In view of these strong emphases on continuity, it may come as a shock to encounter in the Old Testament Scriptures another, seemingly different, message.
The prophet Jeremiah lived during a time of disaster for the Israelites. Time and again, he pointed out the reason for their misery.
Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? And the Lord says: “Because they have forsaken My law that I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice or walked in accord with it.” (Jeremiah 9:12-13)
“They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers.” (Jeremiah 11:10)
Jeremiah called for them to repent. But in that same period, Jeremiah said something new, something so revolutionary as nearly to be unimaginable. Just as God inspired Jeremiah to defend and promote the law of Moses, God also inspired the most surprising promise for the future.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:31-32)