Book of the Covenant & Book of the Law - NCCG.ORG Ning Network Archive 2008-10

Q. What is the difference between the Book of the Covenant and the Book of the law?

Tsiyon radio suggests:

"The Covenant" and "the Law" are not exactly the same, though closely related. The Covenant refers to the Ten Words written on stone tablets by the finger of YHWH. These tablets were kept in the Ark of the Covenant - the 'box' of the Covenant. The words of the Covenant are included as part of the scroll of the Torah (Ex 19+20), translated in some Bibles as "the book of the Law." The scroll of the Torah includes the first five books of the Scriptures as transmitted through Moses. It covers a lot more material than the Tablets of the Covenant only. At the end of his life when Moses had completed the writing of the Torah he told the Levites what needed to be done with that original Torah scroll. Notice this: "It happened, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this Torah in a scroll, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of YHWH, saying, “Take this scroll of the Torah, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of YHWH your God, that it may be there for a witness against you."" Deut 31:24-26 From this we see that the Covenant and the Torah are two different things. The Covenant was kept INSIDE the Ark of the Covenant. The Scroll of the Torah was to be placed OUTSIDE the Ark, next to it, as a witness. Therefore, Torah is not the Covenant - it is a witness to the Covenant.

Now, what is the Book (scroll) of the Covenant?
As I've stated already, Torah includes the words of the Covenant within its larger scope. For that reason it came to be called the Scroll of the Covenant by later generations of Israel. Here is a verse that uses the term: "And the king commanded all the people, saying, Perform a Passover to YHWH your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant." The Covenant doesn't mention Passover. Everything about Passover "is written in" the Torah. The king here is therefore using the phrase "the book of the Covenant" to refer to the Torah, since the Torah includes a witness of the words of the Covenant. (2 Kings 23:21)

What do you think?

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