Mazmur 40:8

40:8 I want to do what pleases you, ¹  my God.

Your law dominates my thoughts.” ² 

Yeremia 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ³  after I plant them back in the land,” ⁴  says the Lord. ⁵  “I will ⁶  put my law within them ⁷  and write it on their hearts and minds. ⁸  I will be their God and they will be my people. ⁹ 

Yehezkiel 11:19

11:19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; ¹⁰  I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies ¹¹  and I will give them tender hearts, ¹² 

Yehezkiel 36:25-27

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ¹³  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone ¹⁴  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ¹⁵  36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; ¹⁶  I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes ¹⁷  and carefully observe my regulations. ¹⁸ 

Ibrani 8:10

8:10 “For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put ¹⁹  my laws in their minds ²⁰  and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. ²¹ 

Ibrani 10:16

10:16 “This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put ²²  my laws on their hearts and I will inscribe them on their minds,” ²³ 

[40:8]  ¹ tn Or “your will.”

[40:8]  ² tn Heb “your law [is] in the midst of my inner parts.” The “inner parts” are viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s thought life and moral decision making.

[31:33]  ³ tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.

[31:33]  ⁴ tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.

[31:33]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ⁶ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ⁷ tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.

[31:33]  ⁸ tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.

[31:33]  sn Two contexts are relevant for understanding this statement. First is the context of the first or old covenant which was characterized by a law written on stone tablets (e.g., Exod 32:15-16; 34:1, 28; Deut 4:13; 5:22; 9:10) or in a “book” or “scroll” (Deut 31:9-13) which could be lost (cf. 2 Kgs 22:8), forgotten (Hos 4:6), ignored (Jer 6:19; Amos 4:2), or altered (Jer 8:8). Second is the context of the repeated fault that Jeremiah has found with their stubborn (3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12; 18:12; 23:17), uncircumcised (4:4; 9:26), and desperately wicked hearts (4:4; 17:9). Radical changes were necessary to get the people to obey the law from the heart and not just pay superficial or lip service to it (3:10; 12:2). Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28 speak of these radical changes. The Lord will remove the “foreskin” of their heart and give them a circumcised heart, or take away their “stony” heart and give them a new heart. With this heart they will be able to obey his laws, statutes, ordinances, and commands (Deut 30:8; Ezek 11:20; 36:27). The new covenant does not entail a new law; it is the same law that Jeremiah has repeatedly accused them of rejecting or ignoring (6:19; 9:13; 16:11; 26:4; 44:10). What does change is their inner commitment to keep it. Jeremiah has already referred to this in Jer 24:7 and will refer to it again in Jer 32:39.

[31:33]  ⁹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[11:19]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads “you”; many Hebrew mss along with the LXX and other ancient versions read “within them.”

[11:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their flesh.”

[11:19]  ¹² tn Heb “heart of flesh.”

[36:25]  ¹³ sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

[36:26]  ¹⁴ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).

[36:26]  ¹⁵ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

[36:27]  ¹⁶ tn Or “in the midst of you.” The word “you” is plural.

[36:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and I will do that which in my statutes you will walk.” The awkward syntax (verb “to do, act” + accusative sign + relative clause + prepositional phrase + second person verb) is unique, though Eccl 3:14 contains a similar construction. In the last line of that verse we read that “God acts so that (relative pronoun) they fear before him.” However, unlike Ezek 36:27, the statement has no accusative sign before the relative pronoun.

[36:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and my laws you will guard and you will do them.” Jer 31:31-34 is parallel to this passage.

[8:10]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

[8:10]  ²⁰ tn Grk “mind.”

[8:10]  ²¹ tn Grk “I will be to them for a God and they will be to me for a people,” following the Hebrew constructions of Jer 31.

[10:16]  ²² tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

[10:16]  ²³ sn A quotation from Jer 31:33.