NOTES for Gen 13:1-18
To describe the relationship between God and the human person, biblical authors often use the concept of a union, or, in biblical language, a covenant between God and the human person. The whole Bible can be read as the history of revelation and the history of covenant. The two are inseparable: before such a relationship can become possible, God must make Himself visible to the human person and stretch out His hand. Otherwise there will be no relationship between the human person and God. No one can reach God by his own powers. Neither theological knowledge, nor intuition, nor mystical illumination will help here. The most a person can learn about God is to sense that there is Something about which nothing can be told and which cannot be described, and that this Something at the same time is above everything that exists in the world. Pagans knew of this supreme Principle, and many of them believed that the source of everything around us and the cause of everything that happens around us had to be sought there. But no one in the pagan world ever tried to address this unknown Something with a request or with gratitude: it was too far away, and no relationship with it was possible. The God of Abraham is different: He not only addresses Abraham first, but also establishes with him a firm and lasting relationship without which no union is possible. Of course, for God these relationships are completely open from the very beginning. In making a union with Abraham, in His eternity He already sees not only the whole history of the people of God, but also the birth of Christ, His death on the cross, the Resurrection, and even the return of the Risen One in glory. But what God has conceived in eternity unfolds in time, and therefore His relationship with His people also develops in time. Then the Covenant that is one in God's eternity breaks up in time into many covenants that succeed one another, so that for several centuries commentators and biblical scholars have argued about how many covenants there are in the Bible after all. In fact, should the promise God gave Abraham already in Palestine (vv. 14-17) be considered a confirmation of the earlier covenant, or its renewal? Or is this yet another, a second covenant with Abraham? There is no unambiguous answer to this question. A covenant is a living, developing relationship that grows like a tree. Just as with a tree it is not always easy to determine where the trunk ends and the crown begins, and still less can the two be separated, so in the history of the covenant it is not always easy to determine where one stage ends and another begins. Only at the end of the path, when God's purpose is fully embodied, does everything become clear.