Jeremiah 31:31–32 | God makes A New Covenant with Israel and Judah
Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah 31:31–32 is one of the foundational covenant passages of Scripture. God is speaking to a people whose covenant relationship has been shattered by persistent disobedience, yet His answer is not the abandonment of His redemptive purpose. He promises a new covenant.
The passage moves from Sinai to restoration, from a covenant broken by the people to God's promise of a covenant characterized by an inward work, forgiveness, and renewed knowledge of Him.
1. “Behold, the days come”
The announcement begins:
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD…”
This is prophetic language.
Jeremiah is looking beyond Judah's immediate crisis and announcing something God Himself will accomplish in the future.
The emphasis is not:
Israel will repair the covenant.
It is:
“I WILL make…”
God is the initiator.
This is essential to understanding Jeremiah 31.
Human covenant failure does not cancel God's redemptive purpose.
The people broke.
God promises to act.
2. “I will make a new covenant”
The Hebrew expression is:
בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה — berit ḥadashah
Berit = covenant
Ḥadashah = new
The biblical concept of covenant is much deeper than a casual agreement between two parties.
A covenant establishes a binding relationship.
God is therefore announcing:
A new covenantal administration of His relationship with His people is coming.
This is the passage from which the New Testament expression “New Covenant” ultimately comes.
And Jesus deliberately returns to Jeremiah's language in Matthew 26:28 and Luke 22:20.
3. The Geʽez/Ethiopic covenant idea
In Geʽez biblical language, covenant is associated with ኪዳን — kidān.
This is an especially important word in Ethiopian Christian tradition.
Kidān carries the sense of:
covenant, solemn promise, established bond, pledged relationship.
So when Jeremiah announces the new covenant, the emphasis is not merely upon a new religious system.
It is about relationship with God being established according to His promise.
That distinction matters.
God is not merely promising:
“I will give them some new regulations.”
He is promising a renewed covenant relationship in which His work reaches inside the person.
Verses 33–34 explain this.
4. “With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah”
We should not pass over this.
God specifically names:
the house of Israel
and
the house of Judah.
By Jeremiah's time, the kingdom had long been divided.
After Solomon:
Northern Kingdom → Israel
Southern Kingdom → Judah
Israel had fallen to Assyria.
Judah was facing Babylonian judgment.
Yet God speaks of both houses.
This means the promise contains a restoration dimension.
What human rebellion had fractured, God announces His intention to restore.
Jeremiah 31:1 already says:
“I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.”
Therefore the New Covenant promise appears within a larger prophecy concerning restoration.
5. Notice who originally receives the New Covenant promise
This is important for biblical interpretation.
Jeremiah did not originally announce:
“I will make a new covenant with the Gentiles.”
The text explicitly says:
“with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.”
Paul maintains this historical foundation in Romans 9:4 when he says concerning Israel:
“Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth…the covenants…”
Christian theology then understands Gentile believers as receiving covenant blessings through Christ, not because Jeremiah originally erased Israel from the promise.
Paul's olive-tree imagery in Romans 11 is helpful:
Gentiles are described as being grafted in.
So the biblical movement is not:
Israel disappears → Gentiles replace Israel.
Rather, the New Testament presents salvation in Christ reaching the nations while remaining rooted in God's covenantal promises.
6. “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers”
Now God makes a comparison.
The coming covenant will be:
“Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers…”
Which covenant?
The remainder of verse 32 tells us.
“in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.”
This clearly points toward the Exodus and Sinai covenant.
So Jeremiah establishes a contrast:
Former covenant
Egypt → Exodus → Sinai → covenant
Promised covenant
Restoration → inward law → knowledge of God → forgiveness
God is announcing something greater than simply repeating Sinai.
7. “I took them by the hand”
This is extraordinarily tender language.
God could have simply said:
“When I brought them out of Egypt.”
Instead:
“I took them by the hand.”
Picture the imagery.
A parent takes the hand of a child.
A protector takes the hand of someone vulnerable.
A deliverer leads someone out of danger.
