Jeremiah Buys Land in Anathoth (32:1-44) 519
people "one heart" and "one way" so they may fear him only. Bright translates:
"singleness of mind and of purpose." It was duplicity in worship that led to a
breakdown of the Sinai covenant and the crisis that the people are now in.
Kierkegaard said: "Purity of heart is to will one thing." On Yahweh's gift of a
new heart (and a new spirit) to his people, see Note for 31:33. The LXX reads
"another way and another heart" (hodon eteran kai kardian eteran), which ap-
pears simply to misread the Hebrew (>aQer for >eQad).
to fear me all the days. Hebrew leyir>a >otf kol-hayyamfm. The phrase, "to
fear Yahweh/me all the days" is stock in Deuteronomy (Deut 4: 1 O; 6:2; 14:23;
31:13) and has parallels in the Akkadian treaties (Zunz 1873: 670; Weinfeld
1972b: 332-33). For the expression "a heart to fear me [i.e., Yahweh];' see
Deut 5:29. On the expression "all the days" in Jeremiah, see Note for 31:36.
for their own good and for their children after them. One fears God because of
his awesome creation, his deliverance from evil, also because he is worthy of
reverent fear. But the point here is that fear of God is for the people's own good
(Deut 6:24) and the good of their children (Deut 4: 10; 6:2). This rhetoric re-
verses the rhetoric of 7: 19 about the worship of other gods' provoking not only
Yahweh but the people themselves, to their own shame. See also "to your own
hurt" in 7:6 and 25:7.
- And I will cut for them an eternal covenant, in which I will not turn away
from them to do good to them; and the fear of me I will put in their hearts so they
may not turn away from me. It is generally agreed that this "eternal covenant"
(berft 'Olam), cited again in 50:5, is the "new covenant" (berft Qadasa) prom-
ised by Yahweh in 31:31-34 (Calvin; von Rad 1965: 214-15), to be cut in the
future with Israel and Judah as a replacement for the now-Groken Sinai (Mo-
saic) covenant. The Sinai covenant with its blessings and curses was never
guaranteed to be eternal. This covenant and the new covenant are both with-
out conditions; thus, they really are new and are for all time (B. W. Anderson
1964: 231; see Note for 31:31). Second Isaiah's covenant for the new age will
likewise last forever and will be a relationship of pure grace (Muilenburg
1956a: 399, 401).
The idea of an eternal covenant was neither new nor unique to Israelite re-
ligion. On a seventh-century B.C. amulet from Arslan Tash in northern Syria
(ancient l)adattu), an "eternal sworn covenant" (>lt 'lm) cut among lesser
divine beings, but established by the god Ashshur, was invoked to ward off
child-stealing vampires (Torczyner 1947; Gaster 1947; ANET^3 658; CS II 222-
23; for a picture of the amulet, see ANEP^2 #662; cf. 328). In Israelite religion,
covenants of an unconditional nature were given earlier to Noah, Abraham,
Phinehas, and David (D. N. Freedman 1964; Weinfeld 1970; idem, "ber!th,"
TDOT 2: 270-72), and these were meant to be for all time. Unconditional
covenants were at home in Southern theology, i.e., in P traditions (Gen 9:16;
17:7, 13, 19; Exod 31:16; Lev 24:8; Num 18:19; 25:13) and psalms from the
Jerusalem Temple (Pss 89:20-38[Eng 89:19-37]; 111:5, 9; cf. 2 Sam 23:5).
Jeremiah, whose entire ministry was carried on in the Southern capital, was as
familiar with these covenants as with the Sinai covenant, which was at home
