Yeremia 24:7

24:7 I will give them the desire to acknowledge that I ¹  am the Lord. I will be their God and they will be my people. For they will wholeheartedly ²  return to me.’

Yeremia 31:1

31:1 At that time I will be the God of all the clans of Israel ³ 

and they will be my people.

I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁴ 

Yeremia 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ⁵  after I plant them back in the land,” ⁶  says the Lord. ⁷  “I will ⁸  put my law within them ⁹  and write it on their hearts and minds. ¹⁰  I will be their God and they will be my people. ¹¹ 

Ulangan 26:17-19

26:17 Today you have declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and obey him. 26:18 And today the Lord has declared you to be his special people (as he already promised you) so you may keep all his commandments. 26:19 Then ¹²  he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. ¹³  You will ¹⁴  be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.

Kidung Agung 2:16

Poetic Refrain: Mutual Possession

The Beloved about Her Lover:

2:16 My lover is mine and I am his;

he grazes among the lilies. ¹⁵ 

Yehezkiel 11:20

11:20 so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. ¹⁶ 

Yehezkiel 36:28

36:28 Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. ¹⁷ 

Yehezkiel 37:27

37:27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Hosea 2:23

2:23 Then I will plant her as my own ¹⁸  in the land.

I will have pity on ‘No Pity’ (Lo-Ruhamah).

I will say to ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), ‘You are my people!’

And he ¹⁹  will say, ‘You are ²⁰  my God!’”

Zakharia 13:9

13:9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire;

I will refine them like silver is refined

and will test them like gold is tested.

They will call on my name and I will answer;

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” ²¹ 

Matius 22:32

22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²²  He is not the God of the dead but of the living!” ²³ 

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 ²⁴  my laws in their minds ²⁵  and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. ²⁶ 

Wahyu 21:3

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence ²⁷  of God is among human beings. ²⁸  He ²⁹  will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. ³⁰ 

[24:7]  ¹ tn Heb “I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord.” For the use of “heart” here referring to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will” see BDB 525 s.v. לֵב 4 and compare the usage in 2 Chr 12:14. For the use of “know” to mean “acknowledge” see BDB 384 s.v. יָדַע Qal.1.f and compare the usage in Jer 39:4. For the construction “know ‘someone’ that he…” = “know that ‘someone’…” see GKC 365 §117.h and compare the usage in 2 Sam 3:25.

[24:7]  ² tn Heb “with all their heart.”

[31:1]  ³ sn This verse repeats v. 22 but with specific reference to all the clans of Israel, i.e., to all Israel and Judah. It functions here as a transition to the next section which will deal with the restoration of Israel (31:3-20) and Judah (31:21-25) and their reunification in the land (31:27-29) under a new covenant relation with God (31:31-37). See also the study note on 30:3 for further reference to this reunification in Jeremiah and the other prophets.

[31:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[26:19]  ¹² tn Heb “so that.” Verses 18-19 are one sentence in the Hebrew text, but the translation divides it into three sentences for stylistic reasons. The first clause in verse 19 gives a result of the preceding clause. When Israel keeps God’s law, God will bless them with fame and honor (cf. NAB “he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory”; NLT “And if you do, he will make you greater than any other nation”).

[26:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “for praise and for a name and for glory.”

[26:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and to be.” A new sentence was started here for stylistic reasons.

[2:16]  ¹⁵ sn This line may be translated either as “the one who grazes among the lilies” or as “the one who feeds [his flock] among the lilies.” The latter would picture him as a shepherd pasturing his flock among a bed of flowers which they were eating, while the former would be picturing him as a gazelle feeding among a bed of flowers. Because of the occurrence of the gazelle motif in the following verse, it is most likely that this motif is present in this verse as well. Although it seems likely that he is therefore being pictured as a gazelle eating these flowers, it is far from clear as to what this figurative picture denotes. It is possible that it conveys the peaceful nature of his relationship with her because she was earlier portrayed as a lily (e.g., 2:1).

[11:20]  ¹⁶ sn The expression They will be my people, and I will be their God occurs as a promise to Abraham (Gen 17:8), Moses (Exod 6:7), and the nation (Exod 29:45).

[36:28]  ¹⁷ sn This promise reflects the ancient covenantal ideal (see Exod 6:7).

[2:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for myself.”

[2:23]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text, carrying out the reference to the son born in 1:8-9, uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here; some English translations use third person plural (“they,” so KJV, NASB, NIV, CEV) in keeping with the immediate context, which refers to reestablished Israel.

[2:23]  ²⁰ tn The words “You are” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are implied. It is necessary to supply the phrase in the translation to prevent the reader from understanding the predicate “my God” as an exclamation (cf. NAB).

[13:9]  ²¹ sn The expression I will say ‘It is my people,’ and they will say ‘the Lord is my God’ is reminiscent of the restoration of Israel predicted by Hosea, who said that those who had been rejected as God’s people would be reclaimed and once more become his sons and daughters (Hos 2:23).

[22:32]  ²² sn A quotation from Exod 3:6.

[22:32]  ²³ sn He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised.

[8:10]  ²⁴ tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

[8:10]  ²⁵ tn Grk “mind.”

[8:10]  ²⁶ 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.

[21:3]  ²⁷ tn Or “dwelling place”; traditionally, “tabernacle”; literally “tent.”

[21:3]  ²⁸ tn Or “people”; Grk “men” (ἀνθρώπων, anqrwpwn), a generic use of the term. In the translation “human beings” was used here because “people” occurs later in the verse and translates a different Greek word (λαοί, laoi).

[21:3]  ²⁹ tn Grk “men, and he.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[21:3]  ³⁰ tc ‡ Most mss (א Ï^K) do not add the words “[as] their God” (αὐτῶν θεός, autwn qeos) after “he will be with them.” The mss with these words include A 2030 2050 2329 al. The Andreas group (Ï^A) also has the words, but in a different arrangement with the preceding (ἔσται μετ᾿ αὐτῶν θεὸς αὐτῶν, estai met’ autwn qeo" autwn). Not only do the words float, but scribes may have been motivated to make a connection here more directly with Isa 7:14; 8:8; Jer 24:7; 31:33; Zech 8:8. In light of sufficient external evidence as well as the possibility that the longer reading is theologically motivated, the shorter reading is preferred. NA²⁷ places the words in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity.