"Adam began serving his penalty for disobedience without an end in sight. He also forfeited the rule he had been authorized to have. "You make him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet" (Ps 8:6). Was God just going to go with the status quo? He judges sin but plans forgiveness. After the flood God told Noah, "'I establish My covenant with you'" (Ge 9:11). God initiates the covenant "'which I am making between Me and you'" (:12). There is even evidence where "'I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth'" (:13). The pattern is "'I will establish My covenant between Me and you'" (Ge 9:11, 17:1, :7, :19). The covenant is also permanent, as with circumcision which will "be in your flesh" (17:13) as an "'everlasting covenant'" (17:7, :13, :19). It is a personally presented obligation as when "God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him" (9:8). "God said to Abram" (15:13) and "on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying" (:18). "The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him" (17:1). All the parties are to fulfill the covenant as God explained, "'Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations'" (:9). There are specific promises as when God told Abram, "'To your descendants I have given this land'" (15:18). God would confirm it to "your descendants . . . to be God to you and to your descendants after you'" (17:7). "You shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations'" (:9). For God's part he said, "'Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him'" (:19). "'I will greatly multiply your descendants'" (16:10). However God also said, "'Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years'" (15:13).
God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage citing, "'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself'" (Ex 19:4). "Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, 'O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom you have brought from the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?" (32:11). God had told them, "'If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine'" (19:5). God initiated it saying, "'This month shall be the beginning of months for you'" (12:2) and "'You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight'" (:6). "'Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it'" (:7). This was reiterated at Mount Sinai when God called to Moses "from the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob'" (19:3) and that "'these are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel'" (:6).