A Renewed Covenant

Jeremiah 31: 27-34 (October 17, 2010)

1) The Text

27The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. 29In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” 30But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. 31The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

2) The Context

From Chapter 1, we know that Jeremiah was either born or began his ministry in 627 BC. During his life, Babylonia succeeded Assyria as the dominant power in the Middle East. He was a witness to the return to worship of the Lord (instituted by the Judean king Josiah), and then (after Josiah's death in battle in 609), the return of many of the people to paganism. When Babylon captured Jerusalem in 587, Jeremiah emigrated to Egypt. God called him to be a prophet to Judah and surrounding nations, in the midst of these political and religious convulsions.

This reading is in the section of the Book of Jeremiah known as The Little Book of Consolation (chs. 30-33). This is used to note that the subject matter of these chapters has shifted from Jeremiah’s 40 year ministry of proclaiming judgment by means of the Babylonian invasions to a concern with the future restoration of the people beyond the impending exile.

This title also reveals that some scholars see this portion of the book as coming from a later time than Jeremiah himself. Usually, scholars attribute it to the post-exilic community as they began to understand Jeremiah’s message and elaborated on the themes of hope, restoration, and obedience to torah. The person or group that collected this material is generally referred to as the Deuteronomist, reflecting the similarity of perspectives with the book of Deuteronomy. These similarities are evident particularly with the emphasis on covenant (e.g., Deut. 5:2-3), the language of the heart (e.g., Deut 4:29; cf. Jer 29:13), and the concern with proper faithfulness to God based on love and commitment that goes beyond legal restraint (e.g., Deut 6:4-9).

3) Interpretation

There are three oracles in chapter 31 all beginning ‘The days are surely coming …’ (vv. 27-30, 31-34, and 38-40). Today’s reading takes in the first two oracles. The first, vv. 27-30, announces a new beginning for both Israel from the north and Judah from the south, i.e. a restoration of all Israel. Repeated here are themes and language from the call of Jeremiah (v. 28; cf. Jer. 1:10), but now the tasks of plucking up, breaking down, destroying, overthrowing, building and planting, are those of God not just of the prophet. The oracle turns abruptly in vv. 29-30 to the area of ethics, presenting a new understanding of individual responsibility. No longer can the blame for the trauma of exile be sheeted home on the sins of past generations (cf. Ezekiel 18).

The second oracle, vv. 31-34, speaks of a new beginning in terms of a renewed covenant, of which again Israel and Judah are both beneficiaries. Apart from the ‘new song’ in some Psalms (e.g. Psalms 96 and 98), the ‘new’ is not a frequent theme in the Hebrew Bible until it emerges with the prophets following the exile.

The Hebrew can be interpreted to mean a ‘renewed’ covenant rather than a ‘new’ one. ‘New’ could imply something entirely different to previous covenants and is not really what is implied here. What is ‘new’ about the covenant is not the covenant itself, but the way it is to be affected. The people broke the covenant in its old formulation, even though God had ‘led his people by the hand’ out of Egypt, and had become their ‘husband’ or master. In this new manifestation of the covenant, God will put his torah within the people and ‘write it on their hearts’. In Hebrew, ‘heart’ represents not so much the seat of the emotions as that of practical knowledge, and is not significantly different from ‘mind’. The torah written on the heart will replace the sin previously engraved there (Jer. 17:1).

This change in imagery represents the new covenantal relationship with God as an internal matter rather than an external one. Each person will have a personal knowledge of God, not dependent on the instruction of another. Jeremiah goes on to anchor this new knowledge in forgiveness (v. 34). They shall each know that experience personally. No longer will they just hear from another the tradition of God’s liberation of his people long ago in the exodus (v. 32). No longer will they need to be taught the torah by another. It will all be part and parcel of their own being – both the experience of forgiveness and the desire to live out the way of God.

Finally, there are two key aspects of this renewed covenant. First, the oracle affirms the ongoing place of torah, the law, although now written on human hearts (Jer. 31:33). Secondly, the oracle repeats the old covenant affirmation ‘I will be their God, and they will be my people’ (cf. Exod. 6:7). Even with the new individual knowledge of God, the corporate side of the covenant relationship remains essential. Individuals, with their own experience of forgiveness and their ‘internalized’ law, are neither free from discipline nor without connection to the whole community of God’s people. One could develop this in many ways but it is also important to note that it is true of both modern communities, Jewish and Christian, who rightly see their relationship with God in terms of Jeremiah’s words. Both seek to live God’s way from the heart, with the same sense of a personal knowledge of God.

4) Thought Exercise

How would you characterize your personal knowledge of God?

How does this connect you to the whole community of God’s people?