Hebrews 8:8

Hebrews 8:8. Yet it is sought For (and this is the proof) finding fault with them. This phrase completes the description of the previous verse. There, the covenant is said to be not blameless; and here, it is the people who are blamed. The covenant, as a revelation of God's holiness, was faultless; but as the people fell away under it, it failed as a covenant of works to establish abiding fellowship between them and God, and so proved weak and profitless (Hebrews 7:22, see on Hebrews 7:19).

He saith: Behold, the days come Jeremiah's common introduction to his prophecies (Jeremiah 9:25, Jer. 16:24, etc.). The prediction that follows is taken from the last great series of his prophecies (chaps, 30-31), which are distinctly Messianic It points to the new covenant which God will one day make with His people, based upon the absolute remission of sins and on a no less absolute change of heart.

When I will make; rather, will complete. The word here used is not the same as in Hebrews 8:9, which is rightly ‘made,' nor yet as in Hebrews 8:10, where the word means establish a ‘covenant.' It may be added, however, that the three different Greek verbs used here are taken from the LXX., and that all represent one and the same Hebrew verb. Nor is the ‘with' of Hebrews 8:9-10 the same expression in the Greek. In both verses the ‘house of Israel' and ‘their fathers' are rather recipients than co-ordinate agents. The covenant is ‘for' them rather than with them, though in a sense it was both and is so described.