Buying Real Estate During a Siege
In Jeremiah 32, something unusual happens: while the Babylonian army is besieging Jerusalem and the city is on the verge of collapse, Jeremiah buys a piece of land.
It’s not a random business transaction. In fact, it seems almost absurd. The city is surrounded. Jeremiah himself is imprisoned by the king for his gloomy prophecies. And yet, when his cousin offers to sell him a field in Anathoth, Jeremiah goes through with it. He signs the deed, seals it, and stores it away in a clay jar so it will last "a long time" (Jeremiah 32:14, NLT).
Real Estate Logic vs. Prophetic Symbolism
What kind of person buys property in a war zone? It’s hard not to see this moment as layered with irony, tension, and perhaps even desperation. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense. But then the text makes clear that this is symbolic: "Someday people will again own property here in this land and will buy and sell houses and vineyards and fields" (Jeremiah 32:15, NLT).
Still, I wonder what this act felt like from Jeremiah’s perspective. Was he hopeful? Resigned? Was he simply obeying a divine command, or did he actually believe in the vision of future restoration? Buying that field might have been a performance of belief more than a feeling of certainty.
Investing in Maybe
This idea of acting on something even when you don’t fully feel it is familiar. People do this all the time—writing wills, starting long-term projects, raising kids—without guarantees that the future will unfold the way they hope. Jeremiah's land purchase feels like that kind of gesture. It acknowledges the ruin but still stakes a claim in something beyond it.
Deeds, Documents, and Doubt
There’s also the question of visibility. This wasn’t a private decision. The purchase was made publicly, with witnesses. Maybe it was important not just that Jeremiah believed, but that others saw him acting as if there would be a future worth investing in.
I keep thinking about the contrast between the chaos outside the city walls and the ordinary language of contracts and deeds inside them. Life was falling apart, and yet Jeremiah is signing paperwork. It’s strangely grounded, almost bureaucratic. But that very ordinariness might be the point. The act of buying land becomes a small thread tying the present to a possible future.
A Field, a Future, and a Footnote in History
Whether Jeremiah felt confident or conflicted, his decision creates a moment where fear and hope coexist. It doesn’t erase the destruction, but it refuses to let the destruction define everything.
In a time of collapse, Jeremiah chooses to invest. That choice doesn’t fix anything in the short term. But it marks a refusal to give up on the idea that this place, and these people, might have a future beyond their present disaster.