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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
The new covenant
Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised a day when God would write his law on hearts instead of stone and put his own Spirit within his people. Some Jews of Paul's day believed the promise belonged to their own group.
The old rules were carved on the wall; the new ones are written into the people who keep them. At Sinai God gave the law on stone tablets, and Moses came down the mountain with his face shining so brightly that he covered it with a veil. Centuries later, facing exile, the prophets promised a new covenant. God would forgive his people, give them new hearts, write his law inside them and put his own Spirit in them. Jews in Paul's day knew these promises, and some groups believed they were already coming true among them.
The first law was written by God's finger on tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18). The prophets promised a new giving of the law (Isaiah 2:3), this time written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Keener notes that the heart was the law's intended home from the start (Deuteronomy 30:6, 11-14). Ezekiel promised that God would replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and put his Spirit within his people (Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27). Many Jews of the time expected this new or renewed covenant. The sect behind the Dead Sea Scrolls applied it to their own group in the Damascus Document, and they kept the law of Moses more strictly still. The blood of the first covenant was itself sometimes called the eternal covenant (Psalms of Solomon 10:4). Wright reads Jeremiah's promise as a new marriage of God and his people. It had to deal with their sins and set the relationship on a new footing, with the gift of God's own Spirit at its center. The future coming of the Spirit was a common Jewish hope. Moses' shining face (Exodus 34:29-35) had been expanded at length in Jewish tradition. Many in the empire saw Moses as a divine man, one of the ancient heroes with special powers from God. The law was read aloud regularly in synagogues. Comparisons argued from the lesser to the greater, the Jewish principle qal vahomer, how much more, were common among Jewish teachers and others. Wright and Bird sum up Paul's contrast in 2 Corinthians 3 as a ministry of the Spirit, of life and of lasting glory, set against a ministry of death whose glory faded.
An analogy: the difference between a safety manual pinned to the workshop wall and a master craftsman who has the rules in his hands. The rules have not changed; where they live has.
Because the prophets promised a covenant written on hearts by the Spirit, the contrast in 2 Corinthians 3:3-6 between stone and hearts, letter and Spirit, claims that the promise has arrived. Luke 22:20 speaks of the new covenant in Jesus' blood, and Hebrews 8:8-12 quotes Jeremiah's promise in full.
Not a skill learned at the bench. A craftsman gets the rules into his hands by years of practice. In the prophets God himself writes the law on the heart and puts his own Spirit within his people, so the change is his gift, not the worker's achievement.
Why Moses veiled his face. The cultural backgrounds notes say the people could not bear the glory, which could harm them, and that it also faded over time. The CSB Study Bible says the veil's main purpose was to keep Israel from seeing the old covenant's glory fade, a law designed to become obsolete. Keener stresses that the glory had to be covered, unlike Paul's open speech, and would always fade.
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- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, introduction to 3:7-18, and on 3:7, 3:8, 3:9-11, 3:13 and 3:14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, 3:6, 3:9 and 3:13
- CSB Study Bible, note on 2 Corinthians 3:13
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Corinthians 3:2-3
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 2 Corinthians, comment on 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 21, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Who were the super-apostles?
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Hebrews 8:6-13, and on Hebrews 8:8-9 and 13:20-21
