Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 23, and we are going to read Genesis 23:12-16:

And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

We have been looking at various places in the Bible where the purchase of a field took place. We read in the parable of Matthew 13:44:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

We saw how this parable points to the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who purchased the world through His own blood in making payment for the sins of His people. In that atonement, the Lord Jesus bought the world. That is also in view in Matthew 27, after Judas had cast down thirty pieces of silver, it says in Matthew 27:7-10:

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

Again, this money was said to be “the price of him that was valued,” who is the Lord Jesus. The estimation of His value was thirty pieces of silver from the chief priests that gave it to Judas to betray Him. Of course, it was all within the counsel and determinate will of God, which resulted in Jesus going to the cross and shedding His blood, in demonstration of the thing He had already accomplished at the foundation of the world. Nonetheless, this is a picture (just like a parable is a picture) of Christ shedding His blood and giving His life in the atonement, and as He did so, He bought the whole world. He bought the whole field in order to get the treasure in that parable and, here, a field was bought for strangers to be buried in, and the “strangers” are a picture of God’s elect whose bodies have been buried throughout history in this world. So the whole world is like a potter’s field for strangers or God’s elect, and it is owned by God Himself (the Lord Jesus) because it was the money of which they valued Him.

We also read in Zechariah 11:12-13:

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And JEHOVAH said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of JEHOVAH.

Now this fits very well with what we read from Matthew 27, but the only problem is that in Matthew 27, the quote is accredited to Jeremy the prophet or Jeremiah, and not to Zechariah. Obviously, Zechariah also said something very similar because we just read it, and that is because it is a similar and important truth regarding the “value” of Christ’s life, the shedding of His blood that purchased this world. That is the truth the Lord is conveying to us in all these passages.

Notice that it says in Zechariah 11:13:

…a goodly price that I was prised at of them…

The Hebrew word translated as “prised” is a word that is found in Psalm 49:7-8:

None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)

The word translated as “redemption” is the word that Zechariah 13 translated as “prised,” so it was “a goodly price that I was redeemed at of them.” You see, it has everything to do with the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bought the field (or earth) in order to properly own everything within, so He could come, and He could take His people – He owns them. This is why the Bible says that we are “bought with a price.”

The Bible also tells us that false prophets have been bought, as it says in 2Peter 2:1, because Christ purchased the whole field. He purchased the world and the church is in the world, so He owns the church as well.

We have another account of the purchase of a field in the Bible. It is in the book of Jeremiah, and we want to look at this because the Lord refers to Jeremiah, as it says in Matthew 27. Again, the quote was accredited to Jeremy the prophet, and not Zechariah. I have been praying and thinking about this. How can we understand this? First, we know it is true. What was spoken here was spoken by Jeremiah. It does not discount that it is also in Zechariah, but God is not referring to that Scripture. So Jeremiah also said this, and we can find it on the deeper spiritual level, and that is what we are going to look at in Jeremiah 32. God very specifically said it had to do with thirty pieces of silver, and the language in Matthew 27 is very specific, as it says, in Matthew 27:9-10:

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

It is very specific, and that is not the case in Jeremiah 32. There is a field owned by a relative of Jeremiah, and the language is not the same as we find here, but it is teaching the same truth on the spiritual level, which is that Christ bought the world. He not only purchased this world, but He purchased the one to come. So He owns it, and this will be an important principal that we will see as we look at some Scripture in Jeremiah 32.

But I think we would have to conclude that Jeremiah did say this at some point, but God did not record it exactly as stated. There are instances in the Bible where a man of God can say something, and God does not record it and, yet, it was certainly said. And we know this because of what we read in the one-chapter Epistle of Jude. It says in Jude 1:14-15:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Here, God caused Jude to write this little Epistle, and the book of Jude quotes Enoch as he prophesied, and the very words he spoke are recorded under the inspiration of God. But you cannot find another place where Enoch said this. When we look at the Old Testament for the historical record regarding the prophet Enoch, we find only a couple of sentences that give us incredible information about Enoch walking with God and how God took him, and so forth. But we cannot read much about him and we definitely cannot read that he said this. Did he say it? God said that he said it, so, yes, we know he said it some nine thousand years ago or longer. It was 9,176 B. C. that he was born, I think, so he lived thousands and thousands of years ago, but God quotes him here.

