FBCHS-Bible Study "A New Covenant "

A New Covenant
Jeremiah 31:31-37

This prophecy of Jeremiah is one of the important prophecies of the Old Testament. It is the only prophecy of the New Covenant in it. It has been widely quoted in the New Testament, and is used in the debates concerning end-time prophecy. So it is profitable to take a look at the prophecy itself to see what it does say as well as that which it does not.
The passage begins with the LORD directly addressing the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Even though Judah was hanging on to its national identity, the house of Israel had lost hers over one hundred years earlier when they were taken into exile by Assyrian and dispersed among their clients states far away. A few were allowed to return, to keep the land from going to the wild beasts who intermarried with pagans and became the Samaritans. Josiah’s Passover also indicated that a few had escaped and lived in Judah. In the book of Luke, it mentions that Anna was of the tribe of Asher. But for the most part, the ten tribes were lost to history because they wanted to be like the pagan nations around them, and the Lord granted them this at the expense of their identity.