Reading: Jeremiah 32:6-27.
"There is nothing too hard for Thee."
"Is there anything too hard for Me?"
The field of Anathoth is a practical exposition of those words - the statement and the interrogation. We know the situation at the time from this chapter and elsewhere; the double imprisonment, Jeremiah himself shut up in the Court of the Guard, and the city surrounded by the invader. Then in that situation in some way the Lord registered in the heart of Jeremiah that this cousin of his would come and ask him to buy the field. We do not know how, but this we conclude, that Jeremiah became aware that this man, his cousin, would be coming to him with this request, and so it happened.
For forty years Jeremiah had been prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem and the land and the captivity of the people. His commission was concerning the destruction and desolation of the land, so that Jeremiah was really in a very difficult set of circumstances. There is no doubt about the darkness of the outlook; it was very real.
There was his own ministry which had gone on for all those years and that was now suspended. There was the actual situation at this time.
He was a captive within a captivity. It was a very real challenge to faith. This was no merely hypothetical situation; it was an actual one. And the coming of Hanamel his cousin to him was as the redeeming kinsman, and one who had the right to redeem the inheritance, to save that inheritance, that field, from being lost to posterity, from going outside of the family.
Well, I do not know what Hanamel was thinking about at the back of his mind, but taking the situation firstly as to the land and the prospects, one would conclude that in any case, it would go outside of the family.
Well, I do not know what Hanamel was thinking about at the back of his mind, but taking the situation firstly as to the land and the prospects, one would conclude that in any case, it would go outside of the family.
The Chaldeans were going to take the land and overrun it; it was going to be destroyed and laid desolate, and from the natural standpoint, it was not the time to embark on this sort of thing, for redeeming at that time involved something very much more than just transferring from one part of the family to the other by a deed. Redeeming had the far greater meaning of redeeming from the Chaldeans and redeeming from his own personal situation.
For what could Jeremiah do with a field at Anathoth when he was getting on in years and was himself in present peril of his life? He could not see a day ahead, and knew from all the years of his compulsory prophesying what was going to happen. To perform an act of redeeming in the midst of all that was a tremendous challenge to faith.
There is no doubt, of course, here as everywhere, it's a prophecy going beyond Jeremiah and beyond even Israel. It is not difficult to see that, in the great divine scheme of things, here is a very practical illustration of something which took place years afterwards of an even far greater significance - I mean the redemption that Christ wrought. Christ knew that this whole world sooner or later was going into judgment and fire, to be consumed and purged. He knew that He Himself here was in a worse place than Jeremiah, but He performed the act of redemption.
There is no doubt, of course, here as everywhere, it's a prophecy going beyond Jeremiah and beyond even Israel. It is not difficult to see that, in the great divine scheme of things, here is a very practical illustration of something which took place years afterwards of an even far greater significance - I mean the redemption that Christ wrought. Christ knew that this whole world sooner or later was going into judgment and fire, to be consumed and purged. He knew that He Himself here was in a worse place than Jeremiah, but He performed the act of redemption.
By redemption He secured the world unto a future glory. A mighty triumph of faith was His. One just says that, because, while this has practical values for us in our own lives, they are all set in the light of the so much greater things and undoubtedly the main interpretation is here. It is probably found worked out in the book of the Revelation.
