Jeremiah had prophesied that King Zedekiah would lose the war and be taken to Babylon as one of the captives; Zedekiah had not liked this prophesy, and had had Jeremiah confined to the court of the guard (Jeremiah 32:2-5). Then God revealed to Jeremiah that his cousin Hanamel was going to show up and try to sell him a field at Anathoth (32:6-7). We should recognize that Hanamel was trying to take advantage of his cousin with this scam: Anathoth and all the surrounding countryside was already fully occupied by the Babylonian army, and Jerusalem itself was about to fall, so Hanamel was trying to get money – usable now – in exchange for a field that Jeremiah might never possess.

Jeremiah had questions in his heart about the wisdom of this (32:24-25), yet he also “knew that this was the word of the Lord” (32:8). So he bought the field, creating two copies of the deed, signed in front of witnesses, protected in an earthenware jar so that the documents would last a long time (32:9-15). This was because God was going to bring the grandchildren of the present generation back from captivity when the Exile was over (32:37-41). When that happened, Jeremiah’s heirs would have a clear deed indicating that they owned this farmland.

The irony in this is that Jeremiah had no children, since he had never married (16:2). That meant that after the Exile was over, his heirs could well turn out to be his cousin Hanamel’s grandchildren. Jeremiah would be long dead by the time the Exile was over; he would never grow crops on the field at Anathoth. But he had signed and sealed the deed to the ranch for these unknown heirs, in the confidence that God would do good to them when the time came for the return from Exile: “I will plant them in this land with faithfulness, with all my heart and with all my soul” (32:41).

The contrast between Hanamel and Jeremiah stands as an important corrective to the way our present-day culture has such a hard time thinking beyond the present moment; we can scarcely imagine making sacrificial choices today for the benefit of those who will not be born till long after we die. We are mostly like Hanamel, trying to find a way to get ahead of our neighbor in today’s challenges. But Jeremiah understood the generational awareness that was one of the greatest strengths of the people of Israel at their best: it was vital to take action in the present time for the benefit of grandchildren or great-grandchildren many years hence.

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In the midst of the present struggles, O God, it is hard to think about the situation of descendants yet to be born decades in the future: yet you invite us to envision their life and to take action to bless them. So even when we are as perplexed as Jeremiah, Lord, we pray that you would give us the faith to create that blessing for that coming generation.