The Mosaic covenant is named for Moses, as this term refers to the covenant that Moses mediated between God and his people. A distinctive feature of the Mosaic covenant is that it is the first nationalistic covenant in the Tanakh. In order to better understand the Mosaic covenant, we will first look at its predecessors: the Adamic (named for Adam), the Noachic (named for Noah) covenant and the Abrahamic (named for Abraham) covenant, we can better understand the Mosaic covenant.
In the Adamic covenant, God requested that people be fruitful and multiply, allowed humans to take dominion over plants and animals and prohibits that they murder one another (too much!).
In the Noachic covenant, God has decided that people are a mistake and so he wants to rid the world of all animals, including humans. God promises to save Noah's people. He also says he will never smite people or curse them again. Then he also orders humans again to be fruitful and multiply and gives humans permission to eat all the animals that they want. God then also warns that any person who kills another person will pay with his or her own life. The sign of the covenant is a rainbow that God sent down.
In the Abrahamic covenant, God wants to give land to Abram and his people on the condition that these people move to the lands. Abram agrees implicitly by moving to the lands. Miles notes that the text gives us little clue about Abram's mood when he moved. God makes a promise to Abram that he will have many children and that he will have power over other tribes and their lands. As a sign of the covenant, God says that if Abram slices a bunch of animals in half and separates them, a giant flaming sword will come out of the heavens and burn everything up.
God prevents Abram's wife, Sarai, from preventing the covenant to come to pass when Sarai wants to murder the offspring of Abram and Sarai's servant. Later, Abram is promised that he will be the father of a multitude of nations. God demands that the covenant be marked by circumcision. After circumcision and the ratification of the covenant, Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. Abraham's son, Ishmael was circumcised and so were all the other men in the tribe. Later, Abraham has another son, Isaac God applauds Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son to God. After this, Abraham continues to breed many children who later become the tribes of Israel (Jacob).
The Mosaic covenant is described in Exodus. Some of the sons of Israel (Jacob, who was a son of Isaac) came to Egypt as refugees. The Pharaoh is upset because the Israelites are so fertile and so he demands to kill all of the first-born sons of the Israelites. God, in order to fulfill his side of the covenant, destroys the lands of Egypt in order to liberate his people. The Israelites then performed a ritual which transformed into modern Passover. The ritual is a sign of the covenant. This ritual was to mark their doors with blood to make sure that God knew to avoid them when he was doing his smiting. God then first requests to be worshipped.
Next, the Israelites turn into a large army and march across the desert up to the foot of Mount Sinai, a volcano. God warns that if his people get too close to him, he will harm them. Only Moses and Aaron are allowed to be up high and on the mountain to hear what God has to say. This is when God reminds them that he is the one who has been saving their butts. Then he gives a list of duties that he expects his people to obey. After pouring a bunch of blood on the altar and on his people, Moses then passes along the ten orders from God.
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