Kejadian 26:5

26:5 All this will come to pass ¹  because Abraham obeyed me ²  and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” ³ 

Keluaran 24:8

24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on ⁴  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant ⁵  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Ulangan 6:17

6:17 Keep his ⁶  commandments very carefully, ⁷  as well as the stipulations and statutes he commanded you to observe.

[26:5]  ¹ tn The words “All this will come to pass” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons.

[26:5]  ² tn Heb “listened to my voice.”

[26:5]  ³ sn My charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. The language of this verse is clearly interpretive, for Abraham did not have all these laws. The terms are legal designations for sections of the Mosaic law and presuppose the existence of the law. Some Rabbinic views actually conclude that Abraham had fulfilled the whole law before it was given (see m. Qiddushin 4:14). Some scholars argue that this story could only have been written after the law was given (C. Westermann, Genesis, 2:424-25). But the simplest explanation is that the narrator (traditionally taken to be Moses the Lawgiver) elaborated on the simple report of Abraham’s obedience by using terms with which the Israelites were familiar. In this way he depicts Abraham as the model of obedience to God’s commands, whose example Israel should follow.

[24:8]  ⁴ tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

[24:8]  ⁵ sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.

[6:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[6:17]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute before the finite verb to emphasize the statement. The imperfect verbal form is used here with an obligatory nuance that can be captured in English through the imperative. Cf. NASB, NRSV “diligently keep (obey NLT).”