Troublesome Topic: The Final Consequence of a Broken Covenant

The reason this is mentioned is that they had made their covenant in God’s presence, in His special place (the temple) and using God’s name which assumed they would follow His will. When they did not follow His will, He took it as an offense because of the prior use of His name.

This word “brought back” is a slightly different form of the word that appears at the beginning of this verse (rendered “turned away”) and at the beginning of the previous verse (rendered “turned back or repented”).

The implication here is that declaring someone to be free must be followed by action, i.e. granting them their freedom, and then allowing them to remain free.

God is accusing them of two wrongs, one is that they did not follow the stipulations of His covenant with the people of Israel, and secondly, they did not follow their own covenant which they made with each other saying “we are committed to following God’s covenant.” The second one was intended to hold them fast in their resolve and hold them accountable to one another. But, since their hearts were not right with God, they did not do what they had pledged they would do.

The cutting of the animals from head to tail was such a common part of a covenant ritual that they referred to establishing a covenant as “cutting a covenant.”

The word I have rendered as “deliver over to” is basically one of their words for “give” but it is used with great latitude, meaning that it had a wide range of uses. As is often the case in Hebrew, something is missing here, and context must be used to fill in the blank. In this context it can mean one of two things, which in reality end up being the same thing arrived at from two different angles. It can mean 1) I will give you up/deliver you over to the consequences of violating this covenant, the consequences being that you will be cut in half like the calf used to establish that covenant. The cutting of the animals in the formation of a covenant were intended to proclaim, “If I do not follow the conditions of this covenant, you can do to me what we have done to these animals – cut me in half from head to “tail.” 2) I will give you up/deliver you over to the same fate as the calf which you cut in half. You can see that, as far as the meaning of the words and the structure of the sentence, there are two option, but they both end up with the same result. It is just a matter of which way to say it; one way is shorter, the other takes more words. Most modern English translations opt for wording that follows the shorter option. I have used the shorter option in the translation column on the left, and the longer option in the paraphrase column on the right.

The same verb is used here as in the previous verse. It usually means “to give” but here it means “to give over, to deliver, to hand over.”

Eunuchs were a picture of pure motives because they were men who had their testicles removed. Obviously, there are temptations in life other than sexual ones, but the term is used here of people who should have fewer sinful tendencies than most, but even they turned their backs on God.

The inauguration of a covenant usually involved cutting several animals in half from head to tail and laying those halves on either side of a ditch or depression. Then the participants would walk in the blood and by so doing proclaim, “If I violate this covenant, you may do to me what we have done to these animals.”