile tribes came together to make a formal covenant of
brotherhood, “the ceremony of killing a pig for each tribe” was the
central feature of the compact; as in the case of two Kayans becoming
one by interchanging their own blood, actually or by a substitute pig.
And it is said of the tribal act of cutting the covenant by cutting the
pig, that “it is thought more fortunate if the animal be severed in two
by one stroke of the parang (half sword, half chopper).” In another
instance, where two tribes entered into a covenant, “a pig was placed
between the representatives of [the] two tribes; who, after calling
down the vengeance of the spirits on those who broke the treaty,
plunged their spears into the animal [‘cutting a covenant’ in that
way], and then exchanged weapons.[729] Drawing their krises, they each
bit the blade of the other [as if ‘drinking the covenant’],[730] and so
completed the affair.” So, again, “if two men who have been at deadly
feud, meet in a house [where the obligations of hospitality restrain
them], they refuse to cast their eyes upon each other till a fowl has
been killed, and the blood sprinkled over them.”
In every case, it is the _blood_ that seals the mutual covenant,
and the “cutting of the covenant” is that cutting which secures the
covenanting, or the inter-uniting, blood. The cutting may be in the
flesh of the covenanting parties; or, again it may be in the flesh of
the substitute victim which is sacrificed.