When did the covenant with Abraham happen?

Answer 1

The Abrahamic covenant was given to Abraham shortly after he crossed the Euphrates into the land of Canaan in 1943 B.C.

(Genesis 12:5-7) 5 So A′bram took Sar′ai his wife and Lot the son of his brother and all the goods that they had accumulated and the souls whom they had acquired in Ha′ran, and they got on their way out to go to the land of Ca′naan. Finally they came to the land of Ca′naan. 6 And A′bram went on through the land as far as the site of She′chem, near the big trees of Mo′reh; and at that time the Ca′naan·ite was in the land. 7 Jehovah now appeared to A′bram and said: "To your seed I am going to give this land." After that he built an altar there to Jehovah, who had appeared to him.

The math is done this way.

When the Israelites were "delivered" from Egypt, they had spent 430 years dwelling in the land of Canaan. That in 1513 B.C.

(Galatians 3:17) 17 Further, I say this: As to the covenant previously validated by God, the Law that has come into being four hundred and thirty years later does not invalidate it, so as to abolish the promise.

Therefore, the Abrahamic covenant was made in 1943 B.C.

See related link for more information on Biblical Covenants.

Answer 2

Abraham made many covenants with God. The first was when he was baptized which is a covenant. The most important are the covenants made to Abraham by God when he was promised that Christ would come through his line. That Abraham's posterity would receive certain choice lands as an eternal inheritance. All covenants made to Abraham are referred to as The Abrahamic Covenant.

Answer 3

The Bible does not tell us the base years in which various events occurred, but it does tell us how many years elapsed between events, such as the birth of a son, how long a judge ruled over the land or the length of time after one war was won and the next attack took place.

Based on biblical data, the death of Solomon is placed at 928 BCE. By going backwards the forty years of Solomon's reign, we can establish how many years earlier that the Exodus took place, as stated in 1 Kings 6.1, which says "the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel." We can then go backwards the four hundred and thirty years of the sojourn in Egypt (Exodus 12.40) and the genealogical details of the Patriarchs to arrive at a date of birth for Abraham of about 2050 BCE, although that is only an approximate figure and others calculate a value either earlier or later. When the Lord told Abram (his birth name) to leave his father's house, and that he would make of Abram a great nation, Abram already knew that Sarai was barrenm so we can say that, based on the biblical accounts, the covenant between God and Abraham was around 2000 BCE.

All these careful calculations fall in a heap when we examine the Bible more closely:

• Exodus 12.40 tells us that the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years prior to the Exodus, but Genesis 15.13 gives the length of the sojourn in Egypt as 400 years; and in Genesis 15.16, the entire time is only three generations. The genealogy of Moses also does not match either 430 or 400 years, but could match just three short generations.
• The period of 480 years from the Exodus to the fourth year of the reign of King Solomon matches the period of the Exodus, the times associated with each succeeding Judge and then the reigns of Saul and David, until we notice that so many of these periods are exact multiples of the number 20, for example:
  • The Israelites wandered for forty years;
  • The number of years of peace brought about by each of the major judges, or the number of years of his rule, was also in each case a multiple of 20 (20, 40, 80), suggesting that these periods were chosen because they were easy to remember when handing down an oral tradition, rather than because they were historically valid;
  • Even the reigns of Kings David and Solomon were both recorded as exactly 40 years.

  Thus, it is not possible to say that 480 years really elapsed from the Exodus to the time of Solomon. Sociologists say that, even if the biblical Exodus actually did occur, this period is much too long for a kingship to develop.

• The ages of the Patriarchs are artificial, once again suggesting that they were arrived at by numerology, so that if these men really did live they did not live as long as Genesis claims:

1. Abraham lived to 175 (5 X 5 X 7)
2. Isaac lived to 180 (6 X 6 X 5)
3. Jacob lived to 147 (7 X 7 X 3)

From this we find that

• • Each lifespan involves a perfect square (5, 6, then 7 in a numeric series),
  • the third factor also forms a series (7, 5, 3)
  • in each case the sum of the factors is 17.
• Similarly, the lifespans of Joseph, Moses, Joshua and other leading characters in the period between the sojourn in Egypt and the conquest of Canaan are also identifiably based on numerology.

The conclusion must be that a very much shorter period would have elapsed between the time of Abraham and Solomon, if indeed all the characters really did exist. And if God made a covenant with Abraham as described in the Bible, it would necessarily have been closer in time to 1000 BCE than to 2000 BCE.

Answer 4

Tradition holds that it happened around the year 2000 BCE, but no exact date is known.

Answer 5

It happened about 1800 B.C.