Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Week Five, Day Four

 Jeremiah tells a story about himself and a field.  At the time of this story, Judah had been invaded by the army of Babylon.  (Babylon was the leading regional power of the time.)  Already, the land was almost conquered.  Their sister nation of Israel had been lost long ago and the prvinces of Judah had been picked off by the invaders.  Only Jerusalem was left, and the enemy was literally at the gates. 

 Jeremiah himself was under guard, accused of sedition.  In a time of national crisis, Jeremiah had been quoting Goad as saying things like, “I am going to hand this city over to the king of Babylon.”  [32:3, Bright]

King Zedekiah would have liked to be rid of this public defeatism, but Jeremiah had a track record of quoting God accurately and the king would rather not risk executing a prophet of God.  The king could at least contain the problem by placing Jeremiah  under guard.

Now the word of God came to Jeremiah concerning his cousin and a certain field.  And then his cousin came, confirming in his action the truth which Jeremiah had heard.

The cousin had come about a field which was being sold.  Apparently Jeremiah, as a near relative, had the right of first refusal in order to keep the land in the family, as provided in Leviticus 25:25.  So Jeremiah buys the field.  He counts out the payment, signs the deed, and has it witnessed, notarized and copied.  And then he puts the documents in the equivalent of a safety deposit box.  When all of this has been done, Jeremiah repeats the word of God (which he hasn’t previously told us), “Houses and fields and vineyard shall once again be bought in this land.” [32:15, Bright]

The dream, the truth, is that there will be life beyond the war, beyond the defeat, beyond exile in Babylon.  People will buy and sell Judean real estate.  Land does not go into exile; property deeds are useless under military occupation.  The dream is that a normal life, with civil law and ordinary commerce, will return for this people in this place.

Jeremiah does something in accordance with this truth.  Because he has faith in the dream of a peaceful future the dream becomes the truth for him even though war is raging and defeat stands at the gate.