(43, 44) And fields shall be bought in this land . . .--The significance of the whole transaction of the purchase of the field in Anathoth is again solemnly confirmed. Men were desponding, as though the land were to belong to the Chaldaeans for ever. They are told that the very region which was now covered with their encampments should once again be possessed freely by its own people. In the "mountains," the "valleys," and the south, or negeb district, stretching towards the country of the Philistines, we have, as before in Jeremiah 17:26, the familiar division of the land of Judah, which had been transmitted from what has well been called the Domesday Book of Israel (Joshua 15:21; Joshua 15:33; Joshua 15:48).

Verse 43. - Fields; rather, land; the Hebrew has "the field," i.e. the open country (as Jeremiah 4:17, etc.). We must then continue "in this country," and in ver. 44, "men shall buy lands."

32:26-44 God's answer discovers the purposes of his wrath against that generation of the Jews, and the purposes of his grace concerning future generations. It is sin, and nothing else, that ruins them. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem is promised. This people were now at length brought to despair. But God gives hope of mercy which he had in store for them hereafter. Doubtless the promises are sure to all believers. God will own them for his, and he will prove himself theirs. He will give them a heart to fear him. All true Christians shall have a disposition to mutual love. Though they may have different views about lesser things, they shall all be one in the great things of God; in their views of the evil of sin, and the low estate of fallen man, the way of salvation through the Saviour, the nature of true holiness, the vanity of the world, and the importance of eternal things. Whom God loves, he loves to the end. We have no reason to distrust God's faithfulness and constancy, but only our own hearts. He will settle them again in Canaan. These promises shall surely be performed. Jeremiah's purchase was the pledge of many a purchase that should be made after the captivity; and those inheritances are but faint resemblances of the possessions in the heavenly Canaan, which are kept for all who have God's fear in their hearts, and do not depart from him. Let us then bear up under our trials, assured we shall obtain all the good he has promised us.And fields shall be bought in this land,.... After the return from the Babylonish captivity, which this respects; and of which the prophet's purchasing a field of his uncle's son was a pledge and token; in doing which, as a right thing, he is confirmed; as well as the cavils and objections of the Jews removed, who thought the destruction of the city, and such a practice, irreconcilable; and, moreover, this is mentioned as a pledge, earnest, and confirmation of the fulfilment of the above spiritual promises in Gospel times; for the people being returned at the end of the seventy years' captivity, and purchasing fields and vineyards, as was predicted, it might be strongly concluded, that since those temporal blessings promised were made good, spiritual ones would certainly be fulfilled; though some understand these words, in a spiritual sense, of the field of the church; for it is in the singular number, "a field shall be bought" (o); yea, "that field", emphatically, which was bought by the blood of Christ, and first planted in the land of Judea, as in Jeremiah 32:41;

whereof ye say, it is desolate without man or beast; so wasted and destroyed by the enemy, that neither man nor beast are left, but both carried off by him; and therefore no hope of what is above promised:

it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans; they are become the possessors of it, and therefore it is all over with us as to buying and possessing fields and vineyards; but notwithstanding this diffidence and despair in the present view of things, it follows:

(o) "et vel tum emetur ager", Cocceius, Schmidt; "tum comparabitur ager", Junius & Tremellius.