Jer. 31:31: Text and notes in copyable format below. UPDATED 11/6/2013
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31 Behold, the days come, utters Yăhwēh,
that I will cut with the house of Yisra´æl,
and with the house of Yehudah the covenant anew:†
32 Not according to the covenant (that
I cut with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them
out of the land of Egypt) when my covenant they broke, so that I acted as Master against them, utters Yăhwēh.†
33 Because this is the covenant that I
cut with the house of Yisra´æl:
After those days, utters Yăhwēh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and
in their heart will I write it; and I will be their Almĭghty, and they shall
be my people:†
34 And they shall teach no more every
man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yăhwēh; for they
shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Yăhwēh:
for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.†
►31:31 וְכָרַתִּי … בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה: And I cuteth … the
covenant anew. A new moon is the same as the old moon, but it is a new instance
of the old moon in time. The Piel verb ɦ̣adash means renew, repair. The Piel Stem
adds the sense of make to be to a verb conveying emphasis, intensivity,
or stativeness. Thus make to be anew is the sense by which Hebrew
conveys the concept of new. New in Hebrew is something made to be
anew. While it is possible that this indicates something brand new, it may
not mean totally brand new. It may mean only newness in time. The promise in
Deu. 30:6 shows that only newness in time is meant, as does vs. 33, which shows
that the nature of the commandments has not changed. ¶ Sometimes one must use
an English participle to translate a Hebrew adjective; this has to do with the
fact that English does not conform to Hebrew thought pattern exactly, thus we
may translate בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה = a renewed covenant; however I prefer the
adverb anew to express the same idea ¶ Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. points out in Toward
Rediscovering The Old Testament that a renewed covenant was the proper idea
in Jeremiah. His Hebrew expertise ranks next to Franz Delitzsch; also the
Rabbis regard Jer. 31, and John Calvin. ¶ The term חֹדֶשׁ < *חֹדֵשׁ = renewing, renewal. Hence בַּחֹדֶשׁ = in the
renewing [of the moon]; חָדָשׁ = fresh, as new, anew, renewed; cf.
iiCor3v6. ¶ The principle of lexical conservatism requires the
adjective and the noun to have the same lexical range as the verb or verb root,
which means “renew, repair, restore, to make anew, to make to be anew, to make
new”; this is true of Semitic languages above all, and the principle should be
rigorously held to especially where the ancient dialect is not available as a
living language. ¶ The critics know that and therefore make their entire
understanding depend on what they call contextual analysis. The problem is that
their theological context is corrupt to begin with, and the other proof texts
they based their theological context on are also corrupted. Their consensus
reasoning, therefore, is circular: “Ideological Momentum: The impetus of
collective opinion; the tendency for supportive results to emerge and grow
artificially from prior consensus or authority; also called “the snowball
effect”; a synthetic trend in which we impute meaning in things just because we
want meaning to be there for whatever deeply help reason [i.e. lawlessness],
and then take that meaning forward even when it has been objectively falsified”
(pg. x, Hilton Ratcliffe, The Static Universe). Messiah called this the
blind leading the blind. ¶ Some may object to translating “anew” or “renewed”
because I allow the translation “new” to stand in most places. But this fails
to see the perspective of the Hebrew word, which would appear awkward most of
the time in English. Most things are being made anew (renewed) in some sense,
because they have been made before, even when they are new things. They are new
copies of old things. A lawyer draws up a contract in his office, but then the
client spills coffee on it just after signing it, then he says to his client,
give me a minute, and I will make a new contract for you. The idea that “new” implies the original
terms are invalid is of course nonsense in this context. So also with Yăhwēh’s
covenant with Yisra´æl.
And that is just in English. Now the Hebrew word has a greater connotation of
renewal, which connotation is in most uses of the word, even if it is only at
the level of a fresh item being made again. In this context we have to
explicitly draw out the sense of renewed because a habitual negative
theological construct has been spread over the term “new covenant” by
theologians.
