Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘Covenant’ functions as a charged psycho-theological cipher for the structural relationship between ego and Self, human and divine. The term’s richest elaboration appears in Edinger, who reads the blood-covenant of Exodus 24 as a ritual of psychic unification — the binding of Yahweh and Israel ‘in one blood’ symbolizing the alchemical coniunctio of ego and the transpersonal ground. Jung, in ‘Answer to Job’ and ‘Psychology and Religion,’ treats the covenant less as a devotional fact than as a psychological contract: Yahweh’s rainbow-covenant with Noah reveals a deity who requires an external object — Israel — to confirm his own existence, and who must institutionalize reminders lest he be tempted to violate the agreement himself. Armstrong’s historical-theological reading complicates this further, arguing that the covenant only makes sense against a polytheistic backdrop, since its logic presupposes competing divine options. The tension between covenant as legal contract (ancient Judaism, in Edinger’s Jungian periodization), covenant as love-relationship (Christianity), and covenant as broken promise (the Eighty-ninth Psalm, central to Edinger’s reading of Jung’s ‘Answer to Job’) animates much of the corpus. Hillman’s brief but provocative Kabbalistic gloss — linking the term ‘brith’ (covenant) to circumcision and the rainbow-sign to the divine phallus — opens an eroticized, embodied dimension that challenges purely contractual readings. The concept thus stands at the intersection of obligation, blood-rite, divine self-knowledge, and the evolution of the God-image.
The blood here serves as a kind of glue or binding agent. Half of it is thrown on Yahweh, represented by his altar, and half is thrown on the people. The people are thus united with God ‘in one blood.’
Edinger interprets the Exodus blood-covenant as a symbolic coniunctio in which the ritual act of shared blood enacts the psychological union of ego and Self.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972thesis
he proposed to the patriarch Noah a contract between himself on the one hand, and Noah, his children, and all their animals … he instituted the rainbow as a token of the covenant … reminding him and his people of the contract.
Jung analyzes Yahweh’s covenant with Noah as a self-binding divine contract whose external sign (the rainbow) functions as a mnemonic restraint against Yahweh’s own destructive impulses.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
Ancient Judaism is associated primarily with the image of a legal contract, a covenant. Christianity is largely associated with the idea of a love relationship … Each of these stages corresponds to a different aspect of the ego’s relation to the Self.
Edinger systematizes the covenant as the defining psychological mode of ancient Judaism, representing the ego-Self relation at the stage of contractual obligation prior to the Christian shift toward love.
, The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis
Jung speaks about the covenant that was developed between Yahweh and certain individuals, and how the Eighty-ninth Psalm pictured that covenant as broken … ‘I will not break my covenant, I will not revoke my given word.’
Edinger expounds Jung’s reading of Psalm 89 as a dramatic instance of the broken covenant, where Yahweh’s failure to honor his sworn promise to David forces a crisis in the divine-human relationship.
, Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung’s Answer to Job, 1992thesis
The idea of the covenant tells us that the Israelites were not yet monotheists, since it only made sense in a polytheistic setting. The Israelites … promised, in their covenant, that they would ignore all the other deities and worship him alone.
Armstrong situates the covenant within a polytheistic religious economy, arguing that its logic of exclusive loyalty to Yahweh presupposes a world of competing divine powers rather than monotheistic certainty.
, A History of God, 1993supporting
the term, brith, or covenant, that the rainbow signifies also applies to circumcision. The colors of the rainbow find their concentrated location in the sefirah Yesod, the mystical phallus.
Hillman draws on Kabbalistic sources to reveal the erotic-corporeal dimension of covenant, linking the rainbow-sign, circumcision, and the divine phallus as a single symbolic cluster.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010supporting
for a will to take effect a death must take place … when the first covenant was established, Moses sacrificed calves … When the second and final covenant was established, Christ had to die.
Thielman expounds the typological argument in Hebrews whereby the death required to ratify both the Mosaic and the new covenant establishes a structural parallel that subordinates the former to the latter.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
At least from the perspective of the prophets, however, Israel did not keep the terms of the covenant. Instead of separating itself from the nations as a witness to them of God’s character, Israel participated in the idolatry of the nations.
Thielman articulates the prophetic critique of Israel’s covenant infidelity, showing how violation of the separation commandments constituted the paradigmatic breach of the Mosaic agreement.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
In Exodus 19:3–6 God entered into a covenant with his people based on his gracious rescue of them from slavery in Egypt … If Israel obeyed God’s covenant with them, he said, they would be his ‘treasured possession’ and would be for him ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
Thielman grounds the Pauline concern for the church’s public reputation in the Sinai covenant, where Israel’s distinctive identity as a holy nation was contingent on covenantal obedience.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
God expresses his righteousness when he saves his people from sin and oppression … in faithfulness to his covenant with them.
Thielman links Paul’s concept of divine righteousness directly to covenantal faithfulness, interpreting God’s saving acts as the fulfillment of prior covenant obligations.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
the author draws from the eschatological privileges that his readers will inherit the conclusion that they should be much more faithful … Like their ancestors, they have received a revelation from God … that revelation calls for obedience and includes sanctions against those who disobey.
Thielman traces how Hebrews uses the structural parallel between the old and new covenants — revelation, obligation, and sanctions — to intensify the moral demands on the new covenant community.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
this identification of life under the Mosaic law with slavery probably means that when the Mosaic covenant was in effect, people were under the domination of sin and the penalty of death.
Thielman notes Paul’s implicit equation of the Mosaic covenant’s era with bondage, setting the stage for the new covenant’s liberation as the reversal of that condition.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005aside