Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 465In the first Book of Restoration these oracles climactically ended the expan-
sion material of 31:23-34. After VY 35-40 were added, VY 31-34 became situ-
ated at the center of the expansion of VY 23-40, where again they assumed a
climactic position (see Rhetoric and Composition for 31 :23-26). To show this
center position of VY 31-34 currently, one only need measure the amount of ex-
pansion text on either side. A line count in ML (Freedman et al. 1998: 537)
turns up 24 lines of text for VY 23-30 (with liberal spacing) and 22 lines of text
for VY 3 5-40 (with constricted spacing). In BHS there are 11 + lines of text for
VY 23-30, and 12+ lines of text (some of it poetry) for VY 35-40. A word count,
however, shows near-perfect symmetry: IO 1 words in VY 23-30, and 101 (2)b
words in VY 35-40. In VY 31-34 there are 92 words, just slightly less than the
number in each passage creating the frame.
These new covenant oracles are widely attributed to Jeremiah and said by
some to be his greatest preaching (Hyatt). This assessment derives largely from
Christian scholars who see the importance of this prophecy in the NT and for
the early Christian Church (see Excursus V). Some earlier critical scholars
(Movers, Stade, Smend, Schmidt) denied the prophecy to Jeremiah, as they
did other hopeful prophecies, arguing that such were more in the spirit of Sec-
ond Isaiah. But Giesebrecht took the passage as emanating from Baruch, and
thus a vestige of Jeremianic preaching. Things went in a different direction
with Duhm, who reduced the passage to the pedestrian teaching of a postexilic
scribe, an assessment that has failed to win acceptance except with Carroll and
McKane. Duhm's view was refuted early on by Cornill and W. J. Moulton
( 1906). Hyatt also rightly pointed out that the new covenant promise does not
promote the ideal of a scribe but the ideal of a prophet. Since Jeremiah in his
call is portrayed as "the prophet like Moses" (see Note for 1:7), and Moses is
the one who gave Israel the Sinai covenant, it is only natural now that Jeremiah
be the one to give Israel a new covenant.
Catchwords connecting to the prior unit:v 32 fathers v 29 fathers
v 34 their iniquity la'awonam v 30 in his iniquity ba'awonoNOTES
31:31. Look, days are coming. On this phrase in Jeremiah, see Note for 7:32.
The new covenant is announced for future days.
31-32. when I will cut with the house oflsrael and with the house ofludah a
new covenant, not like the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took
them by the hand to bring them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that
they, they broke, though I, I was their master. Discontinuity gets the accent in
the new covenant promise. The term "new covenant" (berft "f:iadasa) occurs
only here in the OT, denoting the basis on which a future relation between
b A word count of I 02 results from adding ba'fm ("are coming"), with the Q, in v 38.