A "reward" in the Bible represents something that brings people together, or brings spiritual states together, and binds them. In the Bible, of course -- especially the New Testament -- we're told repeatedly to do what is good and right "without thought of reward." That's because removing the idea of a natural reward lets us be aware of spiritual rewards, which are actually intrinsic to the good that's being done. On a relatively low level, we feel delight in doing something nice and useful for someone else; that delight is a reward. The love that can exist between partners in a committed, loving marriage is a reward. The delight we feel when we truly want what is good and know how to create it is a reward. And ultimately, our conjunction with the Lord and the delight of His love and salvation is the deepest reward of all. These are the things meant when the Bible speaks of "rewards.

Both pledges and sureties indicate an attachment between different spiritual aspects of a person or a church, with one providing a degree of certainty for the other. Pledges and sureties in the Bible are similar ideas; both are ways of providing assurance that a promise will be kept. The difference is that a pledge is generally an object offered as collateral, while surety involves a person taking personal responsibility -- to a degree offering himself as human collateral. The best example of a surety, interestingly, involves Judah, who offered himself as surety for Benjamin so Jacob would let Benjamin accompany Judah and the rest of his brothers to Egypt to buy food, in Genesis 43. In this case Judah represents the desire for good, and Benjamin represents the true ideas that arise from the love of the Lord; the surety means that the desire for good would safeguard those special, holy ideas. The best example of a pledge in in Genesis 38, and involves Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah. She outlived Judah's eldest son, Er, and was by law married to his second son, Onan. Onan also died, and Judah told Tamar to wait until his third son, Shelah, was grown so she could be married to him. When Judah did not follow through, Tamar disguised herself, posed as a prostitute and enticed Judah. In exchange for sex, he offered a young goat, which is a symbol of the conjunction of true love in marriage. As a pledge that the goat would be delivered, she demanded his signet, his cord and his staff -- symbols of external conjunction, without marriage. When she was later found to be pregnant, she offered the pledges as proof that the child was Judah's. He acknowledged his wrong-doing and took her as his own wife. In that case, the pledges, representing external conjunction, were attached to the internal conjunction of marriage, which Tamar had been denied, and served to ensure that she got it.