From the Least to the Greatest: What Jeremiah 31:34 Doesn't Mean

Contrary to the common (Baptist) assumption, Jeremiah 31 does not teach that every single new covenant member without exception will know the Lord in a true and saving way.

In verse 34, Jeremiah uses a specific quantifying phrase that appears again and again throughout his book: "From the least to the greatest of them." That exact phrase or very similar wording appears in 6:13; 8:10; 16:6; 42:1; 44:12; etc. with close parallels in 5:4-5 and 9:3-6. Yet, in none of those instances does it mean "every single person without exception." Instead, it simply refers to that which is "pervasively but not exhaustively true."

The difference, then, between the Old and New Covenants with respect to the condition of the people was that they have gone from a pervasive ignorance to a pervasive knowledge of the LORD. However, this knowledge cannot be seen as the prerequisite condition for New Covenant membership anymore than the former ignorance was for Old Covenant membership.

In 6:13 and 8:10, Jeremiah uses the phrase in question to describe the pervasive corruption of the people, saying, "From the least to the greatest of them, every one is greedy for unjust gain." But this statement clearly does not mean that "every last member" of the covenant was greedy for unjust gain. For if we take the phrase in such an exhaustive way, it would mean anyone who was not greedy for unjust gain was not a member of the Covenant. This in turn would mean that Jeremiah himself was also excluded from the Mosaic Covenant!

So in the end, the point should be clear. In Jeremiah 31:34, the quantifying phrase "from the least to the greatest of them" is added to the term "all" to communicate the idea that in the days of the New Covenant there will be a much greater number of people who know the LORD than there was in the days of the Old. But it does not indicate that every individual member will know the Lord in a true and saving way.