For Teaching

Jeremiah 32: What the Passage Says

155 claims across 44 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Jeremiah 32 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the tenth year of King Zedekiah, while Babylon's army is besieging Jerusalem and Jeremiah is held in the palace courtyard, God tells him to buy his cousin's field at Anathoth. Jeremiah buys it, signs and seals the deed before witnesses, and has Baruch store the copies in a clay jar as a sign that houses, fields, and vineyards will be bought again in the land. Jeremiah then prays, laying out God's power and Judah's disobedience, and asking about the purchase while the city is falling. God answers that he will hand the city over to the Chaldeans to be burned because of its idolatry, and that afterward he will gather the people back, give them one heart, make an everlasting covenant with them, and cause fields to be bought again.

Claim by Claim

32:1
- A word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.
- The word came in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah.
- That year was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.
32:2
- At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem.
- Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the court of the guard.
- The court of the guard was in the house of the king of Judah.
32:3
- Zedekiah king of Judah had confined Jeremiah.
- Zedekiah asked Jeremiah why he prophesied as he did.
- Jeremiah had been saying that the LORD said this: that the LORD was giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon.
- Jeremiah had been saying that the king of Babylon would capture the city.
32:4
- Zedekiah king of Judah would not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans.
- Zedekiah would surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon.
- Zedekiah would speak with the king of Babylon mouth to mouth.
- Zedekiah's eyes would see the king of Babylon's eyes.
32:5
- The king of Babylon would lead Zedekiah to Babylon.
- Zedekiah would remain in Babylon until the LORD attended to him.
- This was declared by the LORD.
- Though they fought against the Chaldeans, they would not succeed.
32:6
- Jeremiah said that the word of the LORD came to him.
32:7
- The LORD said Hanameel son of Shallum, Jeremiah's uncle, was coming to Jeremiah.
- Hanameel would tell Jeremiah to buy his field in Anathoth.
- The right of redemption to buy the field belonged to Jeremiah.
32:8
- Hanameel, Jeremiah's cousin, came to Jeremiah in the court of the guard.
- He came according to the word of the LORD.
- Hanameel asked Jeremiah to buy his field in Anathoth.
- The field was in the land of Benjamin.
- Hanameel said the right of inheritance belonged to Jeremiah.
- Hanameel said the right of redemption belonged to Jeremiah.
- Hanameel told Jeremiah to buy it for himself.
- Jeremiah then knew this was the word of the LORD.
32:9
- Jeremiah bought the field from Hanameel his cousin.
- The field was in Anathoth.
- Jeremiah weighed out the silver to him.
- The amount was seventeen shekels of silver.
32:10
- Jeremiah wrote the deed.
- Jeremiah sealed the deed.
- Jeremiah called witnesses.
- Jeremiah weighed the silver on scales.
32:11
- Jeremiah took the deed of purchase.
- One copy was sealed and contained the terms and conditions.
- The other copy was open.
32:12
- Jeremiah gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah.
- He did so in the sight of Hanameel his kinsman.
- He did so in the sight of the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase.
- He did so in the sight of all the Jews sitting in the court of the guard.
32:13
- Jeremiah charged Baruch in their sight.
32:14
- Jeremiah said this is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
- Baruch was to take these deeds, the sealed deed of purchase and the open deed.
- Baruch was to put them in an earthenware vessel.
- The purpose was that they might last many days.
32:15
- Jeremiah said this is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
- Houses, fields, and vineyards would again be bought in this land.
32:16
- Jeremiah prayed to the LORD after giving the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah.
32:17
- Jeremiah cried out to the Lord GOD.
- God made the heavens and the earth.
- God made them by his great power and outstretched arm.
- Nothing is too hard for God.
32:18
- God shows steadfast love to thousands.
- God repays the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them.
- God is the great and mighty God.
- The LORD of hosts is his name.
32:19
- God is great in counsel.
- God is mighty in deed.
- God's eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men.
- God gives to each man according to his ways.
- God gives to each man according to the fruit of his deeds.
32:20
- God set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.
- That continues to this day.
- God has done so in Israel and among mankind.
