Pick up any Christian translation of the Bible, and you will find Hebrews 8:7 making a very strange claim: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second” (nas). Since we know that the term “first covenant” is, in fact, referring to the Torah of Moses (Hebrews 9:16), it is then concluded that Hebrews 8:7 must be teaching us that God’s Torah—what Scripture itself calls “perfect” (James 1:25, Psalm 19:7)—is actually defective. And if the passage says that the Torah is not “faultless,” then this would naturally lead to it becoming old, obsolete, and near disappearing (Hebrews 8:13). It is a very strange claim to make—that a covenant of God is faulty—because not only is it absurd, but it is not what the Scriptures say.

This monumental error in translation is due to an assumption, fed by an inherent anti-Torah bias. What many translators do not disclose is that they have actually added the word “covenant” to verses 7 and 13. In truth, there is no corresponding word for “covenant” in the original language of these verses. The Greek simply says, “For if that first had been faultless.” Naturally, the author’s ambiguity here begs the question, “First what?” And the faulty conclusion reached by Christian theology has been “first covenant,” meaning, the Torah. On one level, this deduction is somewhat reasonable, given Hebrews’ repeated references to Yeshua’s better covenant, an extensive citation from Jeremiah 31 about the New Covenant, and, again, the “first covenant” in chapter 9. Yet the greater context of Hebrews 8, which includes chapters 7 through 10, shows that the author is not actually focused on comparing covenants at all, but priesthoods. Consider Hebrews 7:11, “Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood… what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek,” (nas, emphasis added). It is therefore not the first covenant which was at fault, but the first priesthood—that of Levi—which gave rise to the need for a second priesthood: Yeshua’s.

This concept of needing a second priesthood builds upon the teaching in Hebrews 7:12—that in the event of the priesthood being changed, the Torah also needs to change (see last month’s article)—and leads to the author’s selective contrasting in later verses between the Torah and the New Covenant. Yet the presence of this contrast does not then turn Hebrews 8:7 into a pointed commentary about the Torah. On the contrary, Hebrews never once implies that a change of the Torah results in it being replaced or done away with, which is what a mistranslation of verse 7 implies. The only reason why Hebrews broaches the subject of Torah at all is because it serves the purpose of explaining the better, greater, and perfect priesthood of Yeshua. The author’s explicit comparison of covenants is not for the disparaging or minimizing of Torah, but for the elevation and celebration of Yeshua.

In addition to the larger discussion of priesthoods, there is yet more evidence that verse 7 is referring not to a first covenant, but a first priesthood. Again, verse 7 says, “For if that first had been faultless,” while the very next verse begins, “For finding fault with them…” (emphasis added). This should make it plain where the “fault” of verse 7 lies: not with the covenant, but with “them”—the people. The author had previously explained at length about the weakness of the priests, their sins, and their being naturally hindered by death. These are what make the first priesthood defective, not the covenant which prescribes that very same priesthood as an example and shadow of Yeshua’s perfect and indestructible one. It is therefore because of the faultiness of the people of Israel—and, ultimately, the inadequacy of Israel’s mortal, sinful priests—that Yeshua’s priesthood was finally sought.

Misinterpretations of Hebrews’ discussion of the New Covenant portray it as a declaration that the Torah—“the first covenant”—is old, obsolete, and near disappearing. But when the full context is taken into account, we find that what the “new” actually makes “old” is “the first priesthood” (Hebrews 8:13). Yeshua “has obtained a more excellent service” than Levi. He now mediates a new and better covenant—one “which has been sanctioned by תּוֹרָה, Torah on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6, mjlt).

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