Covenants vs. Vision

Covenants vs. Vision

I thought about Proverbs 29:18 KJV–“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law happy is he.” You can translate “vision” for prophecy, prophetic insight, and more. You can translate “perish” to become unruly, lawless, without (moral) constraint. I want to stick with “Where there is no vision, the people perish...”(Proverbs 29:18 KJV). I started out thinking that covenants are the bare minimum we are called to do while vision (prophecy) is the larger picture of where God desires to take us. I almost made them into an adversarial role with the “versus” as vision is where we are heading whereas covenants is about present and past agreements.

I changed my mind, and I believe that covenants and vision go hand in hand with each other. I want to use the examples of Caleb and Joshua. 12 “spies” (scouts, tribal leading men) were sent into the promised land. (See Numbers chapters 13 & 14.) 10 out of the 12 spies/scouts brought discouragement to the covenant people of Israel, and they had no faith in God to help them take the land. Caleb stated, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” (Numbers 13:30 NRSV). The spies, other than Joshua (formerly Hoshea), said, “We are not able....” These discouraging, disbelieving tribal leaders focused on the size of the towns and giants among the land rather than the size of their God and His faithfulness to His covenants with them. The Lord God of Israel had brought them out of Egypt in a mighty way (Ex. 7:15-12:36, Ps. 78:12, 42-51), parted the Red Sea (Ex. 14:15-22, Ps. 78:13), drowned Pharoah’s chasing armies (Ex. 15:28-30, Ps. 78:53), guided them to the promised land (Num. 9:18, Ps. 78:14, 52), established the law and covenants through Moses (Ex. 19:1-31:18), fed them with manna and quails (Ex. 16, Num. 11, Ps. 78:23-29) yet they gave into disbelief. All of the scouts were leaders and followed the covenants of God. Only Joshua and Caleb had the vision and faith (Hebrews 11:1–“Assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...”) to take the “big step” that God was calling them to take. Everyone, without the vision/prophetic insight, died in the wilderness including the 10 discouraging spies/ tribal leaders and their followers. “Where there is no vision, the people perish....” literally and figuratively. Caleb remained faithful and young, strong, and healthy–same at 85 as he was at 40 (Joshua 14:11).

In conclusion, I believe that the covenants and vision go together like two hands or even two legs, and one can do more and get further with the two together then with only one by itself. Vision draws us forward into the prophetic promises of God while covenants keeps us grounded in how we are supposed to live out our relationship with God in our daily lives.