The Covenant of Abraham – The road to Hell is paved with good intentions

Being best friends with a god is pretty swell, just remember they don’t have the same sense of morality as us poor mortals.

Once upon a time Jehovah had a best friend named Abram. They really were the very bestest of friends. Jehovah liked Abram so much He wrote a song called “You’re My Best Friend.” Several thousand years later Queen stole this song and changed the word “bro” in the third stanza to “girl” to make it sound less gay. Here is a sample of the lyrics:

You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend

One day Jehovah was walking through Canaan with his buddy Abram and decided to give Abram a gift. He said, “You see all the land from Egypt to the Euphrates River? In the far future this land will bear many names, like Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and a few others I can’t think of right now. For now we’ll call it ‘the whole land of Canaan.’ I will make your descendents into a great people who will live in all this land forever. It’s a gift.”

Jehovah continued: “Oh, I’m gonna have to change your name to Abraham because I’m making you into a father of nations and to make sure I always remember to help out your descendants they’re going to have to practice male genital mutilation. Don’t worry about it too much. It’s just a little snip and you can do it right after the boys are born so they aren’t traumatized forever by having some dude play with their junk and a sharp rock.”

This was all great for a while, but a few short millennia later Jehovah got really mad at the “seed” of Abraham. He decided they weren’t worshiping Him enough, so He made Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, completely destroy the Hebrew nation. Those not killed by the Babylonians were taken away from “the whole land of Canaan” and taken to Babylon, effectively reneging on the whole “Covenant of Abraham” thing; too bad, so sad.

Moral: even the great Jehovah will abandon a promise if sufficiently provoked. Don’t dick around with Jesus.

Ref: Genesis 12-17 & Jeremiah 25:8-11