The Covenant Rituals in Exodus 24:1-11 and the African-Igbo Cultural Concept of Igba-ndu: Their Theological Implications for World Peace

The text of Exod 24:1-11 contains a two-fold ritual ratification of the covenant (Hebrew b^erîṯ, Greek diathēkē), the stipulations of which were given at Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 20:1-17). This ratification is studied here in the context of the African-Igbo cultural concept of Igba-ndu (covenant, which literally means joining lives together). The main focus of the study is to discover the implications that such covenant ideas have towards fostering world peace. The two ratification acts in the text involve a blood ritual and a ritual meal, both of which are not foreign to the African-Igbo concept of Igba-ndu (covenant). In both the Old Testament (OT) understanding of covenant and the African-Igbo concept of it, there is a special relationship established when two persons or two parties enter into it; the persons are now inseparably bonded together. Thus, the ratified Sinai covenant united the ancient people of Israel with God, making them qāhāl, i.e., the assembly or the congregation of God’s people. The implication of the union is that God would be protecting them, and they would be obedient to God. In African-Igbo cultural milieu, when two parties are united through a covenant, it is believed that they cannot harm each other without incurring the retributive or boomerang justice known in Igbo language as Ibenne (literally blood-link, as of siblings of the same mother). In other words, since the same blood now flows in both parties, when one decides to harm the other, he/she invariable harms himself or herself. It is this aspect of the African-Igbo concept of covenant that is relevant for world peace when it is cross-examined with the extended aspect of the OT/Sinai covenant. This extension is found in Jer 31:31-33 in which God says that there would be a new covenant since the Israelites were not faithful to the stipulations of the Sinai covenant. This promised new covenant was eventually made effective in the person of Jesus Christ who, while establishing the Eucharistic sacrament at the Last Supper, announced: “This is a new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25). He was referring ultimately to his sacrificial death for humanity (cf. Heb 9:11-28). So this new covenant is more embracive than the OT Sinai covenant which involved only the ancient people of Israel. The new covenant is for the whole world, hence Jesus told his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (cf. Matt 28:18-20). In other words, through Christ, the whole world has been made the new community, assembly, or family of God. Viewed from African-Igbo idea of covenant as joining lives together, the whole world has been brought into mutual blood relationship through Christ, such that anybody deciding to harm his/her neighbour is ipso facto deciding to harm himself/herself. This idea will help make every human being regard his/her neighbour as a brother or a sister in the extended or large family of God.