Daniel Gregg
Messianic, House of Yisra'el
...only if they read it according to your tradition, which makes your reasoning circular.
31 Behold, the days come, utters Yăhwēh, that I will cut with the house of Yişra̱e̱l, and with the house of Yǝhuḋa̱h the covenant anew:
32 Not according to the covenant (that I cut with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim) when my covenant they broke, so that I acted as Master against them, utters Yăhwēh.
33 Because this is the covenant that I cut with the house of Yişra̱e̱l: After those days, utters Yăhwēh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their Almĭghty, and they shall be my people:
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yăhwēh; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Yăhwēh: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
►31:31 וְכָרַתִּי בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה: And I cuteth the covenant anew. A new moon is the same as the old moon, but it is a new instance of the old moon in time. The Piel verb ɦ̣a̱ḋash means renew, repair. The Piel Stem adds the sense of make to be to a verb conveying emphasis, intensivity, or stativeness. Thus make to be anew is the sense by which Hebrew conveys the concept of new. New in Hebrew is something made to be anew. While it is possible that this indicates something brand new, it may not mean totally brand new. It may mean only newness in time. The promise in Deu. 30:6 shows that only newness in time is meant, as does vs. 33, which shows that the nature of the commandments has not changed.
● Sometimes one must use an English participle to translate a Hebrew adjective; this has to do with the fact that English does not conform to Hebrew thought pattern exactly, thus we may translate בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה = a renewed covenant; however I prefer the adverb anew to express the same idea
● Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. points out in Toward Rediscovering The Old Testament that a renewed covenant was the proper idea in Jeremiah. His Hebrew expertise ranks next to Franz Delitzsch; also the Rabbis regard Jer. 31, and John Calvin.
● The term חֹדֶשׁ < *חֹדֵשׁ = renewing, renewal. Hence בַּחֹדֶשׁ = in the renewing [of the moon]; חָדָשׁ = fresh, as new, anew, renewed; cf. iiCor3v6.
● The principle of lexical conservatism requires the adjective and the noun to have the same lexical range as the verb or verb root, which means renew, repair, restore, to make anew, to make to be anew, to make new; this is true of Semitic languages above all, and the principle should be rigorously held to especially where the ancient dialect is not available as a living language.
● The critics know that and therefore make their entire understanding depend on what they call contextual analysis. The problem is that their theological context is corrupt to begin with, and the other proof texts they based their theological context on are also corrupted. Their consensus reasoning, therefore, is circular: Ideological Momentum: The impetus of collective opinion; the tendency for supportive results to emerge and grow artificially from prior consensus or authority; also called the snowball effect; a synthetic trend in which we impute meaning in things just because we want meaning to be there for whatever deeply help reason [i.e. lawlessness], and then take that meaning forward even when it has been objectively falsified (pg. x, Hilton Ratcliffe, The Static Universe). Messiah called this the blind leading the blind.[]
►31:32 לֹא כַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַתִּי אֶת־אֲבוֹתָם: not according to the covenant which I cut with their fathers; according to the covenant there are curses for disobedience or blessings for obedience. The terms of the renewed covenant are not different, but the outcome is different; the first time around the covenant was applied according to the curses, but the second time it will be according to the blessings. Yăhwēh will not have to deal with Yişra̱e̱l according to the curses, but according to the blessings, so in this sense the renewed covenant is not according to the first application of the covenant. Yişra̱e̱l gets a second chance אֲשֶׁר־הֵמָּה הֵפֵרוּ אֶת־בְּרִיתִי; אֲשֶׁר connects to כַ in in the preceding text to be taken in the sense of כַּאֲשֶׁר: when, according to when וְאָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם. The verb בָּעַלְתִּי means, I lordeth over them or I acted the Master with them. The sense is that of a Master having to discipline his subjects for breaking the covenant. The translation married misses the sense, and has causes a needless conflict with the LXX ● Not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers when my covenant they broke, and I acted as Master against them, utters Yăhwēh: to make the sentence structure clearer, drop out the ( ) material telling when and where he had to judge Israel in the wilderness ● בְּיוֹם הֶחֱזִיקִי בְיָדָם לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם: in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim; the Hebrew בְּיוֹם in the day means in the time period; cf. Gen2v4; at the beginning of the day he brought them out of Egypt, and at the end of the same day he made the covenant. For day is taken according to the Hebrew idiom as a period of time; cf. Gen. 30:33; also the day of Yăhwēh is a period of time.
►31:33a Because this is the covenant I cut: כִּי זֹאת הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת אֶת־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל. The original covenant included circumcision of the heart, Deu30v6. It promises that those faithful would have their hearts circumcised and the hearts of their children. This is the covenant I cut are words pointing back to the one covenant. After those days begins a new clause and refers to the implementation of the original covenant promise in the end of days (Deu30)
● The Hebrew imperfect, אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת, which I cut. Most Hebrew readers train themselves to insert tense into their reading, however linguist Galia Hatav (Ph.D. Tel Aviv U) has shown this to be an errant way of reading Hebrew in her book The Semantics of Aspect and Modality; Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. This is a high level book, but it is a must reading if anyone wants to understand the aspect and modality of Biblical Hebrew. Which I cut refers to the original covenant, for the promise in 31:33 is exactly the promise in the Torah at Deu30v6.
►31:33b The promise to inscribe the law on the heart is the same concept and the same promise expressed in Deu30v6: And Yăhwēh your Almĭghty will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love Yăhwēh your Almĭghty with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. There is no better promise than this; if we are faithful to Messiah then He will perform it. Deu30v11-14 is quoted by Paul in Romans 10: the word is nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. This is the word of faithfulness. By Messiah's faithfulness the hearts of the faithful will be circumcised.
►31:34 Know Yăhwēh: דּעוּ אֶת־יהוה. We know him if we keep his commandments. See iJoh2v3. But we don't know him perfectly yet because we are not perfected yet. The promise of the renewed covenant is not fulfilled to completion until Messiah returns to set up the kingdom for the ages to come ● I will forgive their iniquity: אֶסְלַח לַעֲוֹנָם; the context places this in the age to come, see vs. 34; surely at present iniquity is forgiven on an individual basis for those trustingly faithful to Messiah, however in this eschatological context the phrase is referring to the corporate iniquity of all the house of Israel. This is parallel to Zec3v10, and I will remove the iniquity of that land on one day: וּמַשְׁתִּי אֶת־עֲוֹן הָאָרֶץ־הַהִיא בְּיוֹם אֶחָד. This is to be a one day event on a future Yom Kippur yet to be fulfilled.
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