ABSTRACT
The Bible offers a series of paradigmatic political covenants that have animated the covenantal perspective in politics since biblical times. The covenant at Sinai is the climax of the Exodus story—one of the world's great stories of national liberation. Told in the Book of Exodus, it has served as a stirring paradigm and inspiration in the popular struggle for freedom, not only for Jews throughout all of Jewish history, but for the entire Bible-reading world. The paradigmatic constitutional covenant is that between God and Israel at Sinai, whose centerpiece is the Decalogue, known in Hebrew as aseret hadibrot engraved on the lukhot habrit. The Bible sees God as having had to establish basic laws for the people prior to the full covenant so that they could live as an organized society once they were out from under the laws of Egypt.
