The Scriptures use this expression to designate the covenant concluded between God and Israel upon the exodus from Egypt, the covenant of which Moses was the mediator (compare Jer. 31:31–32 and Heb. 8:8–13).173 For most seventeenth-century federalists, the expression “old covenant” referred to the Mosaic covenant;174 however, it also referred to more than that. According to them, the old covenant included the whole Old Testament period, that is, from the fall until the establishment of the new covenant. Federal theology saw the old covenant as being cumulative.
