‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.” ’ ”
“So Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to Yahweh’s word, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself.’ “Then I knew that this was Yahweh’s word.
I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances to him. So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open; and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv7–12 But in the first place, let us see whether…
But in the first place, let us see whether this was, as they say, a naked vision, or a real transaction. Some think that it was exhibited to Jeremiah by the prophetic Spirit; but it may be easily gathered from the context that the field was actually bought. It is first said, that the word came to Jeremiah; but shortly after it is added, that after his uncle’s son came, Jeremiah was informed that the whole business was directed by God. God then foretold the Prophet what was to be, Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum, thine uncle, shall come to thee, and shall offer to sell his field to thee. This is what God said to the Prophet; and thus far we may say, that Jeremiah was informed of what was to be either by a dream or a vision; but when he afterwards adds, that Hanameel himself came, and that Jeremiah testifies that he now knew that it was from the Lord, there is no doubt but that it is a real narrative. God then inducedHanameel to come to Jeremiah and to offer him the field on sale, and to ask him to buy it, because he was the next heir, and therefore had the right of redemption. We then perceive that it was a communication from above, but then the reality was connected with it, for Hanameel came and sold the field before witnesses; and all this was necessary, not so much on account of Jeremiah as of the whole people, and especially of the faithful, for whom this prophecy was particularly designed; for God did not intend this to be a common treasure, but laid it up for his chosen people, as we may gather from the conclusion.
Before Hanameel then came, the Prophet was instructed that nothing was done unadvisedly, but that God had arranged and ordered the whole. He was then commanded to buy the field, and as it were to cast away his money; for who would not have said that it was the same thing as to throw it away? And then we are to notice a circumstance as to the time; for the Prophet was then in danger of his life, to what purpose then was the field to him? We have also said that he could not have a free access to it, had he not been shut up in prison; for he could not have ventured to go out of the city. It was then a most strange and ridiculous purchase according to the judgment of the flesh; for Jeremiah squandered away his money, and the possession of the field was only imaginary. But yet as God would have him to buy it, he spared not his money, but purchased the field from his uncle’s son.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 11 Or, right to redeem it.
Or, right to redeem it.
Because he was next of the kindred, as Ruth 4:4.
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Whereby was meant that the people should return again out of captivity and enjoy their possessions and vineyards, as verses 15 and 44.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–12 Jer 32:7 Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine…
Jer 32:7 Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that [is] in Anathoth: for the right of redemption [is] thine to buy [it].
Ver. 7. Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum.] This Shallum and Hilkiah the father of Jeremiah were brethren. And it was no less an honour to Hanameel to have such a kinsman as Jeremiah, than afterwards it was to Mark to be Barnabas’s sister’s son.
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Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth.] The priests, though they had no grain fields, yet they had meadows for their cattle, gardens and orchards in the suburbs of their cities, which in some cases they might sell one to another, till the year of jubilee howsoever. Some say that if such a field were so sold to a kinsman as here, it remained to him for ever. But the possession of the Levites might at any time be redeemed. {Lev 25:32}
For the right of redemption is thine.] See Lev 25:25; Lev 25:32 Rth 3:12; Rth 4:3-4.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7–12 From hence may be concluded the certainty of future…
From hence may be concluded the certainty of future contingency in God’s eye; the coming of
Hanameel was a future contingency, yet certainly known to God, so as he could tell the prophet he would come. Anathoth (as appears from Jos 21:18) was one of the cities of the Levites; hence ariseth a question, how it could be sold to Jeremiah, who by the law might not possess it, Num 18:20, being a Levite.
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1. Some excuse it from the command of God, who might dispense with his own law; but this seemeth not enough, because it is said afterward, the right of redemption is thine.
2. Others therefore say the Levites might have some small possessions, though no ploughed land; they might have houses, and orchards, and gardens, in cities and suburbs. But that these might be sold seemeth contrary to the law, Lev 25:34. It is therefore rather thought to be meant of some small estate left to Hanameel from his ancestors.
