The Covenant That Transformed a People into a Nation

I noticed that in a recent post people thought I was saying (1) that circumcision was an initiation into the covenant or (2) that the tribes ceased to function as tribes after the national covenant of Israel was ratified.  So it seems I haven't been communicating my thoughts very well.  Let's have a do-over.

Today, I wrote something to another commenter which I feel might clarify my position:

"Consider: Was the Abrahamic covenant a national covenant? Or did it foretell/promise a national covenant?

Consider: Israel was an “Am” (kinship group) in Egypt but the tribes did not operate as a collective (nation/goy) until the events of Passover and Sinai. Consider that a nation is what occurs when the constituent institutions (e.g. tribes) operate as a collective. So Israel did not function as an Edah (covenantal republic) until the events of Passover-Sinai (i.e. the national covenant of Israel).

What is the proof for my assertion that Passover-Sinai were part of a single, national covenant? First, the Torah of the national covenant transformed a people into a nation by establishing federal institutions (e.g. representatives from the tribes meeting at the federal level, governing institutions exercising federal authority, etc). Torat Moshe, like no other Torah previously, established the nation of Israel as a political body. Second, the covenantal formulary, the procedure of covenanting, involved not an individual (as in the case of Abraham) but it involved an entire nation, all the people consenting, all the representatives from the tribes consenting. The covenantal formulary shows that this was a covenant being made with an entire people, something that had never occurred previously in the covenantal tradition."

UPDATE:

Here's something I wrote to a commenter on a different blog that also describes this covenantal transformation from People to Nation using Jeremiah 31:


When does Jeremiah 31 say the national covenant with Israel was made? Here’s what it says:

“It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
WHEN I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,”

What was that event when G-d took the People of Israel by the hand to lead them out of Egypt? Was it not Passover? Was that not the betrothal? Was Sinai not the marriage? Jeremiah says:

“I was a husband to them”

And notice that the effect of this covenant was a perpetual Nationhood:

““Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
declares the Lord,
“will Israel ever cease
being a nation before me.”

Only if the Chukim vanish will Israel cease to be a nation. Notice that the Chukim which defined the national institutions was given on Sinai (not before).