NOTES for Jer 3:14-17

For many centuries, the Ark of the Covenant played an enormous role in the faith and worship of the Israelites. It was a tangible witness to the covenant made between God and Israel, a covenant by which God took responsibility for the destiny of the people, while the people promised to obey God’s law given through Moses. The Ark confirmed the saving action of God, who brought His people out of Egyptian slavery, and the righteousness of His law. The Ark is something holy! And yet Jeremiah prophesies that the Ark will lose its significance, that it will itself be lost and no longer remembered. This will correspond not to the loss of the relationship between Israel and God, but, on the contrary, to its restoration and enrichment. It is revealed to the prophet that a time will come when the exodus from Egypt will no longer be the symbol of salvation, but the way of the cross of the Messiah-Christ; when the bearers of God’s law will no longer be tablets of stone, but human hearts.