Why is God's covenant with Adam not a pretty covenant?
It is not pretty because God's covenant with Adam promised the full ramifications of the curse after Adam and Eve ate, placing the human race under judgment. It included weeds, thistles, and everything associated with the curse. Yet at its center stood the promise of a Redeemer, the seed of the woman who would bruise Satan's head.
Les teaches that after Adam and Eve ate, they totally plunged the human race under the curse, and then God made a covenant with Adam. That covenant is not very pretty because in it God promises all the ramifications of the curse and how everything would come under the curse. As the chapter goes on, it includes the weeds, the thistles, and all the things associated with the curse. But in the very center of this covenant that God makes with Adam is the promise of a Redeemer. In Genesis 3:15, God says He will put enmity between Satan and the woman, and between Satan's seed and her seed. Les explains that this is where we pick up the term "the seed of the woman," who is Christ. So there would be a running battle between Satan and Christ. The seed of the woman would bruise the head of Satan, which He did at the cross, but Satan would bruise His heel when he caused the suffering of Christ at Calvary. From this place in Genesis 3, God promises a Redeemer through the woman, and on that promise the Abrahamic covenant is built: through this man and his offspring, the seed of the woman would come.