Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’



“Then, just as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’ 



“I knew that this was the word of the LORD; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.” (Jeremiah 32:6-9)



In Jeremiah 32 we find that Jeremiah the prophet is in captivity within the royal palace of Judah. In his imprisonment he continues to prophecy dire consequences for the nation of Judah and its leaders as the result of their rebellion against God.



Outside of the palace the city was besieged at this time by the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 32:1-2). Much to Zedekiah the king of Judah’s dismay Jeremiah was insistent that the conflict with the Babylonians would not end well for the people of Judah if Zedekiah continued to hold out against the invaders. The prophet even foretells Zedekiah’s own captivity at the hands of the king of Babylon (Jeremiah 32:3-5).



These foreboding prophecies are interrupted in verse 6 though as Jeremiah tells of something else the Lord has said to him. The Lord God has told Jeremiah that he will have the chance to purchase a field in his home region of Anathoth (Jeremiah 32:6-7). Although verses 6 and 7 do not say the Lord specifically told Jeremiah that he should purchase the land from his kinsperson, we see in verse 8 that this is how Jeremiah interprets the Lord’s revelation to him of this event.



Sure enough, Jeremiah’s kinsperson comes to Jeremiah and lays out the case for Jeremiah to buy the land. This is important to the kinsperson because Jeremiah’s purchase would effectively “redeem” the land, by allowing the family to keep it within the extended family (Jeremiah 32:8). Redemption in this form kept the source of income within the family, both staving off potential poverty for the wider family group and allowing the family to keep their traditions as laid down by the law of Moses and subsequent traditional rites and systems which had grown up around the law.



At this point in the text we have some underlying sub-themes of theological and sociological import to discuss. Firstly, Jeremiah had been previously troubled by people from his own village of Anathoth and, because there was likely only a small population in the area, the group of people troubling him may reasonably be believed to have included his own relatives. So for Jeremiah to become their “kinsman redeemer” presents some interesting relational dynamics. Secondly, Jeremiah makes this purchase while prophesying that the Judaites were about to be driven from their native land. The prophet is effectively publicly investing in the future promises of God, against a backdrop of national loss and failure. In doing this Jeremiah is very much making himself a Noah of his time.



The opening of the book of Jeremiah tells us that the prophet was a priest at Anathoth, which was located approximately 5 kilometres from Jerusalem. So for Jeremiah Anathoth was his home village and we see from the approach of his cousin to Jeremiah that his relatives lived there also.



Earlier in the book we have seen in Jeremiah 11:21-23 that people from Anathoth had been threatening to kill the prophet because of his prophecies, which were seemingly not very popular! At this point the Lord intervenes and speaks to Jeremiah, telling him that these people will be punished and that,