Egypt had enslaved Israel.
Israel did not overthrow Pharaoh through its own military power.
God delivered them.
He took them by the hand.
This reveals that covenant begins with grace before obligation.
God rescued Israel before giving Israel the commandments at Sinai.
The order matters:
Deliverance → Covenant → Obedience
not
Obedience → Earn deliverance.
8. “To bring them out of the land of Egypt”
Egypt represents an actual historical bondage.
Israel was enslaved.
God intervened.
Therefore, the covenant at Sinai was made with a people whom God had already redeemed from bondage.
Exodus 20 itself begins this way:
“I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Then come the commandments.
God first identifies Himself as:
The God who delivered them.
This pattern becomes extremely important when reading the New Covenant.
God's commands flow out of relationship with the God who saves.
9. “Which my covenant they brake”
Here we encounter the tragedy.
God says:
“my covenant they brake.”
Notice that the problem was not that God failed to keep covenant.
Israel broke covenant.
This is one of Jeremiah's central accusations.
Jeremiah 11:10 says:
“the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.”
The people had God's commandments.
They had priests.
They had sacrifices.
They had the Temple.
They had prophets.
Yet their hearts repeatedly departed from God.
This prepares us for the great revelation of Jeremiah 31:33.
The problem requiring God's remedy goes deeper than merely possessing commandments.
Something must happen within the human heart.
10. This is where Jeremiah 31 becomes powerful
Verse 32 says:
“they brake”
But verse 33 says:
“I will put my law in their inward parts.”
There is the contrast.
Old problem
The commandment confronts the person.
New Covenant promise
God's instruction reaches the inner person.
God says:
“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.”
The covenant therefore moves emphatically toward internal transformation.
This does not mean that God's holiness disappears.
It means that obedience must come from a transformed heart.
11. “Although I was an husband unto them”
The KJV gives us:
“although I was an husband unto them.”
The underlying Hebrew expression can carry the sense of being husband/master over them, which explains why translations differ here.
But the marital covenant imagery fits Jeremiah's larger message extraordinarily well.
Jeremiah repeatedly portrays Israel's idolatry as spiritual adultery.
Jeremiah 3:20 says:
“Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel.”
Why would idolatry be described as adultery?
Because covenant is relational.
God had entered covenant with His people.
Their pursuit of other gods therefore represented covenant unfaithfulness.
12. Sinai itself had marriage-like covenant characteristics
This gives deeper significance to:
“I was an husband unto them.”
God brought Israel out.
He brought them to Himself.
He established covenant.
Israel pledged:
“All that the LORD hath spoken we will do.”
— Exodus 19:8
Yet Israel repeatedly violated that covenant.
Therefore, Jeremiah's imagery can be understood as:
God remained covenantally faithful.
His people became covenantally unfaithful.
That is the tragedy behind Jeremiah 31:32.
13. The New Covenant answers the problem of the heart
Continue into verse 33 and the entire prophecy opens:
“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.”
Notice what God does not say:
“My law was evil, so I will eliminate righteousness.”
Instead He says:
“I will write it in their hearts.”
The location changes dramatically.
Stone
becomes
Heart.
This anticipates the prophetic language of Ezekiel:
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”
— Ezekiel 36:26
And:
“I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
— Ezekiel 36:27
Put Jeremiah and Ezekiel together:
New Covenant
→ new heart
→ God's instruction within
→ God's Spirit within
→ a transformed walk
This is why New Covenant theology cannot be reduced simply to forgiveness.
It includes transformation.
14. The Geʽez/Ethiopian spiritual emphasis
A fruitful Ethiopian/Geʽez Christian reading emphasizes that kidān—covenant—is lived relationship with God, involving fidelity, worship, holiness, remembrance, and communion.
Jeremiah's prophecy therefore reveals that God desires more than outward religious performance.
He wants:
the heart,
the inward person,
faithfulness,
knowledge of Him,
and covenant communion.
This makes Jeremiah 31 a powerful warning against possessing religious forms while the heart remains distant from God.
The Temple existed in Jeremiah's day.