Likewise, Jeremiah is quoted in Matthew 27. It is not a scribal error. Jeremiah said this. For His own purposes, the Lord did not include Jeremiah’s statement in the book of Jeremiah (at least, not word-for-word). “What would be God’s purpose in not including it?” a skeptic might ask, with a raised eyebrow and doubting. God’s purpose might be to allow that skeptic to doubt; that is, God wrote the Bible in such a way that it gives apparent or seeming contradictions (not actual contradictions) to give these individuals the ammunition for them to go contrary to the Bible and to come up with wrong conclusions or to think there are errors in the Bible. Therefore, they will say the Bible is not perfect, and if it is not perfect, it is not the Word of God. So they fall into the trap and snare, and they go away from the Bible. They do not trust the Bible. They do not listen or hearken to the Bible. But this is all God’s doing, and He has written many Scriptures in the Bible that allows man this opportunity.

We are going to look at Jeremiah 32 because we have been looking at this “field,” and I think another reason why the Lord made a reference to Jeremiah in Matthew 27 so that people would turn to the book of Jeremiah and search to see where it was spoken and, of course, they would be led to Jeremiah 32. So, in essence, it serves as a way to highlight what the Lord said in Jeremiah 32 concerning the purchase of a field, which on a deeper spiritual level is in full agreement with Matthew 27 and Zechariah 11, and so forth.

Let us read Jeremiah 32:1-5:

The word that came to Jeremiah from JEHOVAH in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. For then the king of Babylon’s army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah’s house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes; And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him, saith JEHOVAH: though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper.

Here, this setting or opening to the chapter establishes the historical context, which is not good at all. It is very terrible that God in righteous anger has given up His people of Judah to the Babylonians. Elsewhere we read that God raised up Nebuchadnezzar and called him His servant, in order to execute His commandment to destroy Jerusalem and the nation of Judah, picturing the destruction of the corporate church that occurred at the end of time as we reached the 13,000th year of Earth’s history in 1988. Judgment began at the house of God. That is the historical setting for what we read next, in Jeremiah 32:6-10:

And Jeremiah said, The word of JEHOVAH came unto me, saying, Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanameel mine uncle’s son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of JEHOVAH, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this was the word of JEHOVAH. And I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle’s son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances.

I will stop there. We can see this purchase of the field has to do with redemption because the right of redemption belonged to Jeremiah. As I mentioned, the word “prised” is translated as “redemption,” and this has everything to do with redeeming the land or earth, as God willed when He bought the earth to give to His people as the “new heaven and new earth.”

So Hanameel comes to Jeremiah, his uncle’s son, and he is “coming at a bad time.” We use that expression when people stop by (our house) unexpectedly, and we are just too busy or things are happening, and we say, “You have come at a bad time.” So his coming to sell a field, we would have to say, would have been “coming at a bad time.” You know, the real estate market in Judah at that time was not doing too well because they had the Babylonian army (the Chaldeans) round about the city. They had besieged it, and the city was certain to fall, and it would fall to King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a ruthless king. He had already taken many captive, and he would take many more captive. He would ultimately destroy the city. In other words, why would someone want to buy a parcel of land in Judah? Maybe it would be a good idea in Babylon because their real estate industry was probably doing very well, and we could understand the Babylonians selling lots of land in Judah to individuals because when they conquered a land, they would own it. It would belong to them. And that is why this transaction is so amazing. It is so incredible due to the circumstances.

Why did this man, Jeremiah’s uncle’s son, want to sell his land? We are not told. Was he just trying to get some money quickly so he could get out? You need money in dangerous times and situations, and maybe if you had some money, you could give it to a Babylonian soldier or guard that would have authority over you, and things might go a little easier. We do not know what his reasoning was or why he came to Jeremiah. Well, we do know because God was working in this situation and moving him to do so. It was also true, of course, what he said about the right of redemption belonging to Jeremiah, so this man was not doing a wrong thing. He was following the Law of God concerning redeeming.

You can read the book of Ruth, which lays out some of these very things when Boaz had the right of redemption concerning a parcel of land that Naomi owned. He bought it, and in buying it, he had to marry Ruth the Moabitess, which was a great picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, represented by Boaz, buying the land and buying Ruth the Moabitess who typifies the elect. I do not know if you remember, but a while back we looked at some of the similarities in language in the book of Isaiah where God spoke of being married to the land, just as He is married to the elect. Sometimes, we cannot distinguish between “land” and the “elect.” In Revelation, “new Jerusalem,” a city, is coming down from above, but it is comprised of everyone God has saved.

We will have to look more at this interesting historical situation in Jeremiah 32, Lord willing, in our next Bible study.