Text: Jeremiah 32:38-40
OT Text Referred to: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Subject: Jeremiah's own internal restatement — the everlasting covenant
Source: Walter C. Kaiser, The Promise-Plan of God; Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Jer 31:31-34 — The New Covenant
Significance: Within the same Book of Consolation, Jeremiah restates his new-covenant oracle three chapters later: "They will be My people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way... I will make an everlasting covenant with them... and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me" (Jer 32:38-40). The restatement reproduces and amplifies the constitutive promises of Jeremiah 31:31-34: the covenant formula ("they will be My people, and I will be their God," 31:33b / 32:38), the interiorization ("inscribe it on their hearts," 31:33 / "I will put My fear in their hearts," 32:40), and the unilateral divine guarantee of the people's perseverance. Where chapter 31 calls the arrangement new, chapter 32 calls it everlasting (bĕrît ʿôlām) — the two adjectives together establish that the coming covenant is both unprecedented and irrevocable. The "one heart and one way" answers the divided, faithless heart that broke the Sinai covenant. This internal restatement confirms that the new-covenant oracle is no isolated saying but the theological center of Jeremiah's restoration message. Its significance terminates in the security of grace: because God himself puts his fear in the heart "so that they will never turn away," the covenant cannot fail — the believer's perseverance is God's gift, making the everlasting covenant a ground of unshakable joy rather than anxious effort. Hebrews 13:20 later draws on this "everlasting covenant" language to seal its new-covenant argument.