The right of redemption belonged to the next of kin, Lev 25:25; Rth 4:4.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–12 So Hanameel mine uncle's son came unto me,.... Freely…
So Hanameel mine uncle's son came unto me,.... Freely and voluntarily, of his own accord; though it was determined he should, as it was predicted he would; for God's decrees do not infringe the liberty of the will: this man came from Anathoth, very probably, to Jerusalem, to the place where the prophet was:
in the court of the prison, according to the word of the Lord; which had been made known before to Jeremiah:
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and said unto me, buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth,
which is in the country of Benjamin; it belonged to that tribe:
for the right of inheritance is thine; the reversion of this field; it would come to him after the death of his cousin, as being next heir:
and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself; since, if it was sold to another, he, according to law, was obliged to redeem it; and therefore it was much better to buy it at once for himself:
then I knew that this was the word of the Lord; that it was the word of the Lord which came to him before, and that it was the will of the Lord that he should make this purchase; since there was such an exact agreement between the prophecy and the event.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12 The money - The price of land was strangely…
The money - The price of land was strangely fallen at this time, when the enemy was besieging the chief city of the country.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7–10 Verse 7. The right of redemption is thine] The…
Verse 7. The right of redemption is thine] The law had established that the estates of a family should never be alienated. If, therefore, a man through poverty was obliged to sell his patrimony, the nearest relative had a right to purchase it before all others, and even to redeem it, if it had been sold to another. This is what is called the right of goel, or kinsman, Le 25:25. And in the year of jubilee the whole reverted to its ancient master Le 25:13.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv9–10 Jer 32:9. I weighed him the money — In…
Jer 32:9. I weighed him the money — In ancient times all money was paid by weight, a custom still used in several countries; even seventeen shekels of silver — A sum which, in our money, is not much above forty shillings; a small price for a field or piece of ground. It must be considered, however, “that the quantity of land is uncertain, and that the circumstances of the times must have greatly tended to lessen the value of land. The field in question was at the time of the purchase in the enemy’s possession; and the purchaser well knew that he or his heirs had no chance of entering upon it till after the expiration of the seventy years’ captivity. Besides, the seller, it is likely, was in the immediate want of the money, and could get no one else to purchase in the precarious situation things were in. He might therefore be glad to take what the prophet, who, doubtless, was not rich, was able to give, and who would not have thought of making the purchase at any rate had he not acted under the divine direction for a special purpose.” — Blaney.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7–10 Hanameel was strictly the first-cousin of Jeremiah. In Hebrew…
Hanameel was strictly the first-cousin of Jeremiah. In Hebrew all the terms of relationship are used in a more loose way than with us.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 11 Next. Priests could sell only to their fellow priests,…
Next. Priests could sell only to their fellow priests, Leviticus xxv. 34. (St. Jerome) --- Others might dispose of their landed property to any, until the year of jubilee. The nearest relation had the first offer, but he was not obliged to purchase. Jeremias now consented, to shew that the people should return to possess the land, though it was now in the enemy’s hands. (Calmet) --- Thus a Roman purchased the land on which Hannibal was encamped, despising his power and threats. (V. Max. iii. 8.; Livy xxvi.) (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7–12 son of Shallum thine uncle--therefore, Jeremiah's first cousin.
son of Shallum thine uncle--therefore, Jeremiah's first cousin.
field . . . in Anathoth--a sacerdotal city: and so having one thousand cubits of suburban fields outside the wall attached to it (Num 35:4-5). The prohibition to sell these suburban fields (Lev 25:34) applied merely to their alienating them from Levites to another tribe; so that this chapter does not contravene that prohibition. Besides, what is here meant is only the purchase of the use of the field till the year of jubilee. On the failure of the owner, the next of kin had the right of redeeming it (Lev 25:25, &c.; Rut 4:3-6).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv7–10 JEREMIAH BUYS THE FIELD IN ANATHOTH, Jer_32:6-15.
JEREMIAH BUYS THE FIELD IN ANATHOTH, Jer_32:6-15.
7. Thine uncle — This, as we learn from the following verse, refers to Shallum, and not Hanameel, to which name, according to the laws of Hebrew construction, it is also applicable. The original word for “uncle” is very general in its import, being sometimes rendered “beloved,” as for instance in Isa_5:1, which is literally, “I will sing to my well beloved a song of my uncle (beloved) touching his vineyard.”
