The Covenant (poem)

by William Cowper
(Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25-28)


The Lord proclaims His grace abroad!
“Behold, I change your hearts of stone;
Each shall renounce his idol-god,
And serve, henceforth, the Lord alone.


“My grace, a flowing stream, proceeds
To wash your filthiness away;
Ye shall abhor your former deeds,
And learn my statutes to obey.


“My truth the great design ensures,
I give myself away to you;
You shall be mine, I will be yours,
Your God unalterably true.


“Yet not unsought or unimplored,
The plenteous grace I shall confer;
No — your whole hearts shall seek the Lord,
I’ll put a praying spirit there.


“From the first breath of life divine
Down to the last expiring hour,
The gracious work shall all be mine,
Begun and ended in my power.”

Day 41

V From the Exodus to the Crossing into Canaan - 1462-1422 B.C. ~ cont.

(1462 - 982 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1)

B. Time spent at Sinai (sometimes called Horeb) ~ cont.

8. Tabernacle built

a. Materials given by people - Exodus 35:4-29; 36:1-7
b. Tabernacle items
Ark - Exodus 37:1-9
Table of Shewbread - Exodus 37:10-16
Golden Candlestick - Exodus 37:17-24
Curtains of Linen - Exodus 36:8-13
Curtains of Goats Hair - Exodus 36:14-18
Covering of Rams' Skins - Exodus 36:19
Boards and Sockets - Exodus 36:20-30
Outside Bar - Exodus 36:31-32
Middle Bar - Exodus 36:33
Overlay of God - Exodus 36:34
Inner Vail - Exodus 36:35-36
Outer Vail - Exodus 36:37-38
Brazen Altar - Exodus 38:1-6

{pages 179-183}

For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.  (Exodus 36:7)

My note on the verse?  Is there an overabundance in the house of the Lord now?

K&D:  “And there was enough (דַּיָּם their sufficiency, i.e., the requisite supply for the different things to be made) of the property for every work to make it, and over” (lit., and to leave some over). By this liberal contribution of freewill gifts, for the work commanded by the Lord, the people proved their willingness to uphold their covenant relationship with Jehovah their God.

I like the encouragement "willingness to uphold their covenant relationship."  We have a better covenant.

Heb 8:6  But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

Heb 8:7  For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

Heb 8:8  For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 

Heb 8:9  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 

Heb 8:10  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Heb 8:11  And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

Heb 8:12  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. 

Heb 8:13  In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. 

I was going to grab only the part about a better covenant, however, I found all of it encouraging.  I especially needed to hear:  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.

Back to the abundance of giving thought:

2Co 9:7  Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

Convicted in how I am not willing to give ALL to Him.  Wanting to hold back parts, pieces, thoughts, rather than laying it all before Him.  Allowing Him to do what HE will with the vessel that HE has redeemed for HIS own.

1Co 6:20  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Day 35

V From the Exodus to the Crossing into Canaan - 1462-1422 B.C. ~ cont.

(1462 - 982 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1)

B. Time spent at Sinai (sometimes called Horeb) ~ cont.
f. Various laws given ~ cont.

(4) Laws involving others - Exodus 22:16-31; 23:1-9
(5)  Land and the Sabbath - Exodus 23:10-13
(6) Three national feasts - Exodus 23:14-19
2. God's covenant with Israel
a. Future conquest - Exodus 23:20-33
b. Altar built - Exodus 24:3-8
3. Moses goes to mount (Trip 5) - Exodus 24:1-2, 9-15
a. After 7 days instruction begins - Exodus 24:16-18
b. Tabernacle items
Materials - Exodus 25:1-9
Ark - Exodus 25:10-22
Table of shewbread - Exodus 25:23-30; Leviticus 24:5-9

{pages 151-156}

And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.  (Exodus 24:8)

Literally?  Sprinkled blood on the people?

Gill - and sprinkled it on the people; not on the whole body of the people, who could not be brought nigh enough, and were too numerous to be all sprinkled with it; though the apostle so expresses it, a part being put for the whole, Heb_9:19 either this was sprinkled on the young men that offered the sacrifices in the name of all the people; or on the seventy elders, as the heads of them, so Aben Ezra; or upon the twelve pillars, which answered to the twelve tribes, and represented them as the altar did the Lord.

Nadab and Abihu - sons of Aaron and Elisheba.

