Anyone who has ever borrowed money from a bank to buy a house, a car, an education, or for some other large financial need, knows what a contract is. In contracts we write down the terms of our agreement. One party agrees to provide something to the other party. The receiving party agrees to compensate the supplier by paying them not only for the funding, but also for taking the risk that they might never be repaid. If you’ve ever tried to renegotiate such a contract, you know that it is almost impossible. Once the terms have been agreed to and the legal documents signed, it may as well have been chiseled in stone.

That’s the picture Paul gives here when he says no one sets a covenant aside or adds new conditions to it. Covenants are unbreakable agreements, and the ancients generally sealed the most important covenants with blood. To break a covenant was to forfeit life.