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The right of redemption — See Lev_25:25. He who had the right of redemption had also the right of pre-emption, both having the same object, namely, to preserve the possession for the family.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7. Hanamel the son of Shallum thine uncle] The…
7. Hanamel the son of Shallum thine uncle] The distinct statement in Jer_32:8-9 however that Hanamel was Jeremiah’s first cousin makes it necessary to refer the word uncle of this v. to Shallum, and to consider the word for son in Jer_32:12 to have been accidentally omitted by a Heb. copyist.
Anathoth] See Intr. p. x.
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the right of redemption is thine to buy it] According to the law, as formulated in Lev_25:24 f.; Rth_4:6, if land was, or was about to be, sold, the nearest of kin, in this case Jeremiah, had a right to purchase or re-purchase it as the case might be, so that it should not pass from one family to another. For the system of land tenure (although it is doubtful whether the laws regulating it were ever reduced to practice) see HDB. IV. 325 a.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–12 (7) Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum . .…
(7) Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum . . .—The teaching of the narrative that follows lies almost on the surface, and is brought out distinctly in Jer_32:44. “With all the certainty of desolation, misery, exile in the immediate future, the prophet was to give a practical proof that he was as certain of the ultimate restoration. It was worth while to buy a field even for what might seem the contingency of that remote reversion. Roman history records a parallel act of patriotic faith in the purchase of land at Rome at its full market value, at the very time when the armies of Hannibal were marching to the gate of the city (Livy, xxvi. 11). Nothing more is known of the Hanameel who is here mentioned than that he was the first cousin of the prophet (Jer_32:8-9). The word “uncle” in this verse therefore applies strictly to Shallum. As the lands belonging to the priests and Levites as such could not be alienated (Lev_25:34), we must assume either that the land in question had come into the family by marriage and was private property, or that the law had been so far relaxed as to allow of the transfer of land within the limits of the family, and up to the date of the next year of jubilee. In such a case, as in Rth_3:12; Rth_4:4, the option of purchase was offered in the first instance to the next of kin (the Goël, or “redeemer,” of the family), so that it might still be kept in the line of succession (Lev_25:24; Lev_25:32). The prophet naturally lays stress on the fact that he was warned beforehand of the visit of Hanameel and of its object. The coincidence was to him what the arrival of the messenger of Cornelius was to Peter (Act_10:19-21).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv7–10 Hanameel. Another form of Hananeel; comp. Gesam , in…
Hanameel. Another form of Hananeel; comp. Gesam , in the Septuagint = Goshen, Madiam = Midian. In Jer_31:38 the Authorized Version has Hananeel, and the Septuagint Anamehl (of course, the persons referred to are different). The son of Shallum thine uncle. It is strange that Hanameel should be called at once Jeremiah"s uncle"s son and his uncle; and yet this is the case the former in vers. 8, 9, the latter in ver. 12. There is, therefore, no reason why we should deviate (as most commentators do) from the ordinary Hebrew usage, and suppose "thine uncle" in this verse to refer to Shallum, and not rather to Hanameel. But how are we to explain this singular variation in phraseology? Either from the fact that the Hebrew for "uncle" is simply a word expressive of affection, (it means "beloved," see e.g. Isa_5:1) and might, therefore, just as well be applied to a cousin as to an uncle: or else. upon the supposition that the word for "son (of)" has fallen out of the text before "mine uncle," both in this verse and in ver. 12.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v8 Then I knew that this was the Word of…
Jer_32:8
Then I knew that this was the Word of the Lord.
