How does covenant situate a Jewish conception of authority, and how does that alternative conception transform how we understand the role of dissent in democratic practice? This project recovers Judaism’s covenantal tradition as an alternative conception of authority as a uniquely Jewish – and theological – contribution to political theory. Recovering “covenantal authority,” brings together the texts that render covenant a productive political theoretical concept with its long resonance in Jewish thought, showing how “covenantal authority,” beyond the early-modern period, can clarify, nuance, and animate how we think about dissent and disobedience, and their relationship to the social contract tradition. Moreover, covenantal authority is a provocation to think about how our democratic practices would change with a different conception of authority at their center. Using rigorous interpretation of the Jewish sacred texts with and against more familiar works of political theory, covenantal authority emerges as.a Jewish response to the “theological-political predicament” as explored through the works of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Hannah Arendt.