On the highest level of blessedness recorded in sacred scripture is God’s individual covenant with Israel’s ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Called the Abrahamic Covenant, in it God blesses Israel’s ancestors with a posterity as numerous as the sands of the sea and as the stars in the heavens—with an endless posterity similar to God’s own: “In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the heavens and as the sand on the seashore” (Genesis 22:17; cf. 26:4; 32:12).
God’s blessing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, however, wasn’t something spontaneous or lacking a backstory. Each of Israel’s ancestors paid a price for attaining this high spiritual stature as God tested their loyalties through a series of intensifying trials. Just as higher and lower spiritual categories of people in the Book of Isaiah illustrate the idea of rebirth or ascent on a ladder to heaven, so in the case of Israel’s ancestors each one’s spiritual ascent was preceded by a temporary descent in which God tested their loyalties.
God tested Abram by commanding him to “Get out of your country and from your kindred and your father’s house to a land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse he who curses you. And in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1–3). In Egypt, Pharaoh took his wife Sarai, and in the Land of Canaan God commanded him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac.
The fact that God restored Sarai to Abram and substituted a ram for Isaac, establishes the pattern that whatever God asks a person to sacrifice, he ultimately restores with blessings greater than before. It also affirms the existence of conditions upon which God blesses a person beyond a saved state to an exalted state. As God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and is no respecter of persons, moreover, he will do for one as he does for another. His tests may be personalized, but their severity will be the same.
In order to become God’s “friend” as was Abraham, for example (Isaiah 41:8: James 2:23), a person must “do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39). To him, God had said, “I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly” (Genesis 17:1–2); “Your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and in your offspring shall all nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:17–18).
The Abrahamic Covenant—God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—became a model for their descendants to measure up to. By keeping God’s commandments on the level of their ancestors, they could inherit the same blessings. God therefore appeals to end-time Israel to return from dispersion among the nations of the world. As God had called Abram to leave the land of his nativity and inherit the Promised Land, so he calls his descendants to covenant with him and inherit new lands of promise:
Isaiah 41:8–10You, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my beloved friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, called from its farthest limits— to you I say, You are my servant; I have accepted you and not rejected you. Be not fearful, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will also succor you and uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 51:1–3Hear me, you followers of righteousness, seekers of Jehovah: Look to the rock from which you were cut, to the quarry out of which you were hewn; look to Abraham your father, to Sarah who bore you. He was but one when I called him, but I blessed him by making him many. For Jehovah is comforting Zion, bringing solace to all her ruins; he is making her wilderness like Eden, her desert as the garden of Jehovah. Joyful rejoicing takes place there, thanksgiving with the voice of song.
Just as God had exiled the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from their promised land for breaking the terms of the covenant he had made with them—the Sinai Covenant—so all who heed his call may renew the covenant with him. Gathering from a dispersed and assimilated condition among the nations of the world, they again learn to keep his commandments that are the terms of his covenant. In that manner may “all the families of the earth be blessed” who participate in Israel’s end-time restoration.
Isaiah 2:2–4In the latter days the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall become established as the head of the mountains; it shall be preeminent among the hills, and all nations will flow to it. Many peoples shall go, saying, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, that we may follow in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and from Jerusalem the word of Jehovah. He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks: nation will not lift the sword against nation, nor will they learn warfare any more.
Reborn as a new nation of God’s people, those who gather to Zion from among the nations reinherit all the blessings of the Sinai Covenant. Individuals among them, on the other hand—those who “do the works of Abraham”—inherit the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. As they make an acceptable sacrifice by offering their whole souls to God’s service in a time of wickedness, God makes individual covenants with them on the model of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and they inherit their blessings.
Isaiah 61:8–9I Jehovah love just dealings — but I abhor extortion in [those who] sacrifice — and I will appoint them a sure reward; I will make with them an eternal covenant. Their offspring shall be renowned among the nations, their posterity in the midst of the peoples; all who see them will acknowledge that they are of the lineage Jehovah has blessed.
Isaiah 66:22As the new heavens and the new earth which I make shall endure before me, says Jehovah, so shall your offspring and name endure.