Nadab - H5070 - From H5068; liberal; Nadab, the name of four Israelites.

• H5068 - A primitive root; to impel; hence to volunteer (as a soldier), to present spontaneously.

Abihu - H30 - From H1 and H1931; father (that is worshipper) of Him (that is God); Abihu, a son of Aaron.

Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.  (Exodus 24:9-10)

Father, knowing all, prepared Nadab and Abihu for the service of the tabernacle.  Designating what they would wear, eat, who they could marry, etc.  He laid out their future, all the while knowing that they would be destroyed for offering strange fire.  Some are vessels of honor and others of dishonor, all are in HIS hand.

2Ti 2:20  But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.

O' Lord, let the thoughts of our minds and the meditations of our hearts be solely on knowing You more intimately, day by day.  Let the manifestation of who we are be an accurate representation of You and Your glory.

And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.  (Exodus 24:18)

Fasting...nourished on the Word of God only.  Our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus had a similar experience:

Mat 4:2  And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.

forty = trials, probation and testings.  For a list of numbers and their biblical meanings, try this site.

I made a notation that Moses only substance in 40 days was the Word of the Lord.  Fasting is not something I have studied out sufficiently.  A web search using the word 'fasting' brought up 1 wikipedia article, 2 for weight loss and one on fasting and prayer.

Biblical fasting brought up several articles - I have not yet browsed these, but will save them for later:  Biblical Fasting and a Study on Biblical Fasting.  Both look interesting and worth the time and effort to 'sift' through.

May Father richly bless those who desire to know Him more intimately by spending time in HIS word.

Day 345

(D) Book of Hebrews ~ cont.
2. Way of faith better than way of law
a. New Covenant superior - Hebrews 8:6-13; 9:1-28; 10:1-18
b. True worship - Hebrews 10:19-25
c. Rejection of Christ is fatal - Hebrews 10:26-39
d. Superiority of faith - Hebrews 11:1-40

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.  (Hebrews 8:12)

Remember versus forget.  Hmmm.  Word search on forget - translated as such 54x in 51 verses.  Evenly divided between Hebrew and Greek with 4 of each.

H4519 - From H5382; causing to forget; Menashsheh, a grandson of jacob, also the tribe descendant from him, and its territory.

H5382 - A primitive root; to forget; figuratively, to neglect; causatively, to remit, remove.

H7911 - A primitive root; to mislay, that is, to be oblivious of, from want of memory or attention.

H7913 - From H7911; oblivious: - forget.

G1585 - Middle voice from G1537 and G2990; to be utterly oblivious of: - forget.

G1950 - Middle voice from G1909 and G2990; to lose out of mind; by implication to neglect: - (be) forget (-ful of).

G2983 - A prolonged form of a primary verb, which is used only as an alternate in certain tenses; to take (in very many applications, literally and figuratively [probably objective or active, to get hold of; whereas G1209 is rather subjective or passive, to have offered to one; while G138 is more violent, to seize or remove]).

G3024 - From G2990; forgetfulness: - + forget.

This is the only verse I found (thus far) which would seem to indicate God forgetting:

Jer 23:39  Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence:

Forget (5382) double reference to 5382 (which is to remove). This is not a forget, like oops, I ceased to remember something.  God can not forget - that would deny His very being.  The essence of His character is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, HE is all, He can not forget.  He can choose to not remember, which is mentioned in the verse I used at the beginning.  When forgiving someone, we may remember the offense, but can make a conscious choice to not remember.

2Co 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Remember - Used 148x in 144 verses - that is a bit much for me to read through right now.  Think I will focus on the word used in the Hebrew passage above.  :-)  Interestingly when I searched the E-Sword dictionary, the word remember has 8 entries as well.  Two for the Hebrew and 6 for the Greek (another study for a future date).

G3415 - Middle voice of a derivative of G3306 or perhaps of the base of G3145 (through the idea of fixture in the mind or of mental grasp); to bear in mind, that is, recollect; by implication to reward or punish: - be mindful, remember, come (have) in remembrance. Compare G3403.

Father, help us to remember Your word, to mediate upon it and hide it within our hearts.  Help us Lord, to seek after knowing and internalizing Your Word that we may have an abundant flow of life giving words and wisdom to guide us as we trod this narrow path and to encourage our fellow travelers.


Isa 26:3  Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.