Passage

Hebrews 8.13

"When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." (Hebrews 8:13, NASB95)

The verse closes the author's argument that Christ's priesthood inaugurates a new covenant which by its very existence renders the Mosaic covenant obsolete. The logic is verbal: the moment God spoke "new" in Jeremiah 31.31-34, He marked the prior covenant as aged and on the way out. Hebrews 8:13 is the New Testament's clearest statement that the Mosaic order is a closed economy, and it grounds the foundational distinction Christians draw between the law-administration that ran to Sinai-to-Cross and the covenantal order under which the church now lives.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"11. And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, From the least to the greatest of them. 12. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And their sins will I remember no more."

"13. In that he saith, A new covenant he hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away." (Hebrews 8:11-13, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"11. They will not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all will know me, from their least to their greatest. 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.""

"13. In that he says, "A new covenant", he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away." (Hebrews 8:11-13, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"11. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

"13. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8:11-13, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"11. and they shall not teach each his neighbour, and each his brother, saying, Know thou the Lord, because they shall all know Me from the small one of them unto the great one of them, 12. because I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawlessnesses I will remember no more;' --"

"13. in the saying 'new,' He hath made the first old, and what doth become obsolete and is old [is] nigh disappearing." (Hebrews 8:11-13, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: the author of Hebrews (anonymous; traditionally associated with Paul, more commonly today with Apollos, Barnabas, or an unnamed Hellenistic Jewish-Christian)
Audience: Jewish-Christian community under pressure to revert to temple-Judaism
Location: composition site unknown; likely Rome or Asia Minor
Time period: composed c. AD 60-69, before the AD 70 destruction of the temple (the present-tense temple language in chapter 9 fits a pre-70 setting)

Theological reading

The verse turns on the verb the NASB95 renders "has made obsolete" (Greek pepalaiōken, from palaioō, to make old). The aorist points to a completed action: by speaking "new" through Jeremiah, God already aged the Mosaic covenant centuries before the cross arrived to put it in the grave. The progression in the second clause (becoming obsolete, growing old, ready to disappear) tracks the transitional period in which Hebrews itself was written: sacrifices were still being offered in Jerusalem, but the priestly order had been superseded in heaven by Christ's once-for-all self-offering (Hebrews 10.11-14). The temple's AD 70 fall a few years later confirmed in history what had already happened in theology.

The apologetic weight of this verse is twofold. First, against the charge that Christians arbitrarily discard parts of the Old Testament: Hebrews argues that the Mosaic order was constructed to terminate, that its priesthood (Hebrews 7.11), sacrifices (Hebrews 10.4), and ceremonial economy (Colossians 2.15, Matthew 5.17) all pointed past themselves to Christ. Discontinuity is built into the Old Testament's own self-witness. Second, against hard supersessionism (the claim that the church replaces ethnic Israel without remainder): the new covenant is itself Israel's covenant in Jeremiah 31, made "with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." The change is in the covenantal administration, not in the identity of God's promises.

For Christian-Jewish dialogue this is the decisive text. It does not deny that the Mosaic covenant was good, true, and from God (see Mosaic Law, Levitical Priesthood); it asserts that the same God who instituted it announced its termination and then brought it about in Christ. The covenants are sequential, not contradictory. See Christians Not Under Mosaic Law for the ethical implications.

Key words

G1242 - diatheke, diathēkē (Strong's G1242), covenant, the governing noun of the whole passage.
G3551 - nomos, nomos (Strong's G3551), the law as the Mosaic legal system being declared obsolete.

Theological themes

Covenantal obsolescence. The Mosaic covenant is not merely fulfilled but explicitly aged-out by God's own word.
New-covenant inauguration. Jeremiah 31's promise is the textual basis; Christ's priesthood is its execution.
Continuity of the covenant-maker. The same God instituted both; Christians read this as fulfillment, not abrogation by contradiction.
Temple-cult terminus. The verse implies the Levitical sacrificial system is on the way out, vindicated by AD 70.
Christ-priest replacement of Aaronic priesthood. Set up by Hebrews 7.11 and discharged by Hebrews 10.11-14.

Cross-references

Jeremiah 31.31-34, the new-covenant promise quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12 and presupposed by verse 13.
Hebrews 7.11, the priesthood-change argument that drives the covenantal-change conclusion.
Hebrews 10.11-14, Christ's one sacrifice ending the repetitive Levitical cycle.
Matthew 5.17, Jesus on fulfillment rather than abolition.
Colossians 2.15, the cross as cancellation of the certificate of debt.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.