TO CUT — the ordinary Hebrew idiom for MAKING a covenant is literally to cut one: karat berit, ‘cut a covenant,’ the verb behind ‘made’ at Deuteronomy 5:2–3 for the covenant renewed at Horeb. ⭐ The idiom is not decorative — Genesis 15:18 (already on these pages) uses the identical verb for the covenant Jehovah makes with Abram, in the very chapter where animals are literally cut in half and a flaming torch passes between the pieces (15:17): the verb ‘cut’ preserves, in ordinary legal language, the memory of a ceremony most readers of ‘made a covenant’ would never guess lies underneath it. → first discussed at Deut 5:2