UNROLL
Late afternoon on a stony hillside field above Anathoth: a small walled field of stubble with a few old olive trees and a heap of field stones, and far off on the southern skyline a haze of smoke over Jerusalem's ridge.

The Book of Comfort

Jeremiah 32

What would you invest in if you truly believed God’s promises?

44 verses≈ 10 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
  2. 2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
  3. 7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
  4. 11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessions
  5. 21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
  6. 30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siegeChapter 32
  7. 34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
  8. 40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
  9. 46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
  10. 52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

Jeremiah Buys Hanamel’s Field

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah.

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Zedekiah

For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying like this? You claim that the LORD says, ‘Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it. Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape from the hands of the Chaldeans, but he will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye. He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will stay until I attend to him, declares the LORD. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.’”

Jeremiah

Jeremiah replied, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: Behold! Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, is coming to you to say, ‘Buy for yourself my field in Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it.’

Jeremiah
Midday in the courtyard of the guard: a dusty country man in a brown wool cloak speaks urgently to the gray-bearded prophet seated on a stone bench, seen in profile; a guard stands with his spear at rest by the guardroom door.

Then, as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and urged me, ‘Please buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you own the right of inheritance and redemption. Buy it for yourself.’” Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.

BenjaminJerusalemAnathoth

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

A field behind the lines

Anathoth, Jeremiah’s home town, lay about 3 miles north-east of Jerusalem in the land of Benjamin. With the city under siege, the field was already in Babylon’s hands.

Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Close on stone paving in warm low light: a plain clay storage jar with its lid set beside it, two rolled deeds standing inside its mouth.

In their sight I instructed Baruch, “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Take these deeds—both the sealed copy and the open copy of the deed of purchase—and put them in a clay jar to preserve them for a long time. For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

Question

Quick question

With the Babylonian army at the walls, Jeremiah paid for a field and had the deeds kept safe. Look at 32:14.

Where did Jeremiah tell Baruch to keep the deeds?

Jeremiah Prays for Understanding

Jeremiah

After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD: “Oh, Lord GOD! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!

Jeremiah

You show loving devotion to thousands but lay the iniquity of the fathers into the laps of their children after them, O great and mighty God whose name is the LORD of Hosts, the One great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are on all the ways of the sons of men, to reward each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.

Jeremiah

You performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and You do so to this very day, both in Israel and among all mankind. And You have made a name for Yourself, as is the case to this day.

You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror. You gave them this land that You had sworn to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Jeremiah
Gray morning below Jerusalem's north wall: a long ramp of packed earth and stones climbs almost to the wall's top, a timber battering ram at rest at its foot, Babylonian tents beyond.

They came in and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law. They failed to perform all that You commanded them to do, and so You have brought upon them all this disaster. See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

Jeremiah

Yet You, O Lord GOD, have said to me, ‘Buy for yourself the field with silver and call in witnesses, even though the city has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans!’”

Pray

Pray

Lord GOD, You made the heavens and the earth; nothing is too difficult for You. When what I see and what You say don’t match, give me Jeremiah’s trust to obey. Amen.

The LORD Answers Jeremiah

Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

God

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

Jeremiah 32:27

God
Dusk over the flat roofs of Jerusalem: on several roofs small square stone incense altars send up thin threads of smoke, clay cups set on the parapets, no people.

Therefore this is what the LORD says: Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it. And the Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come in, set it on fire, and burn it, along with the houses of those who provoked Me to anger by burning incense to Baal on their rooftops and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods.

God

For the children of Israel and of Judah have done nothing but evil in My sight from their youth; indeed, they have done nothing but provoke Me to anger by the work of their hands, declares the LORD.

For this city has aroused My wrath and fury from the day it was built until now. Therefore I will remove it from My presence because of all the evil the children of Israel and of Judah have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem. They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.

God

They have placed their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it. They have built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech—something I never commanded them, nor had it ever entered My mind, that they should commit such an abomination and cause Judah to sin.

Is anything too difficult?

The siege32:2Buy the field32:7–9Seal it in ajar32:14Nothing toodifficult32:17: Jeremiah’sprayerIs anything?32:27: the LORD’sanswerFields will bebought32:43–44

Whiteboard

Jeremiah obeyed before he understood, then prayed. The LORD answered that judgment would come, and so would every good He had promised.

A Promise of Restoration

God

Now therefore, about this city of which you say, ‘It will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword and famine and plague,’ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety. They will be My people, and I will be their God.

God

I will give them one heart and one way, so that they will always fear Me for their own good and for the good of their children after them.

God

I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.

God
God

Yes, I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

God
Evening on a hill field above Anathoth, now green: a Judean family and an elder walk its edge beside new boundary stones, a donkey with a wooden plow, the village on its ridge.

For this is what the LORD says: Just as I have brought all this great disaster on this people, so I will bring on them all the good I have promised them. And fields will be bought in this land about which you are saying, ‘It is a desolation, without man or beast; it has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans.’ Fields will be purchased with silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed, and witnessed in the land of Benjamin, in the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah—the cities of the hill country, the foothills, and the Negev—because I will restore them from captivity, declares the LORD.”

0:38

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

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Jeremiah 32

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A verse to carry with you

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

Jeremiah 32:27

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