The article focuses on the poem "Redemption" written by George Herbert. The poem is about the supersession of the old and unobservable covenant of the law by the new covenant of grace, which Christ won for man by his death on the cross. In "Redemption" Herbert develops the theme of the new covenant by resort to the idea of a renegotiated legal contract, using the parable to set the eternal Christian truth into a familiar everyday context. Herbert expected his reader's mind to play around the basic situation of man's life on earth being seen as similar to a tenancy of land. An important element here is a scriptural one, since the idea of a covenant as applying to a leasing of land has some important Old Testament associations.