Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 471turn from their evil way (36:3), but the offers came to nothing. Yahweh then
does forgive sin; nevertheless, forgiveness of sins is not what undergirded the
Sinai covenant; in fact, it played no part at all in that covenant's earliest formu-
lation or in the formulation of Deuteronomy (Exod 32:32-34; Deut 31:16-29;
cf. Wolff 1983: 59; P. D. Miller, 812). The act of divine grace undergirding the
Sinai covenant was the deliverance from Egypt (Exod 20:2; Deut 5:6). In Deu-
teronomy, the nation is promised life if it obeys the covenant; if it does not
obey, Yahweh will rain down a multitude of curses, the most serious of which
will be the loss of the land. The first edition of Deuteronomy (chaps. 1-28;
Lundbom l 996a: 314-15) makes no provision for a restored divine-human
relationship once the covenant is broken and the curses have fallen (Deut
4:29-31 bases Yahweh's mercy on a remembrance of the covenant with the fa-
thers-i.e., the Abrahamic covenant). Disobedience, says von Rad (1965: 270),
is not the problem for Deuteronomy that it later became for Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. Deuteronomic theology is best summed up in Joshua's words to the
people at Shechem: if you disobey the covenant, Yahweh will not forgive your
sins; instead he will punish you (Josh 24: 19-20). This theology is carried over
into the Holiness Code (Lev 26:14-20), although there, provisions are made
for the forgiveness of sins, after which Yahweh will begin again with Israel on
the basis of his covenant with Abraham (Isaac and Jacob) and his remem-
brance of the land (26:40-45).MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
Yahweh in the present oracles says that in future days he will cut a new cove-
nant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the
covenant cut earlier with the generation delivered from Egypt, the covenant
that the people broke, though Yahweh was their master. Added pronouns em-
phasize who was master and who did the breaking. In this future covenant
Yahweh will put his law into the people's inward parts, inscribing it on their
hearts. Then, once again, he will be God to them, and they will be a people
to him. It will not be necessary for one to instruct the other to "know Yah-
weh,'' for everyone will know him, from the lowliest to the greatest. The most
important feature of this new covenant is saved for last: Yahweh will forgive
the people's iniquity and forget their sin. An extraordinary act of divine grace!
No threat of punishment for violating the covenant; instead, a promise to for-
give sins!
This new covenant was announced to a Judahite audience probably just
prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, at which time Jeremiah was confined to
the court of the guard. At this time Jeremiah also gave his prophecy on the eter-
nal covenant (32:38-40). Seeds of both appear earlier in oracles spoken at the
beginning of Zedekiah's reign (24:7). It is unlikely, however, that this prophecy
was given originally to exiles of the Northern Kingdom in Josiah's reign (pace
Rudolph; von Rad 1965: 212). More unlikely still is a date for the prophecy in
the postexilic period (pace Duhm; Carroll).