Hope in a Siege: The Real Estate of Faith Text: Jeremiah 32:1-15
Introduction: The Logic of Apparent Madness
We come now to a passage that, on the surface, appears to be the height of economic folly, a master class in bad investments. But what is folly to the world is frequently the very wisdom of God. The world operates on sight, on spreadsheets, on risk assessment, and on what the markets are doing. The Christian is called to operate on a different principle entirely, which is the sure and certain word of the living God. And sometimes, God requires His servants to perform actions that are so contrary to worldly wisdom that they serve as a kind of prophetic theater, a living parable that confronts a faithless generation with the radical logic of faith.
The scene is bleak. Jerusalem is surrounded. The Babylonian war machine, the most terrifying army on the planet, has the city in a chokehold. Famine and plague are beginning to do their grim work inside the walls. The end is not a matter of if, but when. And where is God's prophet, Jeremiah? He is in jail. And why is he in jail? He is in jail for telling the truth. He has been faithfully preaching the very word of God, which was that the city was doomed, the king would be captured, and resistance was futile. For this dose of divine realism, King Zedekiah had him locked up in the court of the guard. You see, feckless leaders always prefer prophets who tell them what they want to hear. Zedekiah wanted a message of positive thinking, of defiant hope in Judah's own strength. What he got was a message of judgment, and so he shot the messenger, or at least, imprisoned him.
It is in this context, the darkest hour of Judah's history, with the enemy at the gates and the prophet in chains, that God gives Jeremiah a most peculiar command. He tells him to buy a field. Not just any field, but a field in his hometown of Anathoth, which at that very moment was occupied territory, crawling with Babylonian soldiers. From a human perspective, this is like buying a beachfront condo in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane. It is insane. The deed would be worthless before the ink was dry. And yet, this act of apparent madness is one of the most profound demonstrations of hope in all of Scripture. It is a sermon acted out in real estate, a declaration that God's covenant promises are more solid than the ground under Nebuchadnezzar's feet.
This passage teaches us that true, biblical hope is not a flimsy optimism based on circumstances. It is a rugged, defiant confidence based on the character and promises of God. It is a hope that can stare into the teeth of total disaster and start making long-term investments, because it knows that God, and not Babylon, will have the last word.
The Text
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at that time the military force of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah, because Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it; and Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but he will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye; and he will lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” declares Yahweh. “If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed” ’?”
And Jeremiah said, “The word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, “Buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth, for you have the legal judgment for redemption to buy it.” ’ Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahweh and said to me, ‘Buy my field, please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for you have the legal judgment for possession, and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh.
“I bought the field which was at Anathoth from Hanamel my uncle’s son, and I weighed out the silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver. And I signed and sealed the deed and called in witnesses and weighed out the silver on the scales. Then I took the deeds of purchase, both the sealed copy containing the commandment and statutes and the open copy, and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the sight of Hanamel my uncle’s son and in the sight of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, in the sight of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. And I commanded Baruch in their sight, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Take these deeds, this deed of purchase, that is the sealed one as well as this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, that they may last a long time.” For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” ’
(Jeremiah 32:1-15 LSB)
The Prophet in Prison (vv. 1-5)
We begin with the historical and political setting. The Word of God is not a timeless abstraction; it always comes into the grit and grime of human history.
"The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at that time the military force of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard..." (Jeremiah 32:1-2)
The Spirit is careful to date this event precisely. This is not a fairy tale. This is happening in real time, with real kings and real armies. The siege is on. The end is near. And Jeremiah is imprisoned, not by the Babylonians for being a patriot, but by his own king for being a prophet. Zedekiah's charge against him is laid out clearly: "Why do you prophesy...?" Zedekiah isn't questioning whether Jeremiah prophesied; he is angry about the content of the prophecy. Jeremiah had been relentlessly faithful to the message God gave him: surrender is the only option. The city will fall. The king will be captured. Fighting is pointless.
This is the central conflict. Zedekiah represents the politics of human autonomy. He believes he can defy God's declared will and, through sheer grit and political maneuvering, carve out a different reality for himself. He wants a god who will bless his plans, not a God whose plans he must submit to. When God's word contradicts his political ambitions, his solution is to silence God's word by jailing God's man. This is the perennial temptation of all political power. But you cannot imprison the Word of God. You can lock up the prophet, but you cannot lock up the prophecy. In fact, as we are about to see, God is about to give His prophet a message in prison that will echo far beyond the walls of that court and far beyond the fall of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah's message was an offense because it declared the absolute sovereignty of God over the affairs of nations. God was giving the city to Babylon. This was not a geopolitical accident; it was a divine judgment. Zedekiah's rebellion was not ultimately against Nebuchadnezzar, but against Yahweh. And God made it personal: Zedekiah would not escape, he would see the king of Babylon "eye to eye," a phrase indicating a face-to-face surrender and judgment. This was God's settled decree. Zedekiah's refusal to hear it did not alter it one bit; it only sealed his own doom.
The Peculiar Command (vv. 6-8)
It is into this desperate situation that God speaks a word that seems entirely disconnected from the present crisis.