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Missed opportunities
No person who understands, and still less he who values, life as a sacred opportunity of doing something for the world before he dies, but has often wished that he could overleap the bounds of the present and understand what the result of his action shall be, so that, with the larger experience of the future, he might go the better armed against the perplexing problems and conditions of duty which beset him in the present. If only we had the education which will come in the future, how we should be protected against the mistakes of the present! And thus we feel a certain impatience against time. Now, the incident recorded in this chapter suggests to us exactly that thought of the way in which time may rebuke our rashness and rebuke also our dulness. The incident which is recorded is a very simple one, but it is suggestive and significant. A certain sort of dream, as we might call it, passed through the mind of Jeremiah, then in close imprisonment because of the jealous anger of the king. Whatever else he was, he was a Jew at heart, and he had that capacity which was singularly, I suppose, possessed by the Jew--the tenacious love of the soil which gave him birth. It was a joy for him to think that the land which was given by God to his forefathers belonged in succession of family inheritance to his own kinsman of that day; and the dream crossed his mind that perchance that moment might come when he would have the opportunity of becoming the possessor of his ancestral heritage. That was his thought. It came to him as a dream; he describes it afterwards as the direction of the Word of the Lord coming to him. But it was not, I imagine, realised as the Word of God at the first moment of its approach: it was only a later circumstance an actual incident which occurred in his life--which enabled him to see that the first suggested thought was, indeed, the Word of the Lord. Now, the first thought which naturally arises from a thing like that is this. We may act upon our first impressions, our impressions may be very strong, and they may be ready to link themselves with our natural ambitions, but it is not every impression that is the word of light, still less the Word of the Lord. Religion divides itself very often, if we were to classify it, into two families or types. It has often been made the subject of mere mental impressions. The presence of the Spirit, the consciousness of a spirit working within, that has been emphasised to such a degree that at last men, driven by their impulse or suggestion of some passing impression, have committed deeds of violence and wrong which the common conscience of humanity condemns. That is to say, early impressions, strong impressions, even impressions which jump with the spirit of what we believe to be right, impressions which wed themselves to our darling dreams, however much they may justify themselves by the exercise of our imaginative conscience, are not in themselves to be accepted as truly Divine suggestions. We must wait for the light of other circumstances. Authority in religion is never on the one side or the other; authority is never wholly within, nor yet wholly without. If it is wholly within, it is open to the declaration of being a mere subjective impression; if it is wholly without, it lays no weight upon the spiritual nature of man, and receives no response from his conscience. But, when there comes to us this which, on the one hand, links itself with our inner nature, and by its own commanding presence makes us feel that it is true, and brings to it also the verifying evidence of providential opportunity--then duty leaps up and can draw her sword, because she knows that she is not the victim of a passing impression alone, but that two things, the law without and the law within, have been combining within his life--then he may know that this also is the Word of the Lord. But if, on the one side, an accident like this may be taken to rebuke the rash impulsiveness of men who would act upon their own subjective impressions, it also, and I think still more strikingly, witnesses against our dulness, which fails to perceive the true significance of the incidents of life as they occur. It was an impression on Jeremiahs mind, and it was only afterwards, when the light of that later circumstance of Hanameels visit occurred, that he perceived its full significance. Then I knew that this was the Word of the Lord. Now mark that this experience is very true in our ordinary life. How often it happens that we have failed to realise the full value of our opportunities till later circumstances flash new light on their meaning! To take the simplest illustration which might come to our minds, you are in the midst of a crowd; you are anxiously looking out because it is a crowd where many of the celebrities of life are gathered; and after you have passed some one suddenly says to you, Did you see him? and immediately there flashes upon you the thought, you have been close to one whose name you have heard, whose works perchance you have read, of whom you have had the greatest desire to have some knowledge. Just then the after circumstance of the utterance of your friend flashes upon you the true meaning of this; you have been close to that greatness which you have worshipped, you have massed the opportunity. Or there are incidents in your own life. Have you never had some friend who in early life was your familiar companion? You played with him, studied the same tasks with him; and now life has diverged, and he has risen to greatness, and we remain where we were on the commonplace level of life. People meet us and say, You knew him; tell me some incidents of his early life. But now the dimness of the past comes upon your memory, and all the anecdotes have dropped away; the multitude of other affairs has obscured your recollection. But then, by the light of this after greatness, you know you have been by the side of one who was possessed of conspicuous genius, one of whom you would say, Would that I had husbanded those stories of the past; would that I had observed him, for his life would have a further meaning to me had I been one who had noted carefully the characteristics, the features of his talent, of his life. In other words, later circumstances are constantly forcing upon us the dulness with which we have confronted the incidents of life as they have occurred. And surely that is the common witness of history. What is the history of all human progress? What is the history of literary life? Who killed John Keats? has often been asked. To the men of his day he was but a raw youth, full of a kind of rude desire for poetic fame; but now we recognise the genius which lay there; we go back and say how true it is that the men of their day failed to recognise the glory of these men, have persecuted them, and let them starve, and afterwards have built their monuments. It is the same in the history of our Lord. You are not surprised that the same thing should be fulfilled in His life who was in all points as we are--tempted, yet without sin. We say, If we had lived in those days our hand would not have been lifted up against that sacred life, we should have torn the crown of thorns from His brow, we should have welcomed His mission, we should have adored Him. But the men of that day did not see the beauty that they should desire Him. Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil, were the words with which He was greeted. John the Baptist pointed out their dulness--There standeth One among you Whom ye know not. But we forget that this may be true in us. Even in our midst Christ stands, and we fail to recognise Him. Why is it we are perpetually visiting with our severe criticism the dulness of the past, when we may be dull ourselves--dull to duty, dull to opportunity, dull to the meaning of the age in which we are living, dull to the very call of God, dull to the presence of Christ? Every duty, every opportunity of kindness, every incident of our life, if we are alive to see it in its brighter light, in its true significance, would never be deemed to be trivial and insignificant at all. When we begin to see light, when the light shall flash upon it, when the grave is opening upon us, this very flash of the circumstance which we call death may shine so back upon the trivial incidents of our life, that we shall realise for the first time that those commonplace things, those duties which I shirked, those things from which I turned away, thinking them of no moment at all--those also were the Word of the Lord. May I, then, ask you to observe the application of that truth, that time reveals to us our dulness in relation to certain aspects of our life?
1. First, the circumstances of the presence of God. We are often disposed to say that our lot in this century is cast in what we may call unfavourable circumstances for faith. Splendid miracles no longer happen. May not the presence of God be as real amongst the ordinary conventional aspects of our daily life--in the sun that rises and sets, in the harvests that are sown and reaped? And may it not be also that the hour might come upon us when the light from some new combination of circumstances might so flash upon our present or our past life as to reveal to us God was there indeed?
2. Or take it with regard to what we may call the providential circumstances of life. Have you never felt that your burden in life is a larger one to bear than your neighbours? We think that others who go cheerily through the world have less affliction than we; we wish we could change with them. But suppose the Lord Almighty did meet you, who understands exactly the conditions of flesh and blood, who knows those special conditions which you have inherited through the long succession of your ancestors, if He were to come to you and say, I am about to bring upon you this sorrow you will lose pecuniarily, or you shall have this illness, or that true one shall be swept from your side; I ask you to bear for My sake, My child, this burden; and if that measure your strength, I know exactly what you can bear; and I know also the sweet and the glorious bounty of grace which shall come to you in the bearing of it. Not one amongst us with the face of Gods strength looking into ours, and the smile of God encouraging us to patience and fortitude, would ever bear to shrink from the burden; we would gird up the loins of our mature to bear whatever it was--sorrow, bereavement, loss. But that which we would do if God so spake to us is surely that which we might lucre the faith to do--seeing that later circumstances may just flash upon us this revelation--It was God, indeed, who brought that burden upon me. That loss, that bereavement, that sickness--were brought by the loving hand of God, who sought to help you through the discipline of life into a better and truer faith and spirit.
3. Lastly, I would ask you to see the light which that thought throws upon the suggestions of duty--duty, stern daughter of the voice of God. If that has any meaning, it has a claim upon your life and mine. But what I ask you to observe is this. We never realise the splendour and the significance of the duties which are laid upon us, when measured by our own small life; they seem so trifling. Look for a moment at the prophet. That which he did might, from one standpoint, be said to be merely the desire of a man to possess some landed property, merely the wish of a man that he may be in the possession of his ancestral heritage; but when the opportunity came he said, This suggestion is the Word of the Lord. For his action was no longer a commercial action done between himself and his kinsman; it became then a great action, typical, representative, manifesting to Israel the real attitude of strength with which Israel should confront its dangers. Like the old Roman, it was the purchase of the land while the enemy was in possession which gave dignity to his action. The Roman by his action said, Though the enemy be at the gates, I do not despair of the welfare of the republic. Jeremiahs action said more: I do not believe that one rood of the sacred soil shall ever permanently be in the possession of the enemies of God; and it was the splendour therefore, the significance, of the action which was flashed upon him at the moment when the opportunity of the purchase came; and that which was once a dream is become a reality. And he could therefore prove to the people the reality of his faith in the hope and in the destiny of Israel. The meaning and the significance of that action none of his countrymen could gainsay, because he was ready to venture his money. That is the spirit of it. Every duty costs something: it costs some trouble, some pains, some thought, some money. Duty, whatever is in your life, is not always an easy thing, unless your nature has been celestialised, and duty has become a delight. But that, after all, belongs rather to the higher levels of life than that commonly apportioned to humankind. Would duty be less noble if duty were easy? Is it not precisely because the steep up which you climb is rocky; because you must sometimes fall, and climb on hands and knees ere you can get to the height where the light of God is shining; because it means the expenditure of fame, money--whatever it is; because the duty is shirked--that therefore the duty is noble? It does cost something; and the man who talks glibly about duty, but is never ready to pay the price of his duty, to purchase his duty by the laying down of some present price, either of money or of time--that man, whatever else he may say, does not believe in the splendid imperative of duty, he does not believe in the voice of God behind it. If I want now to correct the dulness of my eyesight and be illumined by that light which will enable me to perceive that the Divine light is there, which will enable me to hear in every call the voice of the Lord, what shall be my best means of achieving this? Let the past illumine the present; go back on your life and observe it. You now can perceive exactly where it was you missed your way, because you now know that, if you had done this or omitted to do that, if you had not been the victim of that delusion, you would have been in a different position- You see now that that voice at your side was indeed the voice of the Lord. Let the past illumine the present. Do not treat duties as trivial and commonplace, because as your present life illuminates your past life, and shows you how Gods voice has been in it, so the future may illumine the duties which appeal to you to-day. We often say that the dead are canonised in our memory. When they pass away with their greatness, they seem to move from the crowd of men and march with stately steps, and take their place in the great banquet-halls of those whom memory holds illustrious and dear; and from out those banquet-halls they look down with eyes brimming with reproach, because we do not value them as we might. So our duties, canonised by the light which the present throws upon them, march stately before us; they take their place high above, and there are reproaches in their eyes; and the future will have reproaches like this, if we do not perceive the voice of the Lord at our side. The real thing which dims our eyes is the limited light we bring, measuring all the incidents of life by self. Bring in the larger light. Why, that old Roman brought in the larger light, when he saw in the purchase of the land not his own private gain but the welfare of the republic. He saw his duty in the larger light of the well-being of the men and women about him. Let in the light of other mens interests, let in the light of the welfare of those about you, and then you cannot say that the duties are insignificant, then their voice will be to you the voice of humanitys need, and you will see a dignity in obeying it. Look upon every action of your life, not in relation to self or to the men and women about you, but in relation to God. Let in that larger light. Then every action of yours has its transcendent significance; then His Divine voice appeals to you; then you say, Every habit I contract, every word I speak, every opportunity I miss, may be a Divine opportunity slighted, the Divine voice turned back upon. (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v9 (1) A sign of Jeremiah’s faith in his own…
bought
(1) A sign of Jeremiah’s faith in his own predictions of the restoration of Judah Jer 32:15 for the field was then occupied by the Babylonian army; and
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(2) a sign to Judah of that coming restoration.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8, 10 General Information:
General Information:
Jeremiah continues speaking, but he begins to speak of himself in first person. (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
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the courtyard of the guard
This was an open area attached to the king's palace that was surrounded by buildings and in which they kept prisoners. See how you translated this in Jeremiah 32:2.
seventeen shekels
A shekel is 11 grams. AT: "17 shekels" or "187 grams" (See: Biblical Money and Numbers)
translationWords
declare
Benjamin
inherit
silver
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9–11 32:9-12 Many people might have thought that Jeremiah did…
32:9-12 Many people might have thought that Jeremiah did a foolish thing when he agreed to buy the land. After the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of many people, the value of the land would drop to almost nothing. Still, Jeremiah immediately bought the field. • Matthew 27:9-10 refers to the “prophecy of Jeremiah,” which might be an allusion to this event.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.