Hebrews 9:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Saying, This is the blood of the testament— Of the covenant, that is, the blood by which the covenant between God and this people is ratified and confirmed. Our blessed Saviour seems to have had the passage of Moses here referred to in view, when he gave to his disciples the cup in his last supper: This, said he, is my blood, even that of the new testament, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins; Matthew 26:28. The apostle, in the words before us, follows neither the Hebrew nor the LXX; but only gives the sense of what he found in the Old Testament, as he does in many other parts of this epistle. It is undeniably plain from hence, (if there wanted further proof,) that he uses the word διαθηκη for a covenant, and not for a testament; not only from the Hebrew word ברית, berith, which he here translates, but from the thing itself, the old law having nothing of the nature of a testament in it. See the Reflections on this chapter, where I treat the subject according to our common translation.