As these pages are going to press, Dr. Sailer calls my attention to the
phrase לעבר בברית _laʿabhor bibereeth_, to enter, or pass over, into a
covenant. This phrase, as Dr. Driver[704] points out, is found only in
one place, at Deuteronomy 29 : 12. “That thou shouldest enter [or pass]
into the covenant of the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord
thy God maketh with thee this day.”
It is evident that here is the idea of passing over a line or boundary,
or threshold limit, into another region, or state or condition. Until
that threshold is crossed, the person is outside of the covenant with
its privileges and benefits; but when it is crossed, or passed, the
person is a partaker of all that is within.
This word _ʿabhar_ corresponds with, while it differs from, the word
_pasakh_. The two words have, indeed, been counted by some
lexicographers as practically equivalents. Thus Fürst[705] gives
“_pasakh_=_ʿabhar_.” In the covenant which Jehovah makes with Abraham,
for himself and his posterity (Gen. 15 : 1–21), when the heifer and the
she goat and the ram had been slaughtered and divided, and the pieces
laid over against each other as two walls, or sides of a door, with the
blood probably poured out on the earth as a threshold between, “a
smoking furnace and a flaming torch,”–representing the divine
presence–“passed,” or covenant-crossed, the blood on the threshold
“between these pieces,” between these fleshly walls or door-posts of the
sacrifice.[706]
In Jeremiah 34 : 18, the word appears in its twofold signification, in
conjunction with a similar double use of the word _karath_ (“to cut”).
Jehovah says, “I will give the men that have transgressed [_ʿabhar_,
crossed or passed] my covenant, ... which they made [cut] before me when
they cut the calf in twain and passed [over its blood] between the parts
thereof.” Again, in Amos 7 : 8, Jehovah says of his reprobate people, “I
will not again pass by [_ʿabhar_] them [covenant-cross them] any more.”
There seems to be a trace of this cross-over, or pass-over, covenant
idea in the references to the passing through the fire in the worship of
false gods, as at 2 Kings 16 : 3, where King Ahaz is said to have
“walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass
through [_ʿʿabhar_] the fire, according to the abominations of the
heathen.”[707] It is evident that this passing through the fire in honor
of a false god was not the being thrown into the fire as a burnt
offering; for such sacrifices are referred to by themselves, as at
Deuteronomy 12 : 31, where it is said of the people of Jehovah that
“even their sons and their daughters do they burn [_saraph_] in the fire
to their gods.”[708] In the same chapter of 2 Kings (17 : 17, 31) the
two phrases of causing children to “pass through” the fire, and of
“burning” children in the fire, are separately referred to, in
illustration of the fact that they are not one and the same thing.
It has already been shown[709] that jumping across, or being lifted
over, a fire, at the threshold, is an ancient mode of covenanting, still
surviving in many marriage or other customs; and that the blood of both
human and substitute sacrifices has often been poured out at the same
primitive altar.
Under the figure of a marriage covenant Jehovah speaks, in Ezekiel 16 :
8, of entering into a covenant, when he takes the virgin Israel as his
bride: “Yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee,
saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.” Here the more common word
_bo_ is used for the idea of entering; but its connection with the
covenant of marriage would seem to connect it, like the other words,
_pasach_ and _ʿabhar_, with the thought of crossing over the threshold
or barrier into a new state.