I will rejoice in doing them good,
and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness,
with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:41)
We don’t expect to find Old Testament prophets trying their hand at the real-estate market. That’s the first thing that makes Jeremiah 32 memorable.
This chapter tells the story of the weeping prophet making a land transaction that is shocking because of its seemingly terrible timing. Jerusalem is under siege from Babylon. It does not look like this siege will be repelled. In fact, God himself, through Jeremiah, has said that the capital city will fall, and the nation should surrender rather than hold out against his judgment. King Zedekiah doesn’t like the prophet undermining morale and puts Jeremiah under arrest in “the court of the guard” (verse 3).
The city is surrounded, the prophet is in custody, and God then speaks this bizarre word to Jeremiah:
Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.” (verse 7)
Sure enough, just as God said, Jeremiah’s cousin soon emerges to make him this ridiculous offer. It’s an absurd proposition. Babylon will soon take the nation. To buy land, right now, seems akin to throwing money down the well.
But the prophet receives the offer from his cousin as God’s direction to buy the field, and he goes through the formal public hurdles to make the purchase official, for seventeen shekels of silver (which is not an insignificant sum, but several months’ wages, perhaps as much as $20,000 today).
He Will Be Your God
Once the deed is done, Jeremiah asks God why (verses 16–25). Don’t miss the lesson in obedience: First the prophet obeys; then he asks questions — which is not just good form but biblical faith. God is the potter; Jeremiah is clay. And this gracious Potter is willing to answer a confused yet obedient prophet (verses 26–35): No, he hasn’t changed his mind about the coming fall of Jerusalem. Babylon will indeed take the city. So, why the land purchase?
God then speaks again, and casts stunning rays of hope on the other side of the destruction of the city and the scattering of his people:
Behold, I will gather them. . . . I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (verses 37–38)
The prophet’s purchase anticipates the coming restoration. But there’s more.
He Will Do You Good
Next, God picks up on the great new covenant prophecy he spoke through Jeremiah in the previous chapter. There he promises to “make a new covenant with” his people that is “not like the covenant that” he made with them at Sinai (Jeremiah 31:31–32). This new arrangement will not fail like the first, because, he says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (verse 33). God did not fail his people in the first covenant, but they failed him. Remarkably, in this coming new covenant, God’s people “shall all know me” (verse 34).
Here in chapter 32, Jeremiah returns to the focus on the heart and on being God’s people (and he being their God), and expands the vision. This new covenant will be everlasting, and God “will not turn away from doing good to them.” The first-covenant people grew callous and cavalier in their sin and turned away from God, so now God pledges a remedy: “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (verse 40).
In this new and everlasting covenant, God will see to it that the hearts of his people are changed. And what’s more, he tops it all off with the second thing (beyond real estate) that makes this chapter so memorable.
He’s ‘All In’ for His Own
The climactic word in Jeremiah 32:41 reveals the depth and fierceness of God’s own heart. Not only will he objectively do his people good forever, but subjectively, he will thrill to do it, with his own inner zeal. His heart is hot, to boiling, for this chosen people. To say it mildly, he is all in:
I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
Stand in awe of wholehearted, whole-souled omnipotence!
It’s one thing to have a human heart and soul utterly for you. That’s a friend for the day of adversity, a priceless gift and encouragement. And it’s yet another thing to have a royal heart fully on your side, able to make use of all the king’s resources and power. But it’s altogether different, by orders of magnitude, to have the divine heart of God at your back.
To have God’s hand working for you, even begrudgingly, will conquer any foe. But what of God Almighty being “all in” for you, with all his heart and all his soul? That is, not begrudging or under obligation, and not indifferent or half-hearted. We’re talking Omnipotence himself rejoicing to do you good, and that divine delight welling up in all his heart and all his soul. Could there be any greater wind in your sails?
All Yours in Jesus
Brother or sister in Christ, this is a glimpse of the spectacular grace that is yours in Jesus and his new covenant: wholehearted, enthused omnipotence that is for you, and not against you.
Such grace is no pledge against all pain and suffering and setbacks. God writes better stories for his people than painless, strain-less leisure. But Jeremiah 32:41 is an utterly certain, stunningly strong promise against any setback having the final word against you.
In Jesus, no matter the sorrow, joy wins in the end. God has put his whole heart and his whole soul behind all who trust in his Son.
Desiring God