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'age'. A number of covenants are called 'everlasting' or 'age -abiding', and
before moving on we will make a record of them here.
Everlasting Covenants
(1)
Made with Noah.
A flood will never again destroy the
earth, or all flesh (Gen. 9:9 -17).
Token: The Rainbow.
(2)
Made with Abraham.
The land promised. 'God will be their
God' (Gen. 17:1 -8; Gen. 17:9 -14; 1
Chron. 16:7 -18).
Token: Circumcision.
(3)
Made with Israel.
The twelve cakes, or shewbread
(Lev. 24:5 -8).
(4)
Made with David.
Ordered in all things, and sure
(2 Sam. 23:1 -5).
Broken in Isaiah 24:5.
Repeated in Isaiah 55:3.
Repeated in Isaiah 61:8.
(5)
Made with Israel regathered from Babylon
(Jer. 32:40).
(6)
Made with Israel in line with Leviticus 26:42
(Ezek. 16:60).
(7)
Made with the rejoined houses of Israel and Judah
(Ezek. 37:26).
The New Covenant
We now turn our attention to the New Covenant as found in Jeremiah 31.
This New Covenant which the Lord will make with the house of Israel, and with
the house of Judah, is to take the place of the covenant which was made with
their fathers, when they came out of Egypt, 'which My covenant they brake,
although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord' (Jer. 31:31,32). The
LXX and the epistle to the Hebrews reads 'and I regarded them not' (Heb. 8:9)
where the Authorized Version of Jeremiah 31:32 reads 'although I was an
husband unto them'. The fact that the New Testament endorses the LXX
rendering shows that this must be accepted as the true rendering, but the
average reader may be somewhat perplexed thereby. Some Hebrew words are
called homonyms, or words having two meanings. Baal is one such word,
meaning either (1) to be Lord or Master, and so could refer to a husband, or
(2) to disdain or reject, which meaning it has in Arabic. Owen in his
exposition of the epistle resolves the different translations as follows:
'For whereas baal signifies a husband or to be a husband or a lord, the added
words "to them" signify "He exercised the right, power and authority of a
husband towards them"', i.e. 'I dealt with them as a husband with a wife that
breaketh covenant', that is to say 'I regarded them not'. The great
difference between the Old and New Covenant lies in the fact that the law,
which was originally written on stone, will be put in their inward parts and
written on the hearts, a feature expanded by the apostle Paul in 2
Corinthians 3:3-6.