7 Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle shall come to you, saying, Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Hanameel was strictly the first-cousin of Jeremiah. In Hebrew all the terms of relationship are used in a more loose way than with us.
The right of redemption is thine - The law had established that the estates of a family should never be alienated. If, therefore, a man through poverty was obliged to sell his patrimony, the nearest relative had a right to purchase it before all others, and even to redeem it, if it had been sold to another. This is what is called the right of goel, or kinsman, Leviticus 25:25. And in the year of jubilee the whole reverted to its ancient master Leviticus 25:13.
Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thy uncle shall come to thee, saying, (c) Buy for thee my field that [is] in Anathoth: for the right of redemption [is] thine (d) to buy [it].
(c) By which was meant that the people would return again out of captivity and enjoy their possessions and vineyards as in (Jeremiah 32:15, Jeremiah 32:44).
(d) Because he was next of the kindred, as in (Ruth 4:4).
Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee,.... Hilkiah, the father of Jeremiah, and this Shallum, were own brothers; so that Jeremiah and Hanameel were brothers' sons, or own cousins: this coming of Hanameel to Jeremiah being a contingent event, with respect to second causes, and yet foretold as what would certainly be, shows that such events are foreknown by the Lord, and are sure to him:
saying, buy thee my field that is in Anathoth; the place from whence Jeremiah came, and was but about two or three miles from Jerusalem, and therefore must be now in the possession of the Chaldean army; wherefore it may seem very strange in Hanameel to propose it to sale, and stranger still in Jeremiah to buy it: though something of this kind was done at Rome, while Hannibal was besieging it; the field where Hannibal pitched his camp was offered to sale at Rome, and found a buyer (t); but then he that bought it was in high spirits, and in a strong belief that the city would not be taken, and that the enemy would be obliged to quit the siege; but Jeremiah knew, and firmly believed, on the other hand, that the city of Jerusalem, and all the country round it, would fall into the hands of the king of Babylon. Moreover, Anathoth was a city of the priests, and the fields adjoining to it belonged to them; as some of them did to Abiathar the priest in his time, 1-Kings 2:26; and such fields as belonged to the priests and Levites were not to be sold, according to the law in Leviticus 25:34; to which it is answered, that this was not arable land, which the Levites might not possess; but some meadow, orchard, or garden, in the suburbs of the city, which though it might not be sold to strangers, yet might be sold among themselves; though it is more probable that this was a field that came fro, in some of his ancestors by his mother's or grandmother's side, and so might be disposed of; as it seems certain to be lawfully done, not only as it was the will of God, who could indeed dispense with his own law, was that in the way, but since it was a matter of right, and incumbent on him, as follows:
for the right of redemption is thine to buy it; that is, had it been sold to another, it would have lain upon him to have redeemed it, as being next of kin, that so it might not pass to another tribe and family.
(t) Florus, l. 2. c. 6.
son of Shallum thine uncle--therefore, Jeremiah's first cousin.
field . . . in Anathoth--a sacerdotal city: and so having one thousand cubits of suburban fields outside the wall attached to it (Numbers 35:4-5). The prohibition to sell these suburban fields (Leviticus 25:34) applied merely to their alienating them from Levites to another tribe; so that this chapter does not contravene that prohibition. Besides, what is here meant is only the purchase of the use of the field till the year of jubilee. On the failure of the owner, the next of kin had the right of redeeming it (Leviticus 25:25, &c.; Ruth 4:3-6).
*More commentary available at chapter level.