An Unexpected Land Purchase - Jeremiah 32:1-15

In Jeremiah 32:1 we find ourselves in “the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah”, and a time when the people certainly faced a desperate situation. In 597 Nebuchadrezzar had taken many of the city’s leaders prisoner. The Babylonians then did what often happened in such circumstances. They found a local who would like the elevation to power and stay loyal to them in order to keep their position. In this case it is Jehoiachin’s uncle, Mattaniah, who becomes the puppet king and just to emphasise their control, they give him a new name, Zedekiah.

Zedekiah’s reign lasted for eleven years but, towards the end of that time, he, rather foolhardily, allowed himself to be persuaded to rebel against the Babylonians.

Unsurprisingly the Babylonians quickly came and laid siege to the city, providing a pretty uncomfortable environment with the threat of food running out. Jeremiah had been busily proclaiming the doom of the city because of its evil ways, not a message that anyone wanted to hear. But now, just as the siege seems to be reaching its end and everyone else is liquidising their assets because they are so sure that the city is going to fall into Babylonian hands, Jeremiah again goes in the opposite direction from everyone else and invests in a piece of real estate. What is going on here, as Jeremiah buys this field, is just not an economic, legal process, though it is that. But it is also a theological process. The trio of “houses, fields and vineyards” represent the common and characteristic elements of economic life. The affirmation is that these “shall again be bought in this land”. The use of “again” suggests, even confirms, that there is going to be a pause in this economic activity. The invasion will indeed have such an effect. But the invasion will not have the last word. The community will begin to function again and, when that happens, Jeremiah will have staked out for himself a crucial corner. What Jeremiah is doing is a clear statement of hope and of confidence in the promise of God. Brueggemann sums up what is implied here in his commentary on Jeremiah – “In the exercise of family economic responsibility, the prophet enacts the long-term fidelity of God as well. Jeremiah invests in God’s promised future exactly when that future seems completely closed off.”

What can happen does and we need to leave the rest to God. Maybe that provides a model for being church. The story is a bit improbable. I was first really introduced to Jeremiah by Robert Carroll when studying at Glasgow University in the mid to late seventies. In his major commentary on Jeremiah, Carroll, a little cynically, but rather typically, points out – “It would be pointless to speculate on Jeremiah the man of means and property because the tradition provides no hints as to how someone so universally spoken against could also be so well appointed as to buy land with silver on the spur of the moment. The paradigmatic prophet is always adequately equipped and furnished, no matter what the emergency.” But maybe we ought to be grateful for the insight that we ought to be ready to tackle the improbable. And Carroll ends up with the same conclusion as Brueggemann – “the prophet’s action will one day, a long time from now, create Judah’s future because it is the first purchase of land in and for that future.”