Jeremiah 11:6

11:6 The Lord said to me, “Announce all the following words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: ‘Listen to the terms of my covenant with you ¹  and carry them out!

Jeremiah 11:8

11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ² 

Jeremiah 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ³  after I plant them back in the land,” ⁴  says the Lord. ⁵  “I will ⁶  put my law within them ⁷  and write it on their hearts and minds. ⁸  I will be their God and they will be my people. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 34:18

34:18 I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces. ¹⁰  I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence. ¹¹ 

[11:6]  ¹ tn Heb “the terms of this covenant.” However, this was a separate message and the ambiguity of “this” could still cause some confusion.

[11:8]  ² tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

[31:33]  ³ 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.

[31:33]  ⁴ 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.

[31:33]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ⁶ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ⁷ 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.

[31:33]  ⁸ 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.

[31:33]  ⁹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[34:18]  ⁴ sn See the study note on v. 8 for explanation and parallels.

[34:18]  ⁵ tn There is a little confusion in the syntax of this section because the noun “the calf” does not have any formal conjunction or preposition with it showing how it relates to the rest of the sentence. KJV treats it and the following words as though they were a temporal clause modifying “covenant which they made.” The majority of modern English versions and commentaries, however, understand it as a second accusative after the verb + object “I will make the men.” This fits under the category of what GKC 375 §118.r calls an accusative of comparison (compare usage in Isa 21:8; Zech 2:8). Stated baldly, “I will make the people…the calf,” it is, however, more forceful than the formal use of the noun + preposition כְּ just as metaphors are generally more forceful than similes. The whole verse is one long, complex sentence in Hebrew: “I will make the men who broke my covenant [referring to the Mosaic covenant containing the stipulation to free slaves after six years] [and] who did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me [referring to their agreement to free their slaves] [like] the calf which they cut in two and passed between its pieces.” The sentence has been broken down into shorter sentences in conformity with contemporary English style.