Jeremiah 31:27-34 Commentary

New Covenant

For Christian readers, this Lectionary selection emerges out of Hebrew Scripture as though with giant flashing arrows and neon signs lighting up the name: “JESUS!” Here he is and here is the goal of his ministry laid out neatly before us. This notion of a “new covenant” is laid out and explained in various New Testament epistles (I Corinthians 11, II Corinthians 2, Hebrews 8-10). In fact, according to the CEB Study Bible, the naming of Christian Scriptures as the “New Testament” harkens back to this very passage.

Unfortunately, with popularity comes misuse and this notion of “new-ness” has frequently led Christian scholars to act toward God’s people the way we might act toward a new toothbrush.  Get the new one, toss the old one.  We are the people of God now.  Except this passage is quite clear that “new” has something of the meaning of “renew.”  The covenant is for the same people: “the people of Israel and Judah” (v.31) and “the people of Israel” (v.33). The Mosaic covenant has been broken but, reaching all the way back to Abraham, the promises of God for God’s people still stand.  And this promise was always meant to be poured out onto God’s people until it overflows: “I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you and all people of the earth will be blessed through you.”  So, with Jeremiah’s prophecy of a new covenant, the “all people on earth” bit intends to flourish.  But never at the detriment or replacement of God’s people, Israel.  Here is what the CEB Study Bible has to say on this point: “When this influential text is read in its literary and historical contexts, it serves as an essential part of God’s program of hope and new life—‘building and planting’—for Judea’s who suffered the destruction of war and captivity. Christians enjoy a wondrous relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but their participation in the new covenant in no way excludes the initial recipients and their heirs.”

It helps, on this point, to turn to a Jewish scholar of Hebrew Scripture to see how they interpret this text, without recourse to the simple answer (Jesus!) that has set grooves in the Christian interpretive path.  Robert Alter suggests that “what it refers to in Jeremiah’s prophecy is a new covenant between God and Israel, to be fully internalized (‘inscribed’ on the heart), that will replace the covenant violated by Israel.”  Additionally, in commentary on the promise laid out in verse 33, “In the coming era of the new covenant, every person in Israel will be inwardly informed of what God expects, and no teachers or external force will be required.”

Restoration Is Not Just for People

Verse 34 and following seem to launch us into a hymn of praise for the creation itself.  The law of God is written in creation itself. The goodness, beauty and order we see in the creation tells us something of the goodness, beauty and order of the Creator.  The CEB Study Bible acknowledges “The created order itself is a sign of God’s enduring commitment to Israel.” Just beyond the scope of our Lectionary text, Jeremiah makes the connection between the flourishing of the world and God’s promise to sustain God’s people.  Verse 36 says, “If the created order should vanish from my sight, declares the Lord, only then would Israel’s descendants ever stop being a nation before me.” On this point, Robert Alter elaborates, “The world is created with set guiding principles, ‘statutes’ or ‘laws,’ — the cycle of day and night (there is a reminiscence of Genesis 1:14-15), the movement of the tides. The universe is orderly, and just as its laws are immutable, god’s commitment to the continuation of Israel will never waiver.”

Given the broadening of the promise—inherent in the original covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3)—elaborated in the “new covenant” language of verse 27-34, the promise of land and nation are not politically and geographically constrained to the modern nation-state of Israel and it’s borders. While God is Covenant-maker with Israel, God is Creator of the whole world and it is God’s role as universal Creator that occasions this hymn of praise.  According to the CEB Bible Commentary, “In a reversal of the breaking up of the world and the rejection of Israel, God the creator ensures the future of God’s people for the duration of the world.” Thus, the repair, renewal, rebirth, revival are not just for individuals or for souls but are promises made —and kept—by God to this whole beautiful and broken world. Our care for creation is a participation in God’s covenant not only with us but with the world God so loves and will, one day, refine, restore and reign over.

Illustration:

There are many wonderful organizations committed to this kind of creation care, a deeply evangelical and faithful ecological commitment grounded in these verses of Scripture and many—MANY—more just like them.  Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and A Rocha are two such organizations.  Their websites share stories of Christians engaged in climate resiliency projects not despite but precisely out of the abundance of their faithfulness to a story of the world, which we encounter in part in this week’s Hebrew Scripture Lectionary text.

On this topic, I commend Debra Rienstra’s book Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders and the Healing of the Earth.  If you don’t have time to read a book this week (because pastoring is a busy life. I get that), then this review is very helpful, along with other snippets and short essays by Rienstra on the same site. In particular, this reflection commends itself to us as a vision of restoration after a literal volcanic eruption and all the tremors that shake our faith, a re-creation born in Jesus Christ, the Savior inaugurating new creation for us and among us.