Sacrifices were offered.
Priests ministered.
Yet Jeremiah continually confronted hearts that had wandered.
15. Jesus directly connects His blood with this New Covenant
Now we come to the connection with Matthew 26:28, which you asked about previously.
Jesus says:
“For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Jeremiah announces:
“I will make a new covenant.”
Jesus declares:
“My blood of the new covenant.”
Jeremiah 31:34 promises:
“I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jesus says:
“for the remission of sins.”
The connection is very strong.
Jeremiah 31
New Covenant + forgiveness
Matthew 26
Christ's blood + New Covenant + forgiveness
Jesus identifies His approaching death with the covenant Jeremiah had foretold.
16. There is also a powerful connection with Exodus 24
Jeremiah deliberately looks back to the Exodus covenant.
At Sinai Moses said:
“Behold the blood of the covenant…”
— Exodus 24:8
Then Jesus says:
“This is my blood of the new testament…”
Look at the progression:
EXODUS 24
Blood of the covenant
↓
JEREMIAH 31
“I will make a New Covenant”
↓
MATTHEW 26
“My blood of the New Covenant”
↓
HEBREWS 8–10
Christ presented as mediator of the New Covenant.
This is one continuous biblical covenant story.
17. Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31 at length
The writer of Hebrews considered Jeremiah's prophecy so important that Hebrews 8:8–12 quotes Jeremiah 31:31–34 extensively.
Then Hebrews says:
“In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old.”
— Hebrews 8:13
And Hebrews 9:15 identifies Christ as:
“the mediator of the new testament.”
So the New Testament itself teaches us how to connect these passages.
Jeremiah's promise is not an isolated prophecy.
It becomes foundational for understanding the saving work of Christ.
18. There is something deeper than replacing one set of rules
Sometimes Jeremiah 31 is summarized as:
Old Covenant = laws
New Covenant = no laws
But that misses Jeremiah's own words.
God says:
“I will put MY LAW in their inward parts.”
The issue is not that God no longer cares about holiness.
The issue is the heart.
Under the promised covenant, God's will is not intended merely to stand outside the person as an external demand.
God works within His people.
This is why Paul later speaks of:
“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”
— Romans 8:2
And:
“God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
— Philippians 2:13
New Covenant obedience flows from God's transforming work within.
19. The great covenant formula returns
The heart of Jeremiah 31:33 is:
“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
This expression runs throughout Scripture.
You can trace it from the Torah through the Prophets and ultimately into Revelation.
And Revelation 21:3 declares:
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them…and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
That tells us something profound.
The ultimate purpose of covenant is not merely:
rules.
Nor merely:
blessings.
Nor even merely:
forgiveness.
The goal is:
God dwelling with His people.
The covenant movement from Jeremiah 31
The whole passage can be seen as one great movement:
EGYPT
Bondage
↓
EXODUS
“I took them by the hand”
↓
SINAI
God establishes covenant
↓
ISRAEL'S UNFAITHFULNESS
“My covenant they brake”
↓
JEREMIAH'S PROMISE
“I will make a New Covenant”
↓
THE HEART
“I will write it in their hearts”
↓
FORGIVENESS
“I will remember their sin no more”
↓
CHRIST
“My blood of the New Covenant”
↓
THE SPIRIT
God works within His people
↓
COVENANT FELLOWSHIP
“I will be their God”
↓
A COVENANT PEOPLE
“They shall be my people.”
The central revelation
Jeremiah 31:31–32 reveals both human covenant failure and divine covenant faithfulness.
Israel broke the covenant, but God did not abandon His redemptive purpose. He promised a **new covenant—kidān—**in which His instruction would reach the heart, sin would be forgiven, and covenant fellowship with Him would be restored.
And this makes Jesus' words in Matthew 26:28 especially powerful:
“This is MY blood of the new testament…”
Jeremiah announced the covenant that was coming.
Jesus announced the blood by which that covenant would be established.
And the purpose reaches beyond simply having sins forgiven: God brings a people back into covenant fellowship with Himself—“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
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