- God has made himself a name, as at this day.
32:21
- God brought his people Israel out of the land of Egypt.
- He did so with signs and wonders.
- He did so with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
- He did so with great terror.
32:22
- God gave them this land.
- God had sworn to their fathers to give it to them.
- The land flows with milk and honey.
32:23
- They came in and took possession of the land.
- They did not obey God's voice.
- They did not walk in God's law.
- They did none of all that God commanded them to do.
- Therefore God brought all this evil upon them.
32:24
- The siege mounds have reached the city to capture it.
- The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it.
- The city is given over because of the sword, the famine, and the pestilence.
- What God spoke has come to pass.
- God sees it.
32:25
- The Lord GOD told Jeremiah to buy the field for silver.
- The Lord GOD told Jeremiah to call witnesses.
- The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
32:26
- The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
32:27
- The LORD declares that he is the LORD.
- The LORD is the God of all flesh.
- The LORD asks whether anything is too hard for him.
32:28
- This is what the LORD says.
- The LORD is giving this city into the hand of the Chaldeans.
- The LORD is giving this city into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.
- He will capture it.
32:29
- The Chaldeans fighting against this city will come.
- They will set this city on fire and burn it.
- They will burn the houses on whose roofs the people burned incense to Baal.
- On those roofs the people poured out drink offerings to other gods.
- They did this to provoke the LORD to anger.
32:30
- The children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil in the LORD's sight from their youth.
- The children of Israel have only provoked the LORD to anger with the work of their hands.
- This is declared by the LORD.
32:31
- This city has provoked the LORD's anger and fury.
- It has done so from the day they built it until this day.
- The LORD will remove it from before his face.
32:32
- The cause is all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah.
- They did that evil to provoke the LORD to anger.
- Those who did it include the people themselves, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets.
- Those who did it include the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
32:33
- They turned their backs to the LORD and not their faces.
- The LORD taught them, rising early and teaching.
- They did not listen so as to receive instruction.
32:34
- They set their abominations in the house that is called by the LORD's name.
- They did this to defile the house.
32:35
- They built the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
- They did so to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech.
- The LORD did not command them to do this.
- It never came into the LORD's mind that they should do this abomination.
- The result was to cause Judah to sin.
32:36
- This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning this city.
- The people say the city will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon.
- They say it will be given over by sword, famine, and pestilence.
32:37
- The LORD will gather them from all the lands where he has driven them.
- He drove them there in his anger, his fury, and great wrath.
- He will bring them back to this place.
- He will make them dwell in safety.
32:38
- They will be the LORD's people.
- The LORD will be their God.
32:39
- The LORD will give them one heart and one way.
- The purpose is that they may fear him all their days.
- This is for the good of them and of their children after them.
32:40
- The LORD will make an everlasting covenant with them.
- The LORD will not turn away from doing them good.
- The LORD will put his fear in their hearts.
- The purpose is that they will not depart from him.
32:41
- The LORD will rejoice over them to do them good.
- The LORD will plant them in this land in faithfulness.
- The LORD will do so with all his heart and all his soul.
32:42
- This is what the LORD says.
- The LORD brought all this great evil upon this people.
- In the same way the LORD will bring upon them all the good he has spoken concerning them.
32:43
- Fields will be bought in this land.
- The people say the land is a desolation without man or beast.
- The people say it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
32:44
- Men will buy fields for silver.
- They will write deeds and seal them.
- They will call witnesses.
- This will happen in the land of Benjamin and in the places around Jerusalem.
- This will happen in the cities of Judah, the cities of the hill country, the cities of the lowland, and the cities of the Negev.
- The LORD will restore their fortunes.
- This is declared by the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

32:1: Years were counted from the start of a king's reign, so events are dated by two courts at once: Zedekiah's tenth year in Jerusalem was Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth in Babylon, roughly 588–587 BC. Zedekiah had been installed as king by Nebuchadnezzar himself and had then rebelled, which is why the Babylonian army is outside the walls.
32:2: The "guards' courtyard" was a detention area attached to the royal palace, not a cell. Prisoners held there could be visited, could receive food, and could conduct business, which is why the events of this chapter can happen at all. A besieged city was surrounded and cut off, the attackers waiting for starvation or a breach rather than storming it at once.
32:3: To prophesy meant to deliver a message from God, which could include announcing what was coming. In the middle of a siege, publicly announcing that the city would fall counted as undermining the war effort, which is why the king had Jeremiah confined.
32:4: "Chaldeans" is another name for the Babylonians. The ruling dynasty of Babylon at this time came from Chaldea, a region of southern Mesopotamia, and the two words are used interchangeably throughout the chapter.
32:5: "Until I deal with him" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to attend to, or turn one's attention toward someone. It can introduce either rescue or punishment, and the wording here does not say which is meant.
32:7: Under Israelite land law, family land was not supposed to pass permanently out of the family. When a man had to sell his field, the nearest male relative had both the first right and the family duty to buy it, keeping the property within the clan. Anathoth was Jeremiah's home village, a settlement of priests about three miles northeast of Jerusalem, territory that by this point in the siege was in Babylonian hands, which is what makes the purchase so strange.
32:8: "My uncle's son" is simply a cousin. The relationship is spelled out because it is what gives Jeremiah the legal standing to buy.
32:9: Coined money did not yet exist in Judah. Silver was traded by weight, so the seventeen shekels were literally weighed out on a balance. A shekel was a weight of roughly two-fifths of an ounce, about eleven or twelve grams.
32:10: "Evidence" is the King James word for a legal document, here the deed of sale, and "subscribed" means signed at the bottom.
32:11: Legal deeds were commonly written out twice on a single sheet. One copy was rolled up and sealed with clay so its terms could not be altered, and the duplicate was left open for consultation. The sealed copy was broken open only if the terms were later disputed.
32:12: Baruch was a professional scribe, a trained writer and record-keeper, who acted as Jeremiah's secretary and kept his documents.
32:14: Sealed clay jars were the standard way to archive papyrus and leather documents for the long term; the same method preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls for two thousand years. "The LORD of Armies" (older versions: "the LORD of hosts") is a title picturing God as commander of vast forces, whether armies of heaven or of Israel.
32:15: A vineyard is a field where grapes are grown.
32:17: "Outstretched arm" is a fixed Hebrew phrase for power openly and publicly exerted, drawn from the language of the exodus from Egypt. It does not describe a gesture.
32:18: "Faithful love" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which means loyal commitment within a relationship rather than warm feeling. "Thousands" is unspecified in the Hebrew and can mean thousands of people or thousands of generations. "Into the laps of their children" uses a commercial image: the loose fold of a garment at the waist was where a person received a payment poured out to them.
32:20: "Signs and wonders in the land of Egypt" refers to the plagues and the escape at the sea. Israel treated those events as the founding demonstration of who their God was, and they are appealed to constantly in prayers like this one.
32:21: Long before this, God's people were slaves in Egypt. God brought them out and made them free.
32:22: "Flowing with milk and honey" is a set phrase for land good enough to support herds and produce a surplus, milk from goats and cattle, honey either wild or boiled from dates. It describes fertility, not literal streams.
32:23: God's "law" means the rules he gave his people to live by.
32:24: Besieging armies heaped up long ramps of packed earth against a city wall so that battering rams and troops could reach the top. "Sword, famine, and plague" is a standard three-part formula for how people die in a siege: killed in the fighting, starved while shut in, or carried off by disease in the crowded city.
32:29: Houses had flat roofs used as extra living space, and worship conducted there was directed at the sky and its gods. Baal was the storm and fertility god of Canaan and Phoenicia, the chief rival to the worship of the LORD in Israel. A drink offering was wine poured out on the ground or an altar as a gift to a god.
32:30: "The work of their hands" is a standard phrase for idols: images the worshipers had manufactured themselves.
32:32: Priests were the men who helped people worship God at the temple.
32:33: "Starting early" renders a Hebrew idiom, literally rising early to do something: that means acting persistently and urgently, over and over. It is not a statement about the time of day.
32:34: "The house that bears my name" is the temple in Jerusalem. The word translated "detestable idols" is a strong term for images and objects belonging to other gods' worship; setting them inside the temple made it ritually unclean and unfit for use.
32:35: "Worship sites" (older versions: "high places") were open-air shrines, often on raised ground or built-up platforms, with altars and standing stones. The Valley of Ben Hinnom ran along the southern edge of Jerusalem. Molech was a god associated with child sacrifice; the phrase "pass through the fire" is disputed, taken by some as describing children burned as offerings and by others as a dedication rite involving fire.
32:37: Being driven into "all countries" refers to exile. Babylon deported conquered populations in stages and resettled them far from home so that they could not organize a revolt.
32:39: The Hebrew word rendered "respect" is the ordinary word for fear, but when used of God it covers awe and reverence, taking someone seriously, rather than being frightened of him.
32:40: A covenant was a formal binding agreement, sworn and permanent, of the kind kings made with each other or with their subjects. "Lasting" or "everlasting" describes an agreement with no built-in end date rather than one that has been calculated to run forever.
32:41: "I will plant them" means God will settle them safely, like a tree planted in good ground.
32:44: The list names the standard geographic divisions of Judah: the central hill country around Jerusalem, the western foothills between the hills and the coastal plain, and the dry southern region, the Negev. "Bring them back from captivity" translates a phrase that can mean either returning exiles or restoring a people's fortunes generally; both senses are present in the Hebrew.

Read Jeremiah 32