"And Jeremiah said, 'The word of Yahweh came to me, saying, "Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, ‘Buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth, for you have the legal judgment for redemption to buy it.’"'" (Jeremiah 32:6-7 LSB)
Notice the sequence. God tells Jeremiah what is about to happen before it happens. His cousin Hanamel is coming to make him a business proposal. This is a test of faith, but it is also a confirmation. God is showing Jeremiah that He is sovereign not only over the great movements of armies but also over the small details of family business. The right to redeem the land fell to the nearest kinsman, according to the law in Leviticus 25. This was a provision to keep the land within the family, within the tribe. Hanamel was likely in a tight spot. With the Babylonians occupying the territory, his field was worthless as a source of income, and he probably needed the cash to survive the siege. So he comes to his cousin Jeremiah, the kinsman-redeemer.
And sure enough, just as God said, Hanamel shows up at the prison. "Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahweh... Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh." (v. 8). Jeremiah's faith is confirmed. The arrival of his cousin was the sign that this seemingly irrational command was indeed from God. This is an important principle. God's commands may sometimes seem strange to us, but they are never arbitrary. And He often gives us confirmations along the way to strengthen our resolve to obey, especially when that obedience is costly and makes no worldly sense.
The Public Act of Hope (vv. 9-15)
What follows is a meticulously detailed account of the real estate transaction. This is not incidental; the details are the point. This is a legal, public, and official act.
"I bought the field... from Hanamel... and I weighed out the silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver. And I signed and sealed the deed and called in witnesses..." (Jeremiah 32:9-10 LSB)
Jeremiah obeys. He pays the price, seventeen shekels of silver. This was not a token amount. He signs the deed, has it witnessed, and seals it. This is all done with painstaking care, "in the sight of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard" (v. 12). This was not a private act of piety; it was a public spectacle. It was street theater, or rather, prison-court theater. Every person watching would have been thinking the same thing: "Jeremiah has lost his mind. He is paying good silver for a field he will never see, a field that belongs to the Babylonians now."
And Jeremiah doubles down on the apparent absurdity. He gives the deeds, both the sealed official copy and the open working copy, to his scribe Baruch. And he gives him a command that underscores the long-term nature of this hope.
"‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Take these deeds... and put them in an earthenware jar, that they may last a long time.”’" (Jeremiah 32:14 LSB)
This is the ancient equivalent of putting your important documents in a safe-deposit box. Earthenware jars were used to preserve scrolls for long periods, as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrated so vividly. The message is clear: this deed is going to be needed again, but not tomorrow, and not next week. It will be needed after a long time. Jeremiah is investing in a future that he himself will likely not live to see. He is banking on a promise that lies on the other side of the impending catastrophe.
And then comes the punchline, the interpretation of the whole symbolic act, the very word of God that gives meaning to the madness:
"For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”’" (Jeremiah 32:15 LSB)
This is it. This is the point. The judgment is real. The exile is coming. The city will be destroyed. But that is not the final word. God's final word is restoration. The covenant God made with this people, the promise of this land, is not null and void. The discipline of exile will be severe, but it will be temporary. A day is coming when normal life, symbolized by the buying and selling of property, will resume. God is going to bring His people back. Jeremiah's purchase of a worthless field was a tangible, costly, and public declaration of his absolute faith in that future promise. He was putting his money where his mouth was. His hope was not in the market, but in the Lord of hosts.
The Gospel in a Clay Jar
This entire episode is a rich picture of the gospel. We must see that the logic of Jeremiah's faith is the logic of our own. We too live in a world under siege, a world occupied by the enemy. We are surrounded by the evidence of sin, decay, and death. And we are called to invest in a future that we cannot see, a kingdom that is not of this world.
First, we see the principle of the kinsman-redeemer. Jeremiah, as the kinsman, had the right to redeem the family land. This points us directly to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer. He became one of us, taking on flesh and blood, in order to buy back what we had forfeited through our sin. We had sold our inheritance for a bowl of sinful pottage, and we were occupied territory, enslaved to sin and death. But Christ came, and at an infinitely greater cost than seventeen shekels of silver, He paid the redemption price with His own precious blood on the cross.
Second, we see the nature of defiant faith. Jeremiah's purchase was an act of faith that flew in the face of all empirical evidence. In the same way, our faith is a "conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). We are called to live now in light of a future reality that God has promised. We invest our lives, our resources, our children's education, our work, all of it, in a "city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10). The world thinks this is foolishness. Why sacrifice for a future you can't see? Why order your life by a book written two thousand years ago? It is the same logic that mocked Jeremiah. But our faith is not in the stability of this world, which is passing away, but in the unshakable promise of the God who raises the dead.
Finally, consider the deed in the clay jar. That deed was the tangible proof of a future inheritance, preserved through the time of judgment. This points us to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul says that the Spirit is the "guarantee," the down payment, of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:14). He is the sealed deed, placed within the earthenware jars of our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:7), preserving the promise of our full redemption. The world may be falling apart around us, our own bodies may be failing, but we have within us the indestructible seal of God's ownership and the ironclad promise of a future restoration. A day is coming when the jars will be broken, and the full glory of that inheritance will be revealed. Because of Christ our Redeemer, we can say with absolute certainty that in the new heavens and the new earth, "houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought." God's people will be home, and the land will be theirs forever.