God's covenant with Israel has been a central theme in understanding the Old Testament from ancient times, but in the last hundred years it has been a particularly prominent issue in critical biblical study. In this book Professor Nicholson argues that, while in some important respects the position today regarding the covenant is much the same as it was for leading scholars a century ago, in other ways the intervening debate has made it possible to see far more clearly just how crucial the covenant idea was in the development of what is distinctive in the faith of Israel.