Starting with the prophet Jeremiah (whose view of his country’s future was so unacceptable to his fellow citizens that they constantly persecuted him and sought to kill him), Dr. Bright deals with the understanding of the pre-exilic prophets of what the future—both immediate and long range—held in store for the people of Israel.
He clarifies how two opposing views regarding the future of Israel (God will always defend his people; God will destroy his people) could have existed within the same religious community.
Though the prophets gave to Israel’s future hope its classical form, they did not originate it. Israel from the beginning exhibited a lively hope for the future, as her earliest literature shows.
Dr. Bright discusses in depth this future hope of early Israel, Yahweh’s election of Mt. Zion and of David, the future in the theology of the eighth-century prophets (the beginnings of eschatology), the prophets of the seventh century (apostasy and reform),
Jeremiah, and the last days of the Kingdom of Judah and beyond.
The book is an expanded version of the Thomas White Currie Lectures. Thoroughly documented with Scripture references and supplied with indexes of Bible references, and of persons and subjects, COVENANT AND PROMISE is a book for ministers and all teachers and students of the Bible, as well as college and seminary courses on the prophets.