Jeremiah 32:9

And I bought the field of Hanameel mine uncle's son; that [was] in Anathoth,.... The prophet agreed with his cousin to take his field of him, at a certain price hereafter mentioned; which may seem

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. I bought ... and weighed him the money ... seventeen shekels of silver.

Ver. 9. That is, about 2l. 2s. 6d., a small purchase, which argues the field here mentioned to be but some orchard or garden; though we must allow the price of land strangely fallen at this time, when the enemy was besieging the chief city of the country. It should seem they were wont there to make their payments more by weight than by tale.

Jeremiah 32:9 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.Ver. 9. And I bought the field.] This was bravely done, to make a purchase at such a time, when the enemy was seizing upon all. That Roman is famous in history who dared to purchase that field near Rome wherein Hannibal had pitched his camp. Verum eorum res non erant ita deplorates; but the Romans were nothing near so low at that time as the Jews were at this. And weighed him the money.] That was the manner of payment in those times. Hence the Hebrew shekel from shakal, to weigh - our English word scale seemeth to come from it), the Greek στατηρ from ισταναι ponderare to weigh or of statera, for a balance the Dutch and English mark cometh from a similar origin. Even seventeen shekels of silver.] No great sum, not much over forty shillings; but it might be as much as the thing was worth, considering the times especially. Liv., lib. xxvi. Plutar. in Annib. Flor., lib. ii. c. 6. Olim moneta librabatur. Pater puellae id aurum in dotem viro appendit Unde et nomen marcharum hodie nobis superest. - Zegedin.

(9) Weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.—The Hebrew presents the singular combination, seven shekels and ten [pieces of] silver, and is followed by the LXX. and Vulg. There is no ground for thinking that there is any difference between the coins or bullion so described, and the formula was probably one of the technicalities of Jewish conveyancing. As regards the price it is not easy, in the absence of any measurement of the field, to form an estimate of its value; but, speaking roughly, as compared with the four hundred shekels paid by Abraham for the field of Ephron (Genesis 23:16), or the fifty paid by David for the threshing-floor and oxen of Araunah (2 Samuel 24:24; in 1 Chronicles 21:25 the price is fixed at six hundred shekels of gold), or to the thirty shekels paid for the potter’s field in Matthew 27:9, or to the market price of a slave varying from fifteen (Hosea 3:2) to thirty shekels (Zechariah 11:12), the price, under £2 sterling, would seem to have been far below its average market value, and in this respect the story falls short of the dignity of its Roman parallel (see