In Jeremiah 34 : 18, the word appears in its twofold signification, in conjunction with a similar double use of the word _karath_ (“to cut”). Jehovah says, “I will give the men that have transgressed [_ʿabhar_, crossed or passed] my covenant, ... which they made [cut] before me when they cut the calf in twain and passed [over its blood] between the parts thereof.” Again, in Amos 7 : 8, Jehovah says of his reprobate people, “I will not again pass by [_ʿabhar_] them [covenant-cross them] any more.”
There seems to be a trace of this cross-over, or pass-over, covenant idea in the references to the passing through the fire in the worship of false gods, as at 2 Kings 16 : 3, where King Ahaz is said to have “walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through [_ʿʿabhar_] the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen.”[707] It is evident that this passing through the fire in honor of a false god was not the being thrown into the fire as a burnt offering; for such sacrifices are referred to by themselves, as at Deuteronomy 12 : 31, where it is said of the people of Jehovah that “even their sons and their daughters do they burn [_saraph_] in the fire to their gods.”[708] In the same chapter of 2 Kings (17 : 17, 31) the two phrases of causing children to “pass through” the fire, and of “burning” children in the fire, are separately referred to, in illustration of the fact that they are not one and the same thing.
It has already been shown[709] that jumping across, or being lifted over, a fire, at the threshold, is an ancient mode of covenanting, still surviving in many marriage or other customs; and that the blood of both human and substitute sacrifices has often been poured out at the same primitive altar.
Under the figure of a marriage covenant Jehovah speaks, in Ezekiel 16 : 8, of entering into a covenant, when he takes the virgin Israel as his bride: “Yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.” Here the more common word _bo_ is used for the idea of entering; but its connection with the covenant of marriage would seem to connect it, like the other words, _pasach_ and _ʿabhar_, with the thought of crossing over the threshold or barrier into a new state.