55:3 Pay attention and come to me!
Listen, so you can live! 3
Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to 4 you,
just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. 5
31:31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, 6 “when I will make a new covenant 7 with the people of Israel and Judah. 8 31:32 It will not be like the old 9 covenant that I made with their ancestors 10 when I delivered them 11 from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” 12 says the Lord. 13 31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel 14 after I plant them back in the land,” 15 says the Lord. 16 “I will 17 put my law within them 18 and write it on their hearts and minds. 19 I will be their God and they will be my people. 20
13:20 Now may the God of peace who by the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ,
1 sn See Isa 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60, for other references to perpetual covenants.
2 tn Heb “give them.”
3 tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.
4 tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”
5 tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”
6 tn Heb “Oracle of the
7 tn Or “a renewed covenant” (also in vv. 22-23).
8 tn Heb “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
9 tn The word “old” is not in the text but is implicit in the use of the word “new.” It is supplied in the translation for greater clarity.
10 tn Heb “fathers.”
11 tn Heb “when I took them by the hand and led them out.”
12 tn Or “I was their master.” See the study note on 3:14.
13 tn Heb “Oracle of the
14 tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.
15 tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.
16 tn Heb “Oracle of the
17 tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the
18 tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.
19 tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.
20 sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.
21 sn The priest here in the immediate context is Joshua but the fuller and more distant allusion is to the Messiah, a ruling priest. The notion of the ruler as a priest-king was already apparent in David and his successors (Pss 2:2, 6-8; 110:2, 4), and it finds mature expression in David’s greater Son, Jesus Christ, who will combine both offices in his kingship (Heb 5:1-10; 7:1-25).