Kings and Priests, and Blood Covenanting, Part 3

​Last week we saw that blood in the Bible was a representation of life. This week we’ll consider another aspect of blood used in God’s covenants. That other aspect is that blood is used in covenant making to create a relationship in an unbreakable bond of brothers or friends.

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Covenants and the Bonding of Friends and Brothers
Another aspect of blood in God’s covenants is the creation of an indissoluble compact between individuals. We first see the indissoluble and everlasting nature of the Abrahamic covenant between God and Abraham when Abraham divides animals in half and it is only God who walks between the two halves with blood – Genesis 15.  We can say that it was only God making a covenant with Abraham because we see the same smoke and fire imagery for God's presence that we see at Sinai – Exodus 19:18. And then later Abraham is called the friend of God.  
 
“But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” – Isaiah 41:8
 
The Hebrew word translated here into friend is the Hebrew word for love – so literally it could read “my beloved” – אֹהֲבִי. The use of this word could even mean an even closer relationship than a mere friend – perhaps brother – a joint-heir – Matt.12:50. We see the same Hebrew word used at 2 Chronicles 20:7.
 
This blood covenanting and enduring relationship is perpetuated with Abraham’s posterity with the practice of circumcision. Gentiles are adopted or graphed-in into Abraham’s posterity when they accept the Abrahamic covenant and are circumcised.
 
Furthermore, it is Yeshua/Jesus that admonishes us to be like Abraham by doing the works of Abraham – John 8:39.
 
We also see at Sinai with God establishing a close relationship with Israel with the sprinkling of blood – Exodus 24. Here Yehovah portraits this relationship as a marriage between Israel and Himself – Jeremiah 31:32.
 
 
Covenant Brothers: An Ancient Semitic Rite
We’ll begin our review of Dr. Trumbull’s book on The Blood Covenant with looking at his discussion on page 4 – An Ancient Semitic Rite. In the opening paragraph he states –
 
“One of these primitive rites, which is deserving of more attention than it has yet received, as throwing light on many important phases of Bible teaching, is the rite of blood-covenanting: a form of mutual covenanting, by which two persons enter into the closest, the most enduring, and the most sacred of compacts, as friends and brothers, or as more than brothers, through the inter-commingling of their blood, by means of its mutual tasting, or of its inter-transfusion.”
 
We can see here that the element of blood in covenanting is the primary focus of establishing this covenant relationship.
 
In a Syrian practice of the rite, Dr. Trumbull states –
 
“The compact thus made, is called, M’âhadat ed-Dam (معاهدة الدم), the “Covenant of Blood.” The two persons thus conjoined, are, Akhwat el-M’âhadah (اخوة المعاهدة), “Brothers of the Covenant.” The rite itself is recognized, in Syria, as one of the very old customs of the land, as ’âdah qadeemeh (عادة قديمة) “a primitive rite.” – P. 6
 
“This covenant is commonly between two persons of the same religion—Muhammadans, Druzes, or Nazarenes; yet it has been known between two persons of different religions; and in such a case it would be held as a closer tie than that of birth or sect. He who has entered into this compact with another, counts himself the possessor of a double life; for his friend, whose blood he has shared, is ready to lay down his life with him, or for him.” – P. 7
 
“There are, indeed, various evidences that the tie of blood-covenanting is reckoned, in the East, even a closer tie than that of natural descent; that a “friend” by this tie is nearer and is dearer, “sticketh closer,” than a “brother” by birth. We, in the West, are accustomed to say, that “blood is thicker than water”; but the Arabs have the idea that blood is thicker than milk, than a mother’s milk. With them, any two children nourished at the same breast are called “milk-brothers,”[9] or “sucking brothers”;[10] and the tie between such is very strong. But, the Arabs hold that brothers in the covenant of blood are closer than brothers at a common breast; that those who have tasted each other’s blood are in a surer covenant than those who have tasted the same milk together; that “blood-lickers,”[11] as the blood-brothers are sometimes called, are more truly one, than “milk-brothers,” or “sucking brothers”; that, indeed, blood is thicker than milk, as well as thicker than water.” – P. 10,11
 
“This distinction it is which seems to be referred to in a citation from the Arabic poet El A’asha, by the Arabic lexicographer Qamus, which has been a puzzle to Lane, and Freytag, and others.[12] Lane’s translation of the passage is: “Two foster-brothers by the sucking of the breast of one mother, swore together by dark blood, into which they dipped their hands, that they should not ever become separated.” In other words, two milk-brothers became blood-brothers, by interlocking their hands under their own blood, in the covenant of blood friendship. They had been closely inter-linked before; now they were as one; for blood is thicker than milk. The oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same blood, by its inter-transfusion, is rightly deemed, by the Arabs, completer than the oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same milk; or even than that which comes through having blood from a common source, by natural descent.” – P. 11,12
 
We see this type of blood-covenanting with the emblems of the Messiah/Christs sacrifice of the taking in of bread and wine.
 
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Common Blood Forms
Another concept we see in the Bible are substitutions for blood and life with a single common form. We see this substitution with animal blood, salt, and wine. Dr. Trumbull in his book on The Salt Covenant states –
 
“As I have come to see it, as a result of my researches, the very idea of a "covenant" in primitive thought is a union of being, or of persons, in a common life, with the approval of God, or of the gods. This was primarily a sharing of blood, which is life, between two persons, through a rite which had the sanction of him who is the source of all life. In this sense "blood brotherhood" and the "threshold covenant" are but different forms of one and the same covenant. The blood of animals shared in a common sacrifice is counted as the blood which makes two one in a sacred covenant. Wine as "the blood of the grape" stands for the blood which is the life of all flesh; hence the sharing of wine stands for the sharing of blood or life. So, again, salt represents blood, or life, and the covenant of salt is simply another form of the one blood covenant.” – The Salt Covenant, Preface
 
We can also see that a Name in the Bible can form the basis of a covenant. Indeed, we see this by declaring an act “in the name of” and “taking upon us a name”
 
“Similarly the sharing of a common name, especially of the name of God, or of a god, is the claim of a divinely sanctioned covenant between those who bear it. It is another mode of claiming to be in the one vital covenant.”  – The Salt Covenant, Preface
 
 
Blood Covenanting and Oneness with God
What we should see in this discussion of the concept of blood is the coming into a oneness with God, whether God uses the blood of animals, salt, wine, or a name. We see this oneness begin in Genesis with the blood from animals and then comes into its fullness with Yeshua/Christ’s sacrifice. And His institution of a sacrament of bread and wine, symbolizing His body and blood.

Blood Covenanting and Increasing Oneness with God ​>>>

Messianic Covenant	Threshold Covenant ​(kingship)	Abrahamic Covenant	Priesthood ​Covenant (Priesthood)	Sinai Covenant	Davidic Covenant	Enochic Covenant (Sealing Power)
Name and Wine	Animal Blood	Circumcision - Animal Blood	Salt	Animal Blood	Salt	Salt
All Israel-Zion	Fathers- Israel-Zion	Fathers- Israel-Zion	Fathers- Israel-Zion	Families/​All Israel-Zion	Son/Servants/Daughters	Angels/Joint Heirs

Table Key: Top Row-Covenants of God. Second Row-Common Blood Covenant Type. Third Row-Who is in Covenant based on Isaiah's categories.


Fathers as Kings and Priests
As you can see, it is fathers who bears the greatest responsibility as a king and priest to establish an enduring relationship with God, and to help those to realize a relationship with God under his stewardship.

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Next week we'll get back to publishing on Thursdays.