Will or Covenant?

SEVENTEEN times the Letter to the Hebrews uses the Greek term diathēkē, which is normally and rightly translated "covenant". Most modern translations, however, make an exception for Heb 9:1617, where this same word is rendered either "will" or "testament" in two successive verses.

This shift in translation reflects an interpretive shift on the part of many scholars, who hold that the author of Hebrews jumps momentarily from a theological discussion about "covenants" to establish a legal analogy with last "wills" and "testaments". The aim is to illustrate how the death of Jesus was necessary in order for Israel to receive its Christian inheritance. In support of this, scholars point out that in secular Greek, diathēkē does indeed refer to a last will and testament. Moreover, it is said that a person's will, once documented in writing, had no legal force while the person who drafted it was still alive; only when he died would the terms and benefits of the will go into effect. This testamentary view, which interprets Heb 9:1617 against the backdrop of secular Hellenistic culture, represents the majority opinion among biblical scholars today.

There is reason to believe, however, that the author may be thinking of a "covenant" in these two verses and not a person's "will". The literary context of Hebrews supports this, as does the historical context of testamentary practice in the New Testament period:

(1) Literary Context Scholars are united in holding that every occurrence of diathēkē in the Letter to the Hebrews, outside of these two disputed verses, refers to a covenant. No one doubts, in other words, that its author stands firmly within the stream of Jewish tradition represented by the Greek Septuagint, where diathēkē is the standard translation for the Hebrew term berit, "covenant". This is especially pronounced in Hebrews 8-9, where the author is drawing lines of comparison and contrast between the Old Covenant ratified under Moses and the New Covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Since Heb 9:16-17 is woven into the fabric of this discourse on covenant theology, there is every reason to believe that the author has a biblical background in mind when he speaks of a diathēkē rather than a secular and Hellenistic one.

(2) Historical Context Another strike against the testamentary reading of Heb 9:16-17 is that the author's statements do not correspond precisely to accepted legal practice. For instance, Hebrews insists that a diathēkē is confirmed only at death; yet history is clear that a last will and testament was considered valid before death, that is, as soon as it was properly drafted, publicly witnessed, and officially notarized. Hebrews likewise contends that a diathēkē is not in force as long as the one who made it is living; yet history again shows that sometimes a testamentary inheritance was distributed to beneficiaries while the testator who drafted it was still alive. This too makes it unlikely that the author of Hebrews is thinking of a "will" instead of a "covenant" in Heb 9:16-17.

The real benefit of translating diathēkē as "covenant" in Heb 9:16-17 is that it makes superior sense of the theological point being made. In other words, these verses are meant to explain how the death of Jesus redeemed Israel from its "transgressions" of the Mosaic covenant (Heb 9:15). According to covenant practice in ancient Israel, parties who enter a covenant swear an oath that invokes a curse upon anyone who would dare to violate the covenant. This is precisely what Israel did at the foot of Mount Sinai when the nation entered its covenant with Yahweh. The ratification ceremony, which involved the slaying of oxen in a symbolic blood ritual, was a visible and tangible sign of the oath curse, signifying that Israel chose to accept the same deadly fate should it transgress the covenant (Ex 24:1-8; Heb 9:18-20). In other words, the animals slain by the covenant maker signified the curse of death that God would impose on the covenant breaker. Thus, as soon as Israel betrayed the covenant at Sinai, falling down in worship before the golden calf (Ex 32:1-6), the nation placed itself under the curse of death (Ex 32:27-28). However, instead of activating the full force of the curse then and there, God mercifully allowed Israel to live (Ex 32:30-34) and instituted the annual Day of Atonement (Lev 16:1-34) to hold the curse of death at bay until such time as he would deal with the transgressions of his people in a definitive way (Heb 9:24-26).

Understood in these terms, the crucial text in Heb 9:16-17 refers directly and specifically to the Sinai covenant and may be paraphrased as follows: "Where there is a covenant (like the one made at Sinai), the death of the (unfaithful) covenant partner must be endured (once it is broken). For a covenant is confirmed (as being in effect) when death occurs, since it is never in force when the (guilty) covenant partner is living." The author is thus explaining how Israel, despite being guilty of transgressing the Mosaic covenant, was spared the curse of national death it had invoked upon itself. Instead, Jesus took this curse upon himself, finally putting the sanctions of the Mosaic covenant into full effect and bringing it all to an end (Heb 9:15). This is the atonement theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, which is a covenant theology through and through. It shows us that Christ gave consent to death, not only to seal a new diathēkē with the world, but to deal with the unfinished business of the old diathēkē broken by Israel. « Back to Hebrews 9:1.