Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in
this land (Jeremiah 32:15).
Times were bad in
Jerusalem. The first (the best) and second (the brightest) waves of exiles had
already been transported to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was besieging the city,
Jeremiah was imprisoned by the palace guard, and things were looking bleak.
Then Jeremiah’s cousin showed up and asked him to take a field off his hands in
Anathoth (where Jeremiah was from – in the tribal holdings of Benjamin –
probably to the north, but not far from Jerusalem).
While your city is
being besieged and the country is being trampled underfoot by a vast army is
probably not the best time to try and sell property – not exactly a seller’s
market. On the other hand, Jeremiah was the one who prophesied Jerusalem would
be defeated while other prophets were saying it would be spared. Jeremiah would hardly be the most
likely candidate to buy a piece of property… but he did.
In spite of their
hard times, Jeremiah knew things were going to improve. Not right away… in fact
things were going to get much worse before they got better, but things were eventually going to start looking
up. He bought the field from his cousin, sealed the deed away in the sixth
century BC equivalent of a safe deposit box, as a witness that one day things
would once again be good in Jerusalem.
TODAY’S MEDITATION
During hard times, how can
you demonstrate your faith that things are going to improve?
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