When a Jewish child is circumcised, it is commonly said of him, that he is caused “to enter into the covenant of Abraham”; and, his god-father, or sponsor, is called _Baal-bereeth_,[451] “Master of the covenant.”[452] Moreover, even down to modern times, the rite of circumcision has included a recognition, however unconscious, of the primitive blood-friendship rite, by the custom of the ecclesiastical operator, as God’s representative, receiving into his mouth, and thereby being made a partaker of, the blood mingled with wine, according to the method described among the Orientals, in the rite of blood-friendship, from the earliest days of history.[453] It is a peculiarity of the primitive compact of blood-friendship, that he who would enter into it must be ready to make a complete surrender of himself, in loving trust, to him with whom he covenants. He must, in fact, so love and trust, as to be willing to merge his separate individuality, in the dual personality of which he becomes an integral part. Only he who believes in another unreservedly and fearlessly, can take such a step intelligently. The record concerning Abraham stands: “He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.”[454] The Hebrew word, _heëmeen_ (הֶאֱמִין) here translated “believed in,” carries the idea of an unqualified committal of self to another. It is from the root _aman_ (אָמַן) with the two-fold idea of “to be faithful” and “to trust.”[455] Its correspondent in the Arabic, (_amana_, امن) carries the same double idea, of a confident and an entire committal of self to another, in trust and in trustworthiness.[456] Lane’s definition[457] of the substantive from this root is: “The becoming true to the trust, with respect to which God has confided in one, by a firm believing of the heart.”[458] Abraham so trusted the Lord, that he was ready to commit himself to the Lord, as in the rite of blood-friendship. Therefore the Lord counted Abraham’s spirit of loving and longing trust, as the equivalent of a spiritual likeness with himself; and the Lord received Abraham, by his circumcision, into the covenant of blood-friendship.[459] Or, as the Apostle James states it: “Abraham believed [in] God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.”[460] Here is the doctrine of “imputation,” with real life in it; in lieu of a hard commercial transaction, as some have viewed it.