Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 8:11

"And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, From the least to the greatest of them." — Hebrews 8:11 (ASV)

The third significant feature of the new covenant is that all who enter it will have knowledge of God; there will be no need for anyone to instruct his or her “neighbor” (lit., “citizen”; GK 4489). Jeremiah then moves from the wider relationship in the community to the narrower relationship in the family (“brother”) and says that in neither case will there be the need for exhorting anyone to know God. For “from the least of them to the greatest,” all will “know the Lord.” There will always, of course, be the need for those who have advanced in the Christian way to pass on to others the benefit of thenknowledge. But this knowledge of God will not be confined to a privileged few. Everyone in the new covenant will have his or her own intimate and personal knowledge of God.