Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ¹ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ²  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ³ 

Isaiah 55:2

55:2 Why pay money for something that will not nourish you? ⁴ 

Why spend ⁵  your hard-earned money ⁶  on something that will not satisfy?

Listen carefully ⁷  to me and eat what is nourishing! ⁸ 

Enjoy fine food! ⁹ 

Isaiah 23:5

23:5 When the news reaches Egypt,

they will be shaken by what has happened to Tyre. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 89:33-34

89:33 But I will not remove ¹¹  my loyal love from him,

nor be unfaithful to my promise. ¹² 

89:34 I will not break ¹³  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ¹⁴ 

Malachi 2:5

2:5 “My covenant with him was designed to bring life and peace. I gave its statutes to him to fill him with awe, and he indeed revered me and stood in awe before me.

Hebrews 8:6-13

8:6 But ¹⁵  now Jesus ¹⁶  has obtained a superior ministry, since ¹⁷  the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted ¹⁸  on better promises. ¹⁹ 

8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one. ²⁰  8:8 But ²¹  showing its fault, ²²  God ²³  says to them, ²⁴ 

“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 ²⁵  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 ²⁶  my laws in their minds ²⁷  and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. ²⁸ 

8:11 “And there will be no need at all ²⁹  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. ³⁰ 

8:12 “For I will be merciful toward their evil deeds, and their sins I will remember no longer.” ³¹ 

8:13 When he speaks of a new covenant, ³²  he makes the first obsolete. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear. ³³ 

Hebrews 13:20-21

Benediction and Conclusion

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, 13:21 equip you with every good thing to do his will, working in us ³⁴  what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. ³⁵  Amen.

[55:3]  ¹ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ² tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ³ 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.”

[55:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “for what is not food.”

[55:2]  ⁵ tn The interrogative particle and the verb “spend” are understood here by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[55:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “your labor,” which stands by metonymy for that which one earns.

[55:2]  ⁷ tn The infinitive absolute follows the imperative and lends emphasis to the exhortation.

[55:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “good” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[55:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “Let your appetite delight in fine food.”

[23:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they will be in pain at the report of Tyre.”

[89:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “break”; “make ineffectual.” Some prefer to emend אָפִיר (’afir; the Hiphil of פָּרַר, parar, “to break”) to אָסִיר (’asir; the Hiphil of סוּר, sur, “to turn aside”), a verb that appears in 2 Sam 7:15.

[89:33]  ¹² tn Heb “and I will not deal falsely with my faithfulness.”

[89:34]  ¹³ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[8:6]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (Jesus) has been specified for clarity.

[8:6]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “to the degree that.”

[8:6]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “which is enacted.”

[8:6]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ tn Grk “no occasion for a second one would have been sought.”

[8:8]  ²¹ tn Grk “for,” but providing an explanation of the God-intended limitation of the first covenant from v. 7.

[8:8]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:8]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ tn Grk “not like the covenant,” continuing the description of v. 8b.

[8:10]  ²⁶ tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

[8:10]  ²⁷ tn Grk “mind.”

[8:10]  ²⁸ 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]  ²⁹ tn Grk “they will not teach, each one his fellow citizen…” The Greek makes this negation emphatic: “they will certainly not teach.”

[8:11]  ³⁰ tn Grk “from the small to the great.”

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

[8:13]  ³² tn Grk “when he says, ‘new,’” (referring to the covenant).

[8:13]  ³³ tn Grk “near to disappearing.”

[13:21]  ³⁴ tc Some mss (C P Ψ 6 629* 630 1505 pm latt sy^h) read ὑμῖν (Jumin, “in you”) here, but ἡμῖν (Jhmin) has stronger external support (Ì⁴⁶ א A D^vid K 0243 0285 33 81 104 326 365 629^c 1175 1739 1881 pm sy^p co). It is also more likely that ἡμῖν would have been changed to ὑμῖν in light of the “you” which occurs at the beginning of the verse than vice versa.

[13:21]  ³⁵ tc ‡ Most mss (א A [C*] 0243 0285 33 1739 1881 Ï latt) include the words “and ever” here, but the shorter reading (supported by Ì⁴⁶ C³ D Ψ 6 104 365 1505 al) is preferred on internal grounds. It seemed more likely that scribes would assimilate the wording to the common NT doxological expression “for ever and ever,” found especially in the Apocalypse (cf., e.g., 1 Tim 1:17; 2 Tim 4:18; Rev 4:9; 22:5) than to the “forever” of Heb 13:8. Nevertheless, a decision is difficult here. NA²⁷ places the phrase in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.