God’s first covenant with mankind was given by him in Genesis 2:16-17, where he commanded man, “eat of any tree in the garden, but of the tree of good and evil…if you eat of it you shall surely die!”
Man broke this covenant. What is a covenant? A covenant is a binding agreement of something significant between two parties. Usually one of the parties is more powerful or has greater control. The shedding of the blood of an innocent animal or the mixing of the blood from each party, called the “cutting of the covenant” binds the agreement. In Abraham’s covenant God split in half several goats, rams and heifers – Genesis 15 – and then passed by the parts as Abraham slept. The initiative lay entirely with God. All Abraham had to do was believe.
In the late 1800’s Dr. Livingston travelled into the heart of Africa to visit various tribes. Several tribes were hostile. Dr. Livingston approached the king of a major tribe and offered a covenant of peace. Both leaders selected representatives to cut a covenant by slitting their wrists, pressing the wounds together, mixing their blood, binding their agreement. Everywhere the Livingston group travelled they showed the “sign of the covenant,” peace was established.
Although not specifically stated in the Word, the Lord God made a second covenant with Adam and Eve by killing two animals, probably lambs or goats, and using their woolly skins to cover Adam and Eve’s new awareness of nakedness and shame. This covenant drew them into fellowship again with the Lord God even though they were removed from the garden. They made lamb offerings to the Lord and taught their children to do so. Eve acknowledged the Lord God Jehovah in having her first child, Cain, in her first recorded prayer. Genesis 4:1.