“‘Fields shall be bought
In this land
Of which you are saying.
‘It is a desolation!
It is without humans!
It is without animals!
It has been given
Into the hands
Of the Chaldeans.’
Fields shall be bought
For money.
Deeds shall be signed,
Sealed,
As well as witnessed
In the land of Benjamin,
In the places about Jerusalem,
In the towns of Judah,
In the towns of the hill country,
In the towns of the Shephelah,
In the towns of the Negeb.
I will restore their fortunes.’
Says Yahweh.”
Yahweh said, via Jeremiah, that the time of the desolation of the land was over. Fields were going to be bought and sold. It is not clear who owned some of these fields, since they might have changed hands a few times, since the beginning of the exile. However, the land was desolate, since there were no humans or animals on them after the Chaldeans took over. Who was going to sell this land? However, there would be a legal process. Money would exchange hands with deeds signed, sealed, and witnessed. The example of Jeremiah buying a field in the preceding chapter may be an example of how things would operate. Now this restoration would take place in the Benjamin territory, around the city of Jerusalem, and the towns of Judah. However, there are places mentioned, like the towns in the hill country of Judah, the Shephelah, the old Dan territory next to Benjamin, as well as the Negeb, the semi arid land southeast of Jerusalem near the Dead Sea. There was no mention of the northern territory from the old northern Israelite kingdom and their tribal territory.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 