Hebrews 8:10

ὅτι αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη ἣν διαθήσομαι … “For this is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord.” The ὅτι justifies the differentiation of this covenant from the Sinaitic, and the ascription to it of the term “new”. It also introduces the positive aspect of the newness of the covenant. This consists in three particulars. It is inward or spiritual; it is individual and therefore universal; it is gracious and provides forgiveness. μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκείνας, i.e., after the days, spoken of Hebrews 8:8, have arrived. διδοὺς f1νόμους μου … The LXX (vat.) has διδοὺς δώσω, but this writer omits δώσω in Hebrews 10:16 as well as here. The participle cannot be attached either to διαθήσομαι or to ἐπιγράψω without intolerable harshness. We must, therefore, suppose that the writer was simply quoting from the Alexandrian text which omits δώσω (so also Q = Codex Marchalianus), and does not concern himself about the elegance or even correct grammar of the words. See Buttmann, p. 291. νόμους μου. “The plural occurs again in the same quotation, Hebrews 10:16, but not elsewhere in the N.T.; nor does the plural appear to be found in any other place of the LXX as a translation of תּוֹרָה ” Westcott. εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν. “In Aristotle διάνοια includes all intellect, theoretical and practical, intuitive and discursive” (Burnet's Nic. Eth., p. 276). Plato defines it in Soph. 263 [33] thus: ὁ μὲν ἐντὸς τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς αὑτὴν διάλογος ἄνευ φωνῆς γιγνόμενος. In N.T. it is sometimes used for the “mind,” as in Ephesians 4:18 1 Peter 1:13, 2 Peter 3:1; sometimes for the thoughts produced in the mind, Ephesians 2:3; sometimes for the inner man generally, as in Luke 1:51; Colossians 1:21. And in this sense here. καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίας αὐτῶν “and on their heart”. καρδίας may be either genitive singular, or accusative plural, both constructions being found after γράφειν ἐπὶ. The meaning is that God's law, instead of being written on tables of stone, should under the new covenant be written on the spirit and desires of man. “Unde significavit eos non forinsecus habere, sed ipsam legis justitiam dilecturos” (Atto). This “better promise” involves a new spirit, effecting that man's own will shall concur with the divine. Cf. 2 Corinthians 3:3. καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτοῖς … “and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people”. For the distinction between the Hebraistic construction ἔσομαι εἰς and the legitimate Greek εἶναι or γένεσθαι εἰς see Buttmann, p. 150. This of course was the aim of the old covenant as well, and is expressed in the original promise, Exodus 6:7 : “I will take you to myself as my people, and I shall be to you a God”. See also Jeremiah 7:23; Jeremiah 11:4. This is the ultimate statement of the end or aim of all religion.

[33] Codex Sangermanensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., now at St. Petersburg, formerly belonging to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its text is largely dependent upon that of D.

Hebrews 8:11. καὶ οὐ μὴ διδάξωσιν.… “And they shall not teach, each man his fellow-citizen and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,' for all shall know me from small to great among them”. This second “better” promise follows on the first as its natural consequence. The inward acceptance of God's will involves the knowledge of God. In the new covenant all were to be “taught of God” (Isaiah 54:13; John 6:45) and independent of the instruction of a privileged class. Under the old covenant, none but the educated scribe could understand the minutiæ of the law with which religion was identified. The elaborate ritual made it impossible for the private individual to know whether a ram or a pigeon was the appropriate sacrifice for his sin, or whether his sin was mortal or venial. A priest had to be consulted. Under the new covenant intermediates were to be abolished. The knowledge of God was to lie in the heart alongside of the love of parent or friend, and would demand for its expression no more external instruction than those primal, instinctive and home-grown affections. οὐ μὴ διδάξωσιν, “The intensive οὐ μὴ (of that which in no wise will or shall happen) is sometimes indeed most commonly joined with the conjunctive aorist, sometimes with the conjunctive present, sometimes also with the indicative future”. Winer, p. 634, who also discusses Hermann's canon and Dawes' regarding this form. εἰδήσουσιν, for this form of the future Veitch (p. 216) quotes Homer, Theognis, Herodotus, Isocrates. ἀπὸ μικροῦ ἕως μεγάλου, an expression commonly used in LXX to denote universality, Genesis 19:11, where possibly it is equivalent to ἀπὸ νεανίσκου ἕως πρεσβυτέρου of Hebrews 8:4; 1 Samuel 30:19, where it is used of spoils of war. Gesenius (117, 2) understands the adjectives as superlatives.