Religion, as it appears in the ancient world and in the Bible, was never a private or abstract system of ideas. It was the living pattern of belonging to a divine household. The Hebrew Bible presents religion as a social and covenantal reality, where identity, ethics, and destiny are all shaped by participation in a sacred relationship. In that world, the words tzedakah (righteousness), ’amen (faithful trust), and hesed (steadfast love) defined what it meant to live rightly within that covenantal community.

The modern Western understanding of religion as primarily a set of personal beliefs or rituals obscures the ancient sense of religion as a bond of kinship. In the world of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, to be “religious” was to be bound by covenant to a people and to their God. The first function of religion was to create belonging. From that belonging flowed behavior, belief, and ultimately transformation.

In the ancient Near East, the most fundamental human identity was relational. No person stood alone. A human being belonged to a household, a tribe, and a deity. To belong to a household meant to have protection, status, and purpose. The biblical story uses that social model to describe what it means to belong to the LORD.

When God calls Abram in Genesis 12, the command is not simply to have faith in a new doctrine but to leave one kinship network and enter another. “I will make of you a great nation,” the LORD declares. Abram is invited into a divine household that will, in time, become the people of Israel. The same idea appears when Israel is brought out of Egypt. At Sinai, God does not offer a creed but a covenant: “You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples... and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5–6). This covenant is a social and relational charter. It defines belonging.

In Mesopotamian and Hittite political culture, covenants or treaties established the relationship between a suzerain king and his vassals. The vassal promised loyalty and service; the king guaranteed protection and blessing. Israel’s covenant follows that ancient form but changes its meaning. God, not a human king, is the suzerain, and Israel, not a conquered people, is adopted as God’s child. Belonging to this divine covenant family meant learning to live in a new moral order shaped by the character of God.

Belonging, then, is the foundation of biblical religion.

People first join the covenant community, or more precisely, God calls them into community, to belong. Indeed, in Greek the word for “church” ekkelsia means to call out. Only then do God’s people learn and internalize the expectations (instructions/laws) and beliefs of the community.

The covenant defines who they are before it defines what they think. This order of belonging before belief explains why the Hebrew Scriptures speak of Israel as “the people of God” rather than as adherents to a religion. To be chosen is to be claimed, to have one’s identity grounded in divine relationship.

Once belonging is established, the covenant requires behavior consistent with that identity. The Hebrew term tzedakah (צְדָקָה) captures this idea. It is often translated “righteousness,” but in the ancient Hebrew sense it refers to covenantal rightness—living in harmony with God and with others. It describes not moral perfection but relational integrity.

In the wider ancient Near Eastern world, kings were judged by how well they upheld justice, called mīšarum in Akkadian. A good ruler protected the weak, cared for widows and orphans, and ensured fair economic practices. When Israel’s prophets later condemn their kings and priests, they do so using the same vocabulary. Isaiah urges, “Learn to do good; seek justice; correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17). Amos proclaims, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

In these texts, tzedakah is not an abstract moral code but the faithful practice of covenant loyalty. It describes behavior that reflects God’s own character. Because the LORD acts with tzedakah, Israel is called to do the same. The covenant transforms moral action into a form of worship. Every fair judgment, every act of mercy, every defense of the vulnerable becomes an imitation of the divine King.

This understanding of behavior is deeply social. A person’s righteousness cannot exist apart from community. The Torah’s laws about gleaning, Sabbath rest, debt forgiveness, and hospitality are all expressions of tzedakah. They embody a moral economy designed to maintain balance among God’s people. Religion is not merely ritual obedience but the ordering of life toward the good of others.

Modern readers often imagine that belief comes first. Yet in biblical thought, trust is the product of belonging and faithful behavior. The Hebrew root ’aman (אָמַן) means to be firm, reliable, or trustworthy. The familiar word amen comes from this root. When one says “amen,” one affirms, “It is reliable,” or “I stand upon this.”

When Genesis says that Abraham “believed the LORD” (Genesis 15:6), it means that Abraham trusted the divine promise enough to act upon it. The same word appears in Exodus 17:12, where Moses’ hands are “steady” (’emunah) as Israel fights Amalek. Belief, in the biblical sense, is steadfast reliability rather than intellectual assent.

In Greek culture, belief was tied to correct knowledge (orthodoxy). In Hebrew thought, it was tied to loyal relationship (’emunah). The prophets and psalmists praise those who are faithful, who keep trust even when circumstances seem hopeless. Psalm 31:23 says, “The LORD preserves the faithful,” using the same root. Faith is fidelity. To believe is to be trustworthy in one’s covenant commitments.

This relational sense of belief makes sense only within the social structure of covenant. The individual does not generate belief in isolation. Trust arises through participation in a trustworthy community and through repeated experiences of God’s reliability. Israel’s festivals, stories, and laws were designed to rehearse those experiences. Every Passover, every Sabbath, every psalm of remembrance strengthened the people’s shared ’amen—their confidence that the LORD remains faithful.

Belonging, behavior, and belief are not static categories. They aim toward transformation. The ultimate purpose of religion in the ancient biblical sense is to shape what human beings become. From the first chapter of Genesis, humanity is described as created in the tselem (image) of God. In the ancient Near East, the term “image of god” was a royal title. Kings were considered the earthly representatives of their gods, charged with maintaining order and justice.

The biblical story extends that royal image to all humanity. Every person, not just kings, bears divine likeness and vocation. The covenant with Israel reaffirms this purpose. By belonging to God, by practicing tzedakah, and by living in ’amen, the people are gradually formed into what they were created to be—living reflections of divine character.

The prophets envision this transformation not as escape from the world but as renewal within it. Ezekiel imagines a day when God will give his people a new heart and spirit so that they may walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Jeremiah promises a new covenant written upon the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). The covenant community thus becomes the means by which God restores humanity to its true image-bearing vocation.

This process of becoming is deeply communal. Israel’s collective obedience and repentance affect the nation’s destiny. When individuals act righteously, they strengthen the covenant body; when they act unjustly, they fracture it. Religion, therefore, serves as the moral and spiritual ecosystem through which human beings grow into maturity before God.

Nephite prophets repeatedly teach that true faith is a matter of loyalty and trust rather than intellectual certainty. Alma’s invitation to experiment upon the word (Alma 32) parallels the Hebrew idea of ’amen as reliability tested through lived experience. Likewise, the Book of Mormon defines righteousness in terms of justice and mercy—concepts that match tzedakah and hesed. In Alma 41, the law of restoration affirms that actions shape being: “That which ye do send out shall return unto you again” (verse 15).

The Book of Mormon thus participates in the same ancient framework. It sees religion as covenant belonging that transforms character through loyal love and faithful action. Its vision of discipleship is the ancient biblical vision renewed.

The ancient purpose of religion is not simply to explain the universe or to manage divine favor. It is to restore relationship—to knit human beings back into harmony with God, community, and creation. In the covenant model, belonging gives life its context, behavior gives it moral shape, belief gives it stability, and becoming gives it fulfillment.

The Hebrew Bible’s story begins with humanity’s exile from divine presence and ends with the hope of return. That movement from alienation to belonging defines the journey of faith. Religion, understood through the lens of ancient covenant culture, is the ongoing practice of returning to right relationship. It is a lived participation in divine life, sustained by hesed, expressed in tzedakah, and grounded in ’amen.

To belong is to begin. To act justly is to live faithfully. To trust is to endure. To become is to mirror the life of God in the world.

—Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.
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