Covenant

Covenant may refer to:

Law

Religion

Solemn League and Covenant

The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians in 1643 during the First English Civil War. On 17 August 1643 the Church of Scotland (the Kirk) accepted it and on 25 September 1643 so did the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly. General assent was obtained for the Solemn League and Covenant throughout Scotland and England by allowing the populace to sign it.

English Parliament (First Civil War)

The Protestant leaders of the embattled English parliament, faced with the threat of Irish Catholic troops joining with the Royalist army, requested the aid of the Scots. The Presbyterian Covenanters promised their aid against the 'papists', on condition that the Scottish system of church government was adopted in England. This was acceptable to the majority of the English Long Parliament, as many of them were presbyterians, while others preferred allying with the Scots to losing the Civil War.

The Covenant (novel)

The Covenant is a historical novel by American author James A. Michener, published in 1980.

Plot summary

The novel is set in South Africa, home to five distinct populations: Bantu (native Black tribes), Coloured (the result of generations of racial mixture between persons of European descent and the indigenous occupants of South Africa along with slaves brought in from Angola, Indonesia, India, Madagascar and the east Coast of Africa), British, Afrikaner, and Indian, Chinese, and other foreign workers. The novel traces the history, interaction, and conflicts between these populations, from prehistoric times up to the 1970s.

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant (Hebrew: אָרוֹן הַבְּרִית‎ ʾĀrôn Habbərît, modern pron. Aron haBrit), also known as the Ark of the Testimony, was a wooden chest clad with gold containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments as well as, according to various texts within the Hebrew Bible, Aaron's rod and a pot of manna.

The biblical account relates that, approximately one year after the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was created according to the pattern given to Moses by God when the Israelites were encamped at the foot of biblical Mount Sinai. Thereafter, the gold-plated acacia chest was carried by its staves while en route by the Levites approximately 2,000 cubits (approximately 800 meters or 2,600 feet) in advance of the people when on the march or before the Israelite army, the host of fighting men. When the Ark was borne by Levites into the bed of the Jordan River, the waters parted as God had parted the waters of the Red Sea, opening a pathway for the entire host to pass. The walls of the city of Jericho were shaken to the ground with no more than a shout from the army after the Ark of the Covenant was paraded around them for seven days by Levites accompanied by seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns. When carried, the Ark was always hidden under a large veil made of skins and blue cloth, always carefully concealed, even from the eyes of the priests and the Levites who carried it. God was said to have spoken with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover. When at rest the tabernacle was reared up and the holy Ark was placed under the veil of the covering the staves of it crossing the middle side bars to hold it up off the ground.