Again the Lord made a new beginning for the race, in his start with Abraham, as the father of a chosen and peculiar people in the world. And again the covenant of blood, or the covenant of strong-friendship as it is still called in the East, was the prominent feature in this beginning. The Apostle James says, that “Abraham ... was called the friend of God.”[439] God himself, speaking through Isaiah, refers to Abraham, as “Abraham my friend”;[440] and Jehoshaphat, in his extremity, calling upon God for help, speaks of “Abraham, thy friend.”[441] And this application of the term “friend” to any human being, in his relations to God, is absolutely unique in the case of Abraham, in all the Old Testament record. Abraham, and only Abraham, was called “the friend of God.”[442] Yet the immediate narrative of Abraham’s relations to God, makes no specific mention of this unique term “friend,” as being then applied to Abraham. It is only as we recognize the primitive rite of blood-friendship in the incidents of that narrative, that we perceive clearly why and how God’s covenant with Abraham was preeminently a covenant of friendship. “I will make[443] my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly,” said the Lord to Abraham.[444] And again, “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee; and to thy seed after thee.... And as for thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou, and thy seed after thee throughout their generations.”[445] And then there came the explanation, how Abraham was to enter into the covenant of blood-friendship with the Lord; so that he might be called “the friend of God.” “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after thee; every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt me and you.”[446] The blood-covenant of friendship shall be consummated by your giving to me of your personal blood at the very source of paternity--“under your girdle”;[447] thereby pledging yourself to me, and pledging, also, to me, those who shall come after you in the line of natural descent. “And my covenant [this covenant of blood-friendship] shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.”[448] So, “in the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised,” and thenceforward he bore in his flesh the evidence that he had entered into the blood-covenant of friendship with the Lord.[449] To this day, indeed, Abraham is designated in all the East, as distinctively, “Khaleel-Allah,” “the Friend of God,” or “Ibrâheem el-Khaleel,” “Abraham the Friend”[450]--the one Friend, of God.