►31:32 לֹא כַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַתִּי אֶת־אֲבוֹתָם: not according
to the covenant which I cut with their fathers; according to the covenant there
are curses for disobedience or blessings for obedience. The terms of the
renewed covenant are not different, but the outcome is different; the first
time around the covenant was applied according to the curses, but the second
time it will be according to the blessings. Yăhwēh will not have to
deal with Yisra´æl
according to the curses, but according to the blessings, so in this sense the
renewed covenant is not according to the first application of the covenant. Yisra´æl gets a second chance • אֲשֶׁר־הֵמָּה הֵפֵרוּ אֶת־בְּרִיתִי; אֲשֶׁר connects to כַ in in
the preceding text to be taken in the sense of כַּאֲשֶׁר: when, according to when • וְאָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם. The verb בָּעַלְתִּי
means, I lordeth over them or I acted the Master with them. The sense is that
of a Master having to discipline his subjects for breaking the covenant. The
translation married misses the sense, and has causes a needless conflict
with the LXX ¶ Not
according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers…when my covenant they broke,
and I acted as Master against them, utters Yăhwēh: to make the sentence
structure clearer, drop out the (…)
material telling when and where he had to judge Israel in the wilderness ¶ בְּיוֹם הֶחֱזִיקִי
בְיָדָם לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם: in the day I took them by the hand to bring
them out of the land of Egypt; the Hebrew בְּיוֹם “in the day”
means “in the time period”; cf. Gen2v4; at the beginning of the “day” he
brought them out of Egypt, and at the end of the same “day” he made the
covenant. For day is taken according to the Hebrew idiom as a “period of time”;
cf. Gen. 30:33; also the “day of Yăhwēh” is a “period of time.”
►31:33a
Because this is the covenant I cut: כִּי זֹאת הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת אֶת־בֵּית
יִשְׂרָאֵל. The original covenant included circumcision of the heart,
Deu30v6. It promises that those faithful would have their hearts circumcised
and the hearts of their children. This is the covenant I cut are words
pointing back to the one covenant. After those days begins a new clause
and refers to the implementation of the original covenant promise in the end of
days (Deu30). ¶ The
Hebrew imperfect, אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת, which I cut. Most Hebrew readers train
themselves to insert tense into their reading, however linguist Galia
Hatav (Ph.D. Tel Aviv U) has shown this to be an errant way of reading Hebrew
in her book The Semantics of Aspect and Modality; Evidence from English and
Biblical Hebrew. This is a high level book, but it is a must reading if
anyone wants to understand the aspect and modality of Biblical Hebrew. Which
I cut refers to the original covenant, for the promise in 31:33 is exactly
the promise in the Torah at Deu30v6.
►31:33b
The promise to inscribe the law on the heart is the same concept and the same
promise expressed in Deu30v6: And Yăhwēh your Almĭghty will circumcise
your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love Yăhwēh your Almĭghty with
all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. There is no
better promise than this; if we are faithful to Messiah then He will perform
it. Deu30v11-14 is quoted by Paul in Romans 10: the word is nigh unto you,
in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. This is the word of
faithfulness. By Messiah's faithfulness the hearts of the faithful will be
circumcised.
►31:34
Know Yăhwēh: דּעוּ אֶת־יהוה. We know him if we keep his commandments.
See iJoh2v3. But we don't know him perfectly yet because we are not perfected
yet. The promise of the renewed covenant is not fulfilled to completion until
Messiah returns to set up the kingdom for the ages to come ¶ I will forgive their
iniquity: אֶסְלַח לַעֲוֹנָם; the context places this in the age to
come, see vs. 34; surely at present iniquity is forgiven on an individual basis
for those trustingly faithful to Messiah, however in this eschatological
context the phrase is referring to the corporate iniquity of all the house of
Israel. This is parallel to Zec3v10, and I will remove the iniquity of that
land on one day: וּמַשְׁתִּי
אֶת־עֲוֹן הָאָרֶץ־הַהִיא בְּיוֹם אֶחָד. This is to be a one day event on a future
Yom Kippur yet to be fulfilled.