Psalm 40 and the “New Covenant” of Jeremiah 31?

This paper discusses how Ps 40 reflects a widely attested and complex discourse on how legalities relate to the human self—a discourse involving matters such as law’s relation to human flourishing and perfectibility (e.g., Deut 30:6–14; Jer 31:31–34; Ps 19; Wis 6 and 9; Philo; for others views of perfectibility, cf. Gen 6:5; 8:21; Qoh 9:3). Psalm 40 combines praise and lament, with divine law as a key factor in this liturgical text’s logic. After clarifying literary-historical and form-critical issues in studies of Ps 40, it will be argued that whether or not there is a literary relationship to Jer 31, these texts display divergent logic on law’s relationship to human flourishing. The paper contributes to scholarly understanding of legal discourse and lament in Jewish antiquity.