1The word that came to Jeremiah in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which is the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. 2Then were the forces of the king of Babylonia besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the court of the guard which was in the house of the king. 3As Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, “Why do you prophesy, saying, ‘Thus said the LORD: I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall capture it. 4And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall speak to him mouth to mouth and see him eye to eye. 5And to Babylonia he shall take Zedekiah, and there he shall be until I single him out, said the LORD. Though you do battle against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed.’?” 6And Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: 7Look, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, ‘Buy for yourself my field which is in Anathoth, for yours is the right of redemption to buy.’ 8And Hanamel the son of my uncle came to me according to the word of the LORD, to the court of the guard, and said to me, ‘Buy for yourself my field which is in Anathoth, which is in the region of Benjamin, for yours is the right of inheritance and yours is the redemption. Buy it for yourself.’ And I knew that it was the word of the LORD. 9And I bought the field which is in Anathoth from Hanamel the son of my uncle and weighed out to him the silver, seventeen silver shekels. 10And I wrote it in a scroll and sealed it and had it witnessed and weighed the silver on the scales. 11And I took the sealed scroll of purchase, the injunction and the stipulations, and the open copy. 12And I gave the scroll of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah before the eyes of Hanamel son of my uncle and before the eyes of the witness who signed the scroll of purchase before the eyes of all the Judahites sitting in the court of the guard. 13And I charged Baruch before their eyes, saying, 14Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: ‘Take these scrolls, this sealed scroll of purchase and this open scroll, and put them in an earthenware jar so that they may last many days.’ 15For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, ‘Yet shall houses and fields and vineyards be bought in this land.’ 16And I prayed to the LORD after I gave the scroll of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, saying: 17Alas, O Master LORD! Look, You made the heavens and the earth through your great power and with Your outstretched arm. Nothing is beyond you, 18doing kindness for the thousands and paying back the crime of the fathers into the lap of their sons after them, great and mighty God, LORD of Armies is His name. 19Great in counsel, grand in acts, Whose eyes are open on all the ways of humankind to give to each man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. 20You Who set out signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to this day in Israel and in humankind, and You have made You a name as on this day. 21And You brought out Your people Israel from the land of Egypt in signs and wonders and with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror. 22And You gave them this land that You vowed to their fathers to give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey. 23And they came and took hold of it, but they did not heed Your voice and did not go by Your teachings. All that You charged them to do they did not do, and all this evil befell them. 24Look, the siege-ramps have come against the city to capture it, and the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans battling against it—because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence. And that which You spoke has come to be, and here You see it. 25And You, You said to me, O Master LORD, ‘Buy for yourself the field with silver and summon witnesses when the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’” 26And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: 27“Look, I am the LORD, God of all flesh. Can anything be beyond Me? 28Therefore, thus said the LORD: I am about to give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans battling against this city and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and he shall capture it. 29And the Chaldeans battling against this city shall come and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses and the roofs on which they burned incense to Baal and poured libations to other gods so as to vex Me. 30For the Israelites and the Judahites have been doing naught but evil in My eyes from their youth, for the Israelites have been vexing Me with the work of their hands, said the LORD. 31For to My anger and to My wrath this city has been to Me from the day they built it to this day, so as to remove it from before Me, 32for all the evil of the Israelites and the Judahites that they have done to vex Me, they, their kings, their nobles, their priests, and their prophets, the men of Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem. 33They turned their backs to Me, and not their faces. I taught them constantly, but they have not heeded to accept discipline. 34And they put their foul things in the house on which My name was called, to defile it. 35And they built the high places for Baal which are in the Valley of of Ben-Hinnom to consign their sons and their daughters to Molech, which I did not charge them and which never came to My mind to do this abomination, so as to make Judah offend. 36And so now, thus said the LORD God of Israel concerning this city of which you said, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylonia by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. 37I am about to gather them from all the lands where I scattered them in My anger and in My wrath and in great fury, and I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell secure. 38And they shall be My people and I will be their God. 39And I will give them a single heart and a single way to fear Me always, so that it will be well with them and with their sons after them. 40And I will seal with them an everlasting covenant, that I not turn back from them so that I do good for them, and My fear I will put in their heart, that they do not swerve from Me. 41And I will rejoice over them to do good for them, and I will plant them on this land truly, with all My heart and with all My being. 42For thus said the LORD: As I brought upon this people all this great evil, so I am about to bring upon them all the good that I am speaking of them. 43And the field shall be bought in this land about which you say, ‘It is a desolation without human beings and beasts; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’ 44Fields they shall buy with silver, writing on scrolls and sealing and summoning witnesses, in the region of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country and in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the Negeb, for I will restore their fortunes, said the LORD.”
CHAPTER 32 NOTES
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1. in the tenth year of Zedekiah. This is 587 B.C.E., the year before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Hence the notation of the siege in the next verse.
2. Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned. If one recalls that he was repeatedly prophesying destruction and exile in the midst of the war with the Babylonians, he would certainly have been seen as guilty of sedition, so the imprisonment is hardly surprising.
the court of the guard. The literal sense is “the court of the target.” It is possible that this area within the palace precincts was sometimes used for target practice by the royal guard.
4. he shall speak to him mouth to mouth and see him eye to eye. The captive king of Judah is to be confronted—we would say “face-to-face”—by the Babylonian emperor. This may well have happened.
5. until I single him out. The Hebrew verb paqad is appropriately ambiguous. It could mean either “make a reckoning with him” or “single him out to redeem him,” although the former meaning is more likely.
the Chaldeans. Throughout this passage, this designation is interchangeable with “Babylonians.”
8. for yours is the right of inheritance and yours is the redemption. The legal procedure here is similar to what is evident in the Book of Ruth. Hanamel appears to be in need of money—in this period, silver ingots that are weighed out, not coin—and thus turns to a kinsman to “redeem” the property, which thus will not be lost to the family. But the economic transaction in this instance is directed by God with the purpose of having the prophet purchase the land as a symbolic act, signifying that after the impending destruction a time will come when the Judahites will again possess their lands.
11. And I took the sealed scroll of purchase . . . and the open copy. This was standard procedure. The official document was signed, witnessed, and sealed, and an unsealed copy of it was made that could be referred to if a need arose to review the terms of the transaction.
scroll of purchase. Since what is involved is a sale of property, this is of course a deed, but the translation preserves the sense of the Hebrew, which keeps in view the material scroll on which the agreement is written and does not use a specialized term for deed.
12. Baruch son of Neriah. Baruch, who will appear later in the narrative, is a scribe and Jeremiah’s personal secretary.
Hanamel son of my uncle. The Masoretic Text omits “son of,” which is almost certainly a scribal slip.
before the eyes of all the Judahites sitting in the court of the guard. This formulation suggests that Jeremiah’s place of confinement was not a prison cell but some sort of open space on the palace grounds to which people had ready access.
14. put them in an earthenware jar. The jar, which then would have been tightly sealed, was a means of preservation, as we know from the Dead Sea scrolls, which were preserved in such jars for more than two thousand years.
18. paying back the crime of the fathers into the lap of their sons. This of course contradicts the affirmation in the previous chapter that no longer will the teeth of the sons be blunted after their fathers eat unripe fruit. Perhaps Jeremiah has in mind the imminent exile, knowing that generations will languish in a foreign land before they can return.
24. because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence. This reiterated chain of disasters is actually related to the conditions of siege: the sword enforces the siege; with the city cut off, famine ensues; in the crowded conditions of the besieged city, with an inadequate water supply, contagion spreads.
25. And You, You said to me. This is a cry of outraged disbelief: in light of the comprehensive disaster now enveloping the city, how could God have issued instructions for the purchase of land?
27. Can anything be beyond Me? This is a reiterated formula in the Bible (see, for example, Genesis 18:14). Since God is all-powerful and can do all things, an eventual reversal of the fortune of disaster awaiting Israel is surely not beyond Him. However, before God comes to the promise of restoration (verse 37ff.), He launches on a lengthy indictment of Israel, listing the sins that are about to lead to a catastrophe for the nation.
33. turned their backs. The body part in the Hebrew is literally “nape.”
43. And the field shall be bought in this land. Finally, after sixteen verses, God comes to Jeremiah’s incredulous question about the purchase of the field, reassuring him that after the devastation of the whole Judahite countryside, the land will again be settled and properties will be bought.
44. Fields they shall buy with silver, writing on scrolls and sealing and summoning witnesses. In reprising the conditions of Jeremiah’s own purchase of land, these words evoke a time to come in which full normalcy will be restored to the country and all the regular procedures for transfer of property will be firmly in place.