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Anathoth

Jeremiah 32:16-25 records the 17^th prayer of Jeremiah of Anathoth. This was his final prayer recorded in the book of Jeremiah. Anathoth means “answered prayer.”

The prophet prayed this prayer after purchasing his nephew’s property, according to his right of redemption (Jeremiah 32:8). He purchased the property for 17 shekels of silver (Jeremiah 32:9) during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 32:2). Under normal circumstances, it would have been foolish to buy property when the Babylonians were about to take the land and to send the people into captivity. Yet God instructed him to buy it (Jeremiah 32:7).

This purchase was prophetic of a future time, as we read in Jeremiah 32:14, 15,

¹⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Take these deeds, this sealed deed of purchase and this open (a copy) deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, that they may last a long time.” For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

The Babylonian captivity was to last 70 years, after which time the people would be free to return and reclaim their property. Anathoth was a town about three miles north of Jerusalem. It was a priestly city (Joshua 21:18). No one knows how the town got its name, but the name came to be prophetic of answered prayer.

Anathoth was one of the towns that the tribe of Benjamin resettled after the captivity ended (Nehemiah 11:32). Judah resettled south of Jerusalem; Benjamin resettled north of Jerusalem. The boundary between the two tribes passed through the outer court of the temple site.

There is, of course, another layer of fulfillment in this prophecy that is applicable to the Kingdom in our own time. Jeremiah’s act of faith in purchasing the property established the greater purchase of the world on behalf of the Kingdom. We today are the beneficiaries of Jeremiah’s act of faith, especially if we have the same quality of faith that he did.

I see Jeremiah’s land purchase in the broader context of an Old Covenant type and shadow of something much greater. The old land of Israel and Judah was an Old Covenant model that was to be repeated on a world-wide level under the New Covenant. Hence, we see the apparent discrepancy in God’s promise to Abraham. On the one hand, he was promised the land of Canaan, and yet Hebrews 11:10 says “he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” This is said to be “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

In that context, we can see how Jeremiah’s act of faith, followed by his prayer, was fulfilled in two ways at different times. The people returned and resettled Anathoth after 70 years in the Old Covenant type and shadow, but after 70 Jubilees, we are seeing answered prayer in a New Covenant reality. The year 2024 is 70 Jubilees (or 7 x 490 years) since Israel’s Jordan crossing under Joshua.

Jeremiah’s Prayer

Jeremiah 32: 16, 17 begins,

¹⁶ After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, then I prayed to the Lord, saying, ¹⁷ “Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You.”

Earlier, the prophet had proclaimed the word of the Lord in Jeremiah 27:5, 6,

⁵ “I have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight. ⁶ Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant…”

God asserted His right as Creator, and because Judah had abused their privilege, God took the land from them and gave it to the Babylonians for a season. Yet the purchase of Anathoth revealed that the dominion mandate would not be held permanently by the Babylonians. It would eventually be returned, not to Judah per se, but to the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:27).

Jeremiah 32:21-23 continues,

²¹ “You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders and with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror; ²² and gave them this land which You swore to their forefathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. ²³ They came in and took possession of it, but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law; they have done nothing of all that You commanded them to do; therefore, You have made all this calamity come upon them.”

Nonetheless, we read the conclusion of the prayer in Jeremiah 32:25,

²⁵ “You have said to me, O Lord God, ‘Buy for yourself the field with money and call in witnesses’—although the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.”

God’s Answer to Prayer

God’s answer to Jeremiah’s prayer is then recorded in Jeremiah 32:26-44, where God asserts that the land would be conquered by the Babylonians on account of the continuous sin of Judah. Jeremiah 32:33 says,

³³ They have turned their back to Me and not their face; though I taught them, teaching again and again, they would not listen and receive instruction.

Jeremiah 32:37-44 then speaks of the great turnabout, when God would reverse the situation.

³⁷ Behold, I will gather them out of all the lands to which I have driven them in My anger, in my wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in safety. ³⁸ They shall be My people, and I will be their God.

After 70 years, this was fulfilled in a partial manner according to the Old Covenant type and shadow. The greater fulfillment is ready to be fulfilled in our time under the New Covenant, for we read in Jeremiah 32:40,

⁴⁰ I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.

This “everlasting covenant” is described more fully in the previous chapter. Jeremiah 31:31-33,

³¹ “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt… ³³ But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

This is not the Old Covenant, obviously. It is the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ at a greater fulfillment of Passover in 33 A.D. (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 8:6). The Old Covenant failed to make them His people, because man’s vows and good intentions could only alter behavior and not actually change the heart.

The New Covenant writes the law in their hearts so that their nature is changed. They do naturally all that the Lord commands, because God’s nature becomes theirs as well. This is all done by the promise of God and not by the self-discipline of man.

We must always recognize that there are two ways, two paths, to the blessing of God. Only one of those paths actually works. The Old Covenant vows of men always fail in the end; the New Covenant vow of God always succeeds in the end.

God’s answered prayer makes that clear distinction. The nation fell because the people failed to obey the commands of God’s law imposed from the outside. Yet success is prophesied by the promise of God through the New Covenant. When He writes His laws on the inside, we cannot fail to be His people.

Those who yet despise the law of God show that the law is not yet written on their hearts, for they are yet caught up in the problematic pattern of Israel and Judah. But those who love His law are seeing the Holy Spirit write it in their hearts, following David’s pattern in Psalm 119:97,

⁹⁷ O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.