Commentary - Jeremiah 31:31-34

Bird's-eye view

In the midst of Jeremiah’s prophecies of gloom and destruction, with Jerusalem’s fall imminent, we find this astounding passage, which one writer has called the largest gold nugget in the Old Testament. It is a glorious sunbeam breaking through the darkest storm clouds of Israel's history. God, through His prophet, promises a coming day when He will establish a new covenant. This is not a modification or a repair of the old one made at Sinai, but something qualitatively different. The old covenant was external, written on tablets of stone, and was characterized by Israel's consistent failure to keep it. This new covenant will be internal, written on the very hearts of God's people. It will result in a radical, personal knowledge of God that transcends the old mediatorial structures, and it will be founded upon the final and absolute forgiveness of sins. This promise is the seed of the gospel, the very heart of the Christian faith, and is quoted at length in the book of Hebrews to explain the supremacy and finality of the work of Jesus Christ.

The core contrast is between an external standard that men failed to meet and an internal transformation that God Himself will accomplish. The failure of the old covenant was not with the covenant itself, the law is holy, just, and good, but with the people, whose hearts were sinful and rebellious. The glory of the new covenant is that God addresses the root problem. He doesn't just give a new set of rules; He gives a new heart. This passage, therefore, is central to understanding the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, the nature of regeneration, and the basis of our assurance before God. It is the divine solution to human unfaithfulness, grounded entirely in the sovereign grace of God.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This passage is situated in what is often called the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33). Jeremiah’s ministry was largely one of pronouncing judgment upon a faithless Judah. He was the weeping prophet, tasked with announcing the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians. But his message was not without hope. In these central chapters, the prophetic lens pulls back to reveal God's ultimate purpose, which was not destruction but restoration and redemption. After the discipline of the exile, God promises to bring His people back, to heal them, and to do something radically new. The promise of the new covenant in chapter 31 is the theological centerpiece of this consolation. It explains how God will ultimately triumph over His people's sin and create a truly faithful remnant. It is the long-term, glorious answer to the short-term, devastating problem of Judah's covenant-breaking.

Key Issues

The New Covenant

When we talk about the Old and New Testaments, or the old and new covenants, we are using language that comes directly from this passage. The entire framework of redemptive history hinges on understanding what God is promising here. A covenant is a solemn, binding relationship, a divinely administered bond. God has always related to His people through covenants. The problem was not with God's covenants, but with man's inability to keep his end of the bargain. The Mosaic covenant, given at Sinai, came with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The history of Israel is the sad story of disobedience and the reaping of those curses. But God's purposes are not thwarted by man's sin. Here, He promises to initiate a covenant that cannot ultimately fail, because He Himself will guarantee its success by changing the very nature of the covenant members.

Verse by Verse Commentary

31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

The announcement begins with a solemn declaration: “Behold, days are coming.” This is prophetic language for a future, eschatological time. God is putting His people on notice that history is headed somewhere. He is the one acting, "I will cut a new covenant." This is a sovereign, unilateral act of grace. The covenant is made with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” At the time of Jeremiah, these were divided and largely destroyed kingdoms. This promise looks forward to a reunification of God's people. In the New Testament, we learn that this promise is fulfilled in the church of Jesus Christ, which is the true Israel of God, composed of both Jews and Gentiles who are united by faith in the Messiah.

32 not like the covenant which I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, but I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh.

God immediately defines the new covenant by what it is not. It is “not like” the Mosaic covenant established at the Exodus. The explicit reason for the difference is given: “My covenant which they broke.” The fault lay not with the law, but with the people. Their hearts were hard. The law on stone tablets could command them, but it could not change them. The tragedy is heightened by God's description of His own faithfulness: “but I was a husband to them.” The covenant at Sinai was like a marriage vow. Israel committed adultery through her idolatry, breaking the vow, but God remained a faithful, patient, and long-suffering husband. The old covenant was breakable, and broken. The new one will be of a different sort.

33 “But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Here is the positive description, the glorious essence of the new covenant. First, the law is internalized. “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it.” The law is not abolished; it is moved. It goes from stone tablets to the fleshy tablets of the human heart. This is the language of regeneration, of the new birth. God promises to perform spiritual heart surgery, removing the rebellious, stony heart and replacing it with a soft, obedient heart that desires to do His will. The will doesn't command the heart; the heart commands the will. By giving a new heart, God ensures that the fruit will be new obedience. This internal transformation then restores the fundamental covenant relationship: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” This is the goal of all of God's covenant dealings, now made secure by God's own internal work.

34 And they will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

This verse describes two more characteristics of this new era. First, a radical, universal knowledge of God. In the old covenant, the knowledge of God was mediated through a priestly class and a prophetic office. It was possible to be an Israelite in the flesh but not know God in the heart. But in the new covenant, every single member will have a direct, personal knowledge of God. “They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” This does not eliminate the need for teachers in the church, but it changes the nature of their work. They are not trying to introduce strangers to God, but rather to help those who already know God to know Him better. And what is the foundation for this entire glorious arrangement? It is the final clause: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” This is the bedrock. The new heart, the personal relationship, the universal knowledge of God, it is all made possible because God has dealt with the sin problem once and for all. This is not a temporary covering of sin, as with the animal sacrifices, but a complete removal. To "remember no more" is a legal term; God will not bring our sins up in court against us ever again. They are paid for, cancelled, and gone.

Application

This passage from Jeremiah ought to fill every Christian heart with profound gratitude and assurance. Our standing with God does not depend on our ability to keep a set of rules written on stone. If it did, we would be as doomed as ancient Israel. Our standing with God depends on a promise that God made and a work that God did. He promised a new covenant, and He inaugurated it with the blood of His Son. Jesus is the mediator of this better covenant (Heb. 8:6).

The application for us is twofold. First, we must rest in this. Our salvation is secure not because we have a strong grip on God, but because He has a strong grip on us. He has written His law on our hearts. This means our desires have been fundamentally reoriented. We are not perfect, but the direction of our lives has been changed. We now want to please God, not because we are afraid of the curse of the law, but because we delight in the law-giver. Second, we must live out of this reality. Since God has forgiven our sins, we must stop trying to pay for them through guilt or self-punishment. We must live in the freedom of that forgiveness. And since He has given us a new heart, we must actively cultivate the desires of that new heart. We are not trying to earn our salvation; we are joyfully living out the salvation that has been freely given to us. The new covenant is not a call to lawlessness, but a call to a Spirit-empowered obedience that flows from a forgiven and transformed heart.