There is obviously a world-wide difference between a loving covenant that binds two parties to each other in mutual affection and fidelity, and a series of arbitrary commandments enjoined by a sovereign upon his subjects; between a compact of union, having its statement of promises on the one hand and of responsibilities on the other, and an instrument that asserts the rights of the ruler and defines the duties of the ruled. In our estimate of the Decalogue we have made too much of the _law_ element, and too little of the element of _love_. As a consequence it has not been easy for us to see how it is that God's law is love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But the Ten Commandments _are_ a simple record of God's loving covenant with his people, and they are _not_ the arbitrary commandings of God to his subjects. They indicate the inevitable limits within which God and his people can be in loving union, rather than declare the limits of dutiful obedience on the part of those who would be God's faithful subjects. A close examination of the Decalogue will show that this is its nature and scope. It must be borne in mind, in our Bible reading, that the Bible was originally written by Orientals for Orientals, and that it is to be looked at in the light of Oriental manners and customs, and Oriental modes of speech, in order to its fullest understanding. Hence when we find the term "covenant," or the term "commandment," in the Bible, we are to inquire into the Oriental meaning of that term, so that we may know the sense in which it was employed by the Bible writers. Now a "covenant" among Orientals is, and always has been, a sacred compact binding two parties in loving agreement. Oriental covenants are made in various forms and by various ceremonies. The most sacred of all forms of covenanting in the East is by two persons commingling their own blood, by its drinking or by its inter-transfusing, in order that they may come into a communion of very life.[261] Two persons who wish to become as one in a loving blood-friendship will open each a vein in his own arm, and allow the blood to flow into a common vessel, from which both parties will drink of the commingled blood. Or, again, each person will open a vein in one of his hands, and the bleeding hands will be clasped together so that the blood from the one shall find its way into the veins of the other. Or, yet again, the two will share together the substitute blood of a sacred animal. Usually, in such a case, a written compact is signed by each party and given to the other, with the stamp of the writer's blood upon it as a part of the ceremony of covenanting; and this writing is carefully encased in a small packet or casket, and guarded by its holder as his very life. It is in the light of such customs as this that we are to read of the sacred covenant entered into between God and his Oriental people. [261] See _The Blood Covenant_.