What is the Old Covenants?

What Covenant did God make with Israel?

Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. (Exod 19:4-6)
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. (Lev 18:5)
And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: (Deut 28:13)
And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. (Gal 3:12)
The terms were simple. If they would obey Jehovah, he would be their God and they would be his special people. He would protect them and grant them prosperity and long life.
WHAT WAS AT THE HEART OF THIS COVENANT?
And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. (Deut 4:12-13)
And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (Exod 34:27)
And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. (Exod 34:28)
The law - especially the 10 commandments - was at the heart of the covenant made with Israel. The law itself was referred to as “the covenant.”
WHAT ASPECT OF THE LAW WAS INVOLVED IN THIS COVENANT?
But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? (2Cor 3:7-8)
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. (2Cor 3:6)
The written form of the law, referred to as “the letter,” - the ten commandments
WAS THIS COVENANT MADE WITH ANYONE ELSE?
And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. (Deut 5:1-3)
The Sinai covenant was made exclusively with the Hebrews. It was not made with anyone else either before (not Abraham, Isaac, Noah, Enoch etc.) or after.
WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH THAT COVENANT?
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (Rom 7:14-20)
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Rom 3:10-12)
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: (Heb 8:7-8)
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Rom 8:3)
It was impossible for the descendants of Adam to fulfill the requirements of the covenant.
WHY DID GOD MAKE THIS UNWORKABLE COVENANT WITH ISRAEL?
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. (Gal 3:24-25)
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. (Gal 3:23)
Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Rom 5:20)
WHAT IS THE FRUIT OF THE SINAI COVENANT?
For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God. (Heb 7:19)
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. (Gal 4:24-25)
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal 4:3-5)
It gendered a relationship of master and slaves between God and his people.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE SINAI COVENANT?
For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. (Heb 8:8-9)
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. (Luke 16:16)
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. (Heb 7:12)
And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. (2Cor 3:13-14)
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. (Heb 8:13)
The Sinai covenant has been made obsolete, it has been abolished, it is now referred to as “The Old Covenant.”
WHAT COVENANT IS IN PLACE TODAY?
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (Heb 8:10)
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. (Rom 7:6)
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. (2Cor 3:6)
The new covenant is based on the life of Christ within, Christ governing on the inside - the spirit - not the written law governing from the outside, - the letter.

(Source: Restoration Ministry)