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394 Reuven Firestoneeven peoples who did not trace their kinship from the tribes of Jacob/Israelwere included within the full populace or nation called "Israel" (Exodus 12:38;Deuteronomy 23:8-9). Despite its origin as a label of kinship, the term became thestandard way in Jewish traditional discourse to refer to a religious communitymade up of people from a variety of genealogical or religious histories. 2Divine election and covenantWhile divine election is articulated through the use of technical vocabulary of"chosenness" or "sanctity," the Hebrew Bible also expresses the notion throughthe use of metaphors and symbolic institutions. Perhaps the most ubiquitous andimportant is "covenant" (berft), which although found in relation to a variety of , ·mundane relationships in the Bible/ became a symbolic institution defining theunique relationship between God and Israel. It is based on Israel's trust in God andobedience to God's word and law (Exodus 19:4-6; 20:1-23, 24:7; Deuteronomy5:23; 28:1-69). In its sacred manifestation in late Biblical and post-BiblicalJudaism, it represents a formal, contractual bond between God and Israel thatis everlasting and indissoluble. 4 That is, according to the Bible and to the laterRabbinic tradition of the Talmud and Midrash, even when Israel sins or does notGod in t~e Tomh (Genesis 13:15; 28: 13; 35:12; Exodus 6:8, etc.) to Abmham and his descendantsis referred to as ere0 yisrti 'el- the "land oflsrael" (Ezekiel45:8; 47: 18; 2 Chronicles 22:2, etc.) andin its own declamtion of independence, the modern state commonly called Israel is referred to asmedina/ yisrti 'el- the "State ofisrael."2 In the world of the Hebrew Bible, peoples (or nations) are identified as distinct ethno-linguisticcommunities and defined by kinship, and each had its own god who was in a special relationshipwith it. The deity of the Moabites was Kemiish (Numbers 21 :29), and that of the Ammonites wasMilkiim (I Kings 11:6). The Philistines' god was Dagon (1 SamuelS), those Jiving inTyre had agoddess named Astiiret (2 Kings 23: 13), etc. Kinship or ethnos was the standard means for identifyingcommunities or polities in the ancient Near East, but they were distinct in all the ways justmentioned. Today we might refer to them as polities or "nations," but each had a religious/ethnicassociation with a particular deity which, as the notion of religious identity developed over thecenturies and other ancient Near Eastern religious peoples lost their distinctive identities, came toidentify Israel among some as a religious community. The following studies treat this from a varietyof perspectives: J. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985;D. Edwards, Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews: and Christians in the Greek East, New York:Oxford University Press, 1996; S. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness, Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1999; S. Weitzman, Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence inJewish Antiquity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005; A. Killebrew, Biblical Peoplesand Ethnicity, Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2005.3 Joshua 9:15; I Samuel18:3; I Kings 5:26; 2 Kings 11:4, etc. . ..4 Genesis 17 (especially verses 2 and 7); Exodus 19:1-5; 24:3-8; Leviticus 26:41-45; Deuteronomy: .7:9-11; Isaiah 42:1-6; 49:8, etc. See also, J.A. Thomson, The Ancient Near Eastern Treaties and·the Old Testament, .London: Tyndale Press, 1964; R. Smend, Yahweh War and Tribal Confederation:Reflections on Israel's Earliest History, trans. M. Rogers, Nashville!NY: Abingdon Press,1970; D. McCarthy, Old Testameut: Covenant: A Survey of Current Opinions, Richmond: JohnKnox, 1972; E. Nicholson, God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.Is there a notion of "divine election" in the Qur 'an? 395live up to God's dema,nds, the covenantal relationship is eternal and without end.Individuals or even the community as a whole may be punished, but the covenantmarking the special relationship between God and Israel endures. 5A sign of the unique covenantal relationship between God and Israel is oftengiven through blood, the blood of circumcision, for example (Genesis 17), and theblood of sacrifice at the foot of Mount Sinai when the entire community oflsraelagreed publicly to accept the Torah of commandments required oflsrael (Exodus24). In the latter case, as Moses renews the covenant at Sinai he declares, "This isthe blood of the covenant which the Lord now makes with you concerning allthese commands" (Exodus 24:8). 6 In the Sinai tic rendering of covenant relationship,a book appears in association with covenant (the "Book of the Covenant"sefer or sefer ha-berft in Exodus 24:7), as well as commandments (mi.$V6t)(Exodus 24:4).Another symbolic metaphor is that oflight, through which Isaiah refers to Israelas unique among the nations and a light of hope in a dark world. "I the Lord, inMy grace, have summoned you, and I have grasped you by the hand. I createdyou, and appointed you a covenant people, a light of nations - opening eyesdeprived of light, rescuing prisoners from confinement, from the dungeon thosewho sit in darkness" (Isaiah 42:6-7). Israel is not only chosen by God, but is· understood by Rabb~c tradition also to have deliberately "chosen God" by theirwillingness to observe the divine commandments. 7In all Hebrew Bible references, God's chosen are restricted to Israel. Non­Israelites cannot be a bart of this covenant unless they assimilate into the communityand lose their independent ethno-religious identity. In the Hebrew Bible, theadvantage to belonging to Israel seems to have been limited to being an elitemember of a people protected by the one great God of the universe. No Biblicalreferences suggest that belonging to Israel resulted in an eternal reward, since theHebrew Bible has virtually nothing to say about reward or punishment in an afterlife.Judgment occurs in this life only, and there is no divine pronouncement determiningan individual's fate after death. 8 The notion of a heaven and hell as placesof reward and punishment in the next world seems to have entered the worldviewof Jews only during the late Second Temple Period when the books that would beknown as the Hebrew Bible had become virtually fixed.Exodus 31:16; Leviticus 26:14-45; Deuteronomy 7:9-10; Jeremiah 50:4-5; Psalms 105:7-10(repeated in I Chronicles 16:14-18). Cf. S. Mason, "Eternal Covenant" in the Pentateuch: TheContours of an Elusive Phrase, New York: T & T Clark, 2008.6 See also the enigmatic reference of Exodus 4:24-26.7 Mekhilta bal;zOde§, parshtih A (on Exodus 19:2); Babylonian Talmud I;lagigtih 3a-b; 'AvodtihZtirtih 2b. See also, E. Urbach, The Sages, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987,527-34. .H. Voss-Altman, Sheol: A Study of the Afterlife in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature, Cincinnati:Hebrew Union College Rabbinic Thesis, 1999; P. Johnston, Shade of Sheol: Death and theAfterlife in the Old Testament, Leicester, England: Apollos, 2002; L. Rabinowitz, "Reward andPunishment," EncyclopediaJudaica, Jerusalem: Keter, 1972, 14:134-35.