Promise Reviver

Origin of God's promises

     

First of all the Word promise was used starting around 1400, as  "a pledge, vow," from Old French promesse "promise, guarantee, assurance"  and directly from Latin promissum "a promise," noun use of neuter past participle of promittere "send forth; let go; foretell; assure beforehand, promise," from pro- "before" (see pro- ) + mittere "to put, send" (see mission ). The ground sense is "declaration made about the future, about some act to be done or not done." . today the meaning of this word is a declaration that something will or will not be done, given, etc., by one: an express assurance on which expectation is to be based: or (when transitive, takes an infinitive) to cause one to expect that in the future one is likely (to be or do something): she promises to be a fine soprano. So if this word is so new what did the people that lived in any of the B.C. year’s use? Thou there are different answers to this question I find Bĕriyth to be the word that gives the best definition for what God sees a promise as.

 

      The word bĕriyth pronounced ber·ēth would be translated into covenant, alliance, or pledge before getting to promise and it is  a binding agreement or arrangement between two parties, whether forced or voluntary, involving obligations, responsibilities or obedience. Because it was made by passing between pieces of freshly killed flesh and blood, the two parties were saying to one another and all present at this ceremony "if i do not do as I am saying let the death on this flesh come on me". The making of one of these is written out in Genesis 15:9-21 with a few differences. As this is the sealing of the Abrahamic Covenant you can go here to read more details on it.

       
       Throughout history of mankind, men have covenanted and made covenants to attempt to insure that the other party would follow through on his word of their agreement. At first most of them were often sealed in blood, but as time went on they became written documents as a majority. The types of man to man covenants that most people know about today are governmental or marriage centered, and the death penalty is all but gone in many countries. 

 

For more information on covenants read some of these book on the subject.