Tanhuma Ivalarim 7 Analysis

The covenant between God and his people is one of the most sacred agreements that have ever been made. Similar to John Locke’s ideas about the position of government in relationship to the people it oversees, there is a bipartisan relationship between God and his people. According to the covenant, God will protect his people in exchange for their promise to follow his commandments and worship him. In a perfect world a government is equal parts benevolent and punishing; the people know that if they do not abide by the established laws they will be reprimanded. For the Israelites in Jerusalem, they knew that this was equally true for their relationship to God. Their disempowerment in Tanhuma Devarim 7 is directly related to their belief in the …show more content…
Covenantal ideology underscores this particular excerpt and is the key to understanding the interactions between the two characters: Hadrian and Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai. A covenant is a general obligation concerning two parties. God established a covenant with Israel and gave them commandments in which they lived by to make them his kingdom of priests, a holy nation. The Jewish people made a covenant with God at Mount Sinai in which God would protect the Jewish people in exchange for the Jews to worship and only pray to one deity. Israel has a covenantal responsibility to live by and failure to adhere to the commandments leads to punishment by the …show more content…
It is a prime example of how the relationship of God’s covenant is a direct relation to power dynamic and how there could be different perspectives on how power is gained. This excerpt explained how the Romans believe they derived their success and the cause of why the Jewish people were disenfranchised which led to Roman power. It further showed that the Jewish people are in control of their own destiny and their fate is decided based off of their actions. God made a covenant with the Jews that he would protect them as long as they follow his commandments and worshiped him and no other God; however, failure to abide by these commandments means that God will not protect them from invaders and they will be punished. This proves that the Jewish people are in control of their own destiny and it can be expected that for other texts and the future, when the Jewish people sin, they will face some kind of punishments while if they continue to follow the covenant they will live a prosperous