Hebrews 9:15-18

c. By the death of our High Priest, the new covenant is a last will and testament, Hebrews 9:15-18 .

The Greek word for covenant, διαθηκη , signifies a disposition of things, a dispensation, an arrangement. Hence it includes an arrangement by agreement, that is, a covenant; or an arrangement by bequest or dying will, that is, a testament. Parenthetically, therefore, and very much as a side thought, the analogy of a testament is brought in as illustrating the death of which the ritual bloodshed was the symbol. The idea of testament, or will, was not, indeed, included in the Hebrew word for covenant; nor was a testamentary bequest one of the customs of Israel. Yet our apostle finds in the three facts of an inheritance, namely, a bestower, the death of the bestower, and the condition of the inheritance passing down to the inheritor all the points necessary to be framed into the conception of a testament. The sense of covenant does, indeed, still remain; but the newly specified elements in the transaction entitle him to figure it a testamentary covenant.