Text: Jeremiah 31:33
OT Text Referred to: Deuteronomy 30:6
Subject: heart-circumcision pre-figuring the law written on the heart
Source: Gary Schnittjer, Old Testament Use of Old Testament; Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Jer 31:31-34 — The New Covenant
Significance: Deuteronomy 30:6 is the strongest OT antecedent to Jeremiah's law-on-the-heart promise: "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live." Moses promises a divine surgery — a heart God himself will circumcise — producing the wholehearted love the people have proven unable to render. Jeremiah 31:33 specifies the same interior transformation in covenant terms: "I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts." Both texts locate the problem in the heart, both make God the sole agent of its renewal (the unilateral "I will"), and both promise the resulting obedience-from-love that the external Sinai code could not secure. Jeremiah advances the Deuteronomic promise by naming the arrangement a new covenant and the result as immediate knowledge of God and full forgiveness. The trajectory runs Deut 10:16 (command to circumcise the heart) → Deut 30:6 (promise that God will do it) → Jer 31:33 (the new covenant that accomplishes it) → its fulfillment in Christ by the Spirit (Rom 2:29). The significance terminates in the glory of a God who does not merely demand a circumcised heart but gives one — making love for God, the highest delight, his own gracious gift in the new covenant.