Cutting Covenant

It seems most of my best stories come from the sorting out of key terms – how boring will my job become once we get them all nailed down? I'm kidding.

This afternoon, we were checking through the final verses of Acts 3, when we came upon the word for "covenant." Granted this wasn't our first encounter with this loaded key term (it is used twice in Luke as well as multiple times in the footnotes we included), but when translating it previously, this word caused the Gmz translators surprisingly little trouble. I remember, on at least three occasions, walking through a detailed teaching on what a Biblical covenant involved, including a description of the covenant cutting ceremony. As I explained how the various animals would be slaughtered, cut down the middle and their halves laid out so as to form a gruesome highway down which the covenant-maker would walk, I remember without fail seeing mixed expressions of confusion and interest on my Gmz brothers' faces. Then, finally, after describing the whole procedure by which Hebrews "cut covenant" I concluded, "And why did they do all this? Because the one who walks through the animals, the one who makes the promise is in effect saying, 'If I do not fulfill the words of this covenant, may I be made like one of these halved carcasses I just passed through.'" At this point, all three times I taught it, the collective confusion immediately erupted into chitter chatter. After their attention gradually turned back to me, I received a very short explanation. "We have that in Gmz – we call it gacaha."

Great! Job done! Or so it seems, but any Curious George in my role isn't satisfied with plopping gacaha into the text of Scripture without at least knowing the Gmz background to it. After all, what they agreed upon to be a cultural equivalent may not be all that equivalent after all. Having used the term gacaha now for 11 months and with our publishing of Luke on the horizon, I knew it was time to pursue a deeper explanation. And so seizing the opportunity afforded by Acts 3, asking, "Have you guys ever seen a Gmz make a gacaha?" The surprised scowl which immediately adorned their faces gave me my answer, "Yes, of course, many of them." "So then," I replied, "tell about it…when is it done? How is it done? What does it accomplish?" We all sat back in our chairs as the translators have grown quite accustomed to Travis going on one of his "word tangents."

As the scene unfolded before me, I immediately grew nervous - the connection to the Biblical covenant was nowhere to be found. What is a gacaha? Well, let's say that all of Work'u's cows were stolen (that is a big deal, it is like someone hacking into your bank accounts and milking it dry with no insurance policy to cover your back!). Work'u suspects that it was Janey who stole his cows so he goes to the elders and makes a formal accusation. The elders than call Janey to a tamba, that is, a trial, in which a board of elders present the accusation and hear his defense. Janey, innocent of the crime denies that he stole the cows. Work'u (like the elders) will not accept Janey's denial and will demand proof – they will likely ask for a gacaha. The elders will request that the elements of the gacaha be brought to the tamba meeting place and presented to Janey. These might include any of all of a number of possibilities: wood from a tree struck by lightning, a bullet, a cup of water, the head of a snake, or donkey poop. Whatever was collected would be gathered together in front of Janey and he would be asked to place his hands over them and make a gacaha. What he is in effect saying is, "I am telling the truth when I deny that I stole Work'u's cows, and if I am lying, then may the bad things represented in these elements happen to me this day (or another short period of testing – like one week). If there is wood struck by lightning in the mix, Janey is saying, "If I am lying, let lightning strike me this week." Likewise, the bullet obviously refers to being shot, the water refers to drowning and the head of a snake to being bitten and killed. I was confused by the donkey poop, not sure I wanted to know what "death by donkey poop" would look like. "Oh no, they responded, the donkey poop symbolizes having to walk around pooping like a donkey (followed by a very nice sound effect, bbpt…bbpt…bbpt…bbpt). I'm sure it this refers to diarrhea or constipation or just uncontrollable bowels, but it sounded bad enough that I would want to avoid it.

Now, the key to the success of a gacaha lies in the fact that Gmz people take the spiritual realm very seriously. If Janey did, in fact, steal the cows, there is no way he is going to enter a gacaha saying that he didn't, for he can't lie to the all-seeing spirits, in the same way that we can't lie to the all-seeing God. So, in effect, the truth of Janey's words are seen not at the end of the week when people see that his is still alive, but rather at the point when he is presented the opportunity to entered the gacaha. If he refuses, then he admits to the crime. If he accepts, then he is strengthening his word, strengthening his promise, declaring it to be unquestionably true…and it is here, I believe that the Gmz gacaha and the Biblical covenant find a very important connection. When God cut the covenant with Abraham in Gen 15, he didn't change his promises given in earlier chapters, rather he performed the ceremony to strengthen his word, to affirm the certainty of his promise and it's fulfillment; "I am so serious about blessing you, your decedents and the whole world through you, that I am willing to say, 'If I don't follow through on that, may I be killed without mercy.'" The Gmz gacaha also involves entering into a very risky statement like that, risky that is, if one is not absolutely 100% confident that their word is truth. We praise God, that he, without question, can speak with fullest confidence as he cuts covenant with his people throughout the Biblical narrative – and even with us. His word is truth…PERIOD!