In Deutero-Is. (40 ff. ) the assurance of a new covenant reposes on two great conceptions — the universalistic conception of J"asGod, and that of the invincible power of the knowledge of the true God once implanted in the heart of mankind. J" is God alone. Creator, He that giveth breath unto the people, and in this all is said : He shall yet be acknowledged by all, 'By myself have I sworn that to me every knee shall bow' (45-^ 42"). And Israel is His witness (43'"). There is no mention of former covenants with the fathers or Israel. J" called Israel (4I» 42» 49'-' 51'), and in theact of calling He planted in Israel the consciousness of its meaning in the moral history of mankind — ' I said unto thee. Thou art my ser- vant ' (41*"). There is no God but J', and Israel is His servant, to bring forth judgment to the nations, to be the light of the Gentiles, that the salvation of J" may be to the end of the earth (49*). The knowledge of the true God has been given to man- kind once for all in Israel ; and this idea of the
true knowledge or word of the true God implanted in Israel, incarnated in the seed of Abraham — this idea personilied into a Being is the Servant of the Lord. One might not be able anywhere or at any time to lay his finger on this Being, but he was there, had always been there since Israel's call and the creation of its consciousness (49'"*). And the religious history of mankind was a Process at Law, the conduct of the great Cause of the Servant against the nations, their wrongs and idolatries. In this cause he was righteous, that is, in the right : his cause was that of J", and though he stood contra mundum he would surely prevail : ' I know that I shall not be put to shame' (50^"'). So the Servant becomes a covenant of the people, to restore the tribes of Jacob (42' 49"). And this is too light a thing, he shall also be the light of the nations. The new covenant is one of peace (54'°), is ever- lasting (55' 61*), and the Gentiles may take hold of it (Sti'-" 44»).
in the above and all late writings bertth is used in a general way, not of the act of agreement, but of its conditions or any one of them, and thus of the religion of Israel as a whole (Is 56*, Ps 103"). So it is used of the relation created by the covenant ; the new covenant is not thought of as a formal act of agreement, but as the realizing in history of the true covenant idea. The term biritk had a charm and power, and was clung to, partly because it expressed the most solemn and unalterable assurance on God's part that He would be the people's salvation, and partly, perhaps, because it suggested that He acted with men after the manner of men, graciously engaging Himself to them, and entering into their life. The covenant thus took form in their heart, awakening hopes and ideals towards which, kindled and elevated by the divine fellowship, they might strive. And thus the covenants were not only promises of redemption, but stages in its attainment. For God's covenants were not isolated and unmolived interpositions, they attached themselves to lofty spiritual conditions of men's minds,— to the 'faith' of Abraham (Gn 15'), to David's absorbing purpose to prepare an house for J" (2 S 7, Ps 132), to the ' zeal ' of LeW and Phinehas, and to the elevated re- ligious mind of Israel in the hour of its redemption.
By the time of the LXX translation birith had become a religious term in the sense of a onesided engagement on the part of God, as in P and late writings ; and to this may be due the use of the word StadriKT), disposition or appointment, though the term was then somewhat inappropriately applied to reciprocal engagements among men.* In the Ep. to the Hebrews the word is used both for covenant and testament, the idea of covenant as a onesided disposition naturally sliding into that of testament when the other ideas of inheritance and death are involved (9'"""). The Ep. develops in detail Jer 31"" , particularly the promise, ' I will remember their sins no more.' The Day of Atone- ment (Lv 16), in which the piacular rites of OT culminated, is used as a frame into which to insert the work of Christ ; and the rites and actions of the high priest on that day, which could never realize the idea they embodied, serve as a foil to the sacrifice and hich priesthood of Christ, which ' for ever perfected the sanetitied.' The other half of the promise, ' In their hearts I will write my law,' is not developed in the Ep. (cf. ref. to the Spirit, Is 59=', Ezk 36""). St. Paul employs the term Sia$-/iKri (Gal 3"), but in the sense of an en- gagement on the part of God, which is, as he calls It, a promise. In the main he follows P, «.?. (1) in assuming that there is but one covenant, the
• Aristoph. A 0. 439, is quoted as an ex, of the meaning ' con- vention.' nnjt\ial enpapenient. Had this sense estabUshed itaelf in the •common " dialect of tlie 3rd cent. B.C. ?