NOTES for Jer 31:23-40
Today's reading is devoted to one of the most important themes of prophetic preaching: the New, messianic Covenant. Isaiah of Jerusalem had already linked the emergence of the remnant with the messianic future, seeing the remnant as a messianic community. Jeremiah evidently shares this view: for him, the people's return from captivity means not only the formation of the remnant but also a radical renewal of the relationship between God and his people, which Isaiah associated with the messianic age. It begins with the formation among the people of a new kind of religious life, one we would today call personalist (vv. 29–30).
Before the captivity, the people's religious consciousness was largely collectivist: the individual was often absorbed into the people and shared its fate, and the idea that children were answerable for their fathers' sins was widespread. Jeremiah, however, points to a time when things will be different, when each person will answer before God for their own actions. This was extraordinarily important, for it concerned a person's relationship with God, in which there is no room for collectivism: God's relationship with each person is entirely unique, and no one can enjoy full communion with him while hiding behind others. These words were particularly pertinent against the background of what Jeremiah said about the New Covenant.
By the New Covenant, the prophet means, above all, a radical renewal of the relationship between God and his people. Whereas the Torah—the ‘Law’—was formerly engraved on stone, it will now be written in each person's heart (vv. 31–33). The situation evidently changes fundamentally: previously, the Torah was a body of laws against which everyone had to measure their life and actions; now it becomes something intrinsic to the person, not only forming the basis of their relationship with God but also shaping their spiritual life entirely. It is no accident that this inward Torah no longer requires learning and study in the traditional sense (v. 34): each person now receives the spiritual core that makes it possible to build their own relationship with God by coming to know him personally.
Such personal knowledge of God renews a person, and the prophet therefore had every reason to call this kind of relationship a new bond, or a New Covenant. Clearly, for Jeremiah the New Covenant is connected not with a new religion but with a new quality of relationship between God and God's people, making them a people who are a community. For within a community, everyone retains their unique relationships both with God and with other people, and the community's unity before God does not destroy that uniqueness. Only in this way can a person enter the Kingdom: for the Kingdom, each person's relationship with God and with their neighbour matters equally.