Israel's covenant is a sign of God's faithfulness, and if they keep it then He will bless them. If Israel breaks their covenant, it shows that they don't have faith in God.In order to understand how the promise made to Abraham fits into the context of the covenant that God made with him, we need to look at how the Israelite's worked this out in their view of salvation. We find that the two covenants are reconciled by two lines that come together in salvation only. When they come together in salvation, then all of this reasoning falls under the teaching of the refuge theology. The theology of refuge helps us to understand the Old Testament narrative in its proper context, which gives us insight into the psychological state of mind of the Old Testament saints. This theology is found in the worship book, which provides a clear and concise way of thinking about the Old Testament narrative. It is a way of looking at the Old Testament narrative that puts it into its proper context, and so it is used throughout the Old Testament narrative and teaching in the context of the worship book. Here is how it works: by understanding this theology, we can better understand the personal psychology of the Old Testament saint, who is found in their narrative and teaching.God has written a story of His work in history involving the people of Israel. The purpose of God's saving Israel is to make clear that He is the only one who deserves all the glory. How was God able to accomplish this? God was able to accomplish this by working through a remnant of people chosen by grace. If Israel rebels and later gets a letter of divorce from God, that does not mean that God was not successful in saving His people. God was successful in that He worked His works through this remnant to bring salvation to the nations in the line of Christ. God never abandoned His elect. As God is sovereign, His remnant are always secure. This covenant of grace was God's declaration that His people would be faithful because God signed it in His own blood. God was swearing the success of His remnant to His own hurt. How did He accomplish this saving success? So why did God send Israel into exile and scatter them in 70 AD? Because Israel as a nation were unfaithful to God. The nation apostatized. What was the only reason that this did not really effect God's success in His relationship with His elect remnant? It was because God granted them salvation that prevented the remnant from being unfaithful when the rest of the nation apostatized. God gave them a covenant of grace.According to His free grace, God provided salvation to His people. He not only gifted them with the foundation of salvation, but He also went out before them and provided the success from beginning to end in doing all the work necessary for them to be saved unto the end. This is why God went out before them in the wilderness as a fire by night and a cloud by day. This physical relationship of God providing a way for Israel as they traveled to the promise land is a metaphor for God's covenant relationship that He gave to His elect. Just as God went out before Israel in the wilderness, He goes out before His people today, providing a way for us to be saved.So God gave the elect everything they needed to be successful and provided them with the ability to accomplish it by doing the work necessary in advance. They reasoned that all of their success was due to God's grace and they had no ability in themselves to accomplish good. When they called upon God, they gave Him all the glory. The mystery is that, by totally looking away from themselves and relying on God's power, they had more of a personal stake in their success than the unbelievers in the nation.