Deuteronomy 4:23

4:23 Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as he ¹  has forbidden ²  you.

Exodus 19:5-8

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ³  and keep ⁴  my covenant, then you will be my ⁵  special possession ⁶  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ⁷  a kingdom of priests ⁸  and a holy nation.’ ⁹  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

19:7 So Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel. He set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him, 19:8 and all the people answered together, “All that the Lord has commanded we will do!” ¹⁰  So Moses brought the words of the people back to the Lord.

Exodus 24:8

24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on ¹¹  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant ¹²  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Hebrews 8:6-13

8:6 But ¹³  now Jesus ¹⁴  has obtained a superior ministry, since ¹⁵  the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted ¹⁶  on better promises. ¹⁷ 

8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one. ¹⁸  8:8 But ¹⁹  showing its fault, ²⁰  God ²¹  says to them, ²² 

“Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

8:9 “It will not be like the covenant ²³  that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.

8:10 “For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put ²⁴  my laws in their minds ²⁵  and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. ²⁶ 

8:11 “And there will be no need at all ²⁷  for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest. ²⁸ 

8:12 “For I will be merciful toward their evil deeds, and their sins I will remember no longer.” ²⁹ 

8:13 When he speaks of a new covenant, ³⁰  he makes the first obsolete. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear. ³¹ 

Hebrews 9:19-23

9:19 For when Moses had spoken every command to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 9:20 and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has commanded you to keep.” ³²  9:21 And both the tabernacle and all the utensils of worship he likewise sprinkled with blood. 9:22 Indeed according to the law almost everything was purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 9:23 So it was necessary for the sketches ³³  of the things in heaven to be purified with these sacrifices, ³⁴  but the heavenly things themselves required ³⁵  better sacrifices than these.

[4:23]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 4:3.

[4:23]  ² tn Heb “commanded.”

[19:5]  ³ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ⁴ tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ⁵ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁶ tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ⁷ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ⁸ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ⁹ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[19:8]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is an imperfect. The people are not being presumptuous in stating their compliance – there are several options open for the interpretation of this tense. It may be classified as having a desiderative nuance: “we are willing to do” or, “we will do.”

[24:8]  ¹¹ tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

[24:8]  ¹² sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.

[8:6]  ¹³ sn The Greek text indicates a contrast between vv. 4-5 and v. 6 that is difficult to render in English: Jesus’ status in the old order of priests (vv. 4-5) versus his superior ministry (v. 6).

[8:6]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (Jesus) has been specified for clarity.

[8:6]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “to the degree that.”

[8:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “which is enacted.”

[8:6]  ¹⁷ sn This linkage of the change in priesthood with a change in the law or the covenant goes back to Heb 7:12, 22 and is picked up again in Heb 9:6-15 and 10:1-18.

[8:7]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “no occasion for a second one would have been sought.”

[8:8]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “for,” but providing an explanation of the God-intended limitation of the first covenant from v. 7.

[8:8]  ²⁰ sn The “fault” or limitation in the first covenant was not in its inherent righteousness, but in its design from God himself. It was never intended to be his final revelation or provision for mankind; it was provisional, always pointing toward the fulfillment to come in Christ.

[8:8]  ²¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:8]  ²² tc ‡ Several witnesses (א* A D* I K P Ψ 33 81 326 365 1505 2464 al latt co Cyr) have αὐτούς (autous) here, “[in finding fault with] them, [he says],” alluding to Israel’s failings mentioned in v. 9b. (The verb μέμφομαι [memfomai, “to find fault with”] can take an accusative or dative direct object.) The reading behind the text above (αὐτοίς, autoi"), supported by Ì⁴⁶ א² B D² 0278 1739 1881 Ï, is perhaps a harder reading theologically, and is more ambiguous in meaning. If αὐτοίς goes with μεμφόμενος (memfomeno", here translated “showing its fault”), the clause could be translated “in finding fault with them” or “in showing [its] faults to them.” If αὐτοίς goes with the following λέγει (legei, “he says”), the clause is best translated, “in finding/showing [its] faults, he says to them.” The accusative pronoun suffers no such ambiguity, for it must be the object of μεμφόμενος rather than λέγει. Although a decision is difficult, the dative form of the pronoun best explains the rise of the other reading and is thus more likely to be original.

[8:9]  ²³ tn Grk “not like the covenant,” continuing the description of v. 8b.

[8:10]  ²⁴ tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

[8:10]  ²⁵ tn Grk “mind.”

[8:10]  ²⁶ tn Grk “I will be to them for a God and they will be to me for a people,” following the Hebrew constructions of Jer 31.

[8:11]  ²⁷ tn Grk “they will not teach, each one his fellow citizen…” The Greek makes this negation emphatic: “they will certainly not teach.”

[8:11]  ²⁸ tn Grk “from the small to the great.”

[8:12]  ²⁹ sn A quotation from Jer 31:31-34.

[8:13]  ³⁰ tn Grk “when he says, ‘new,’” (referring to the covenant).

[8:13]  ³¹ tn Grk “near to disappearing.”

[9:20]  ³² tn Grk “which God commanded for you (or in your case).”

[9:23]  ³³ tn Or “prototypes,” “outlines,” referring to the earthly sanctuary. See Heb 8:5 above for the prior use of this term.

[9:23]  ³⁴ tn Grk “with these”; in the translation the referent (sacrifices) has been specified for clarity.

[9:23]  ³⁵ tn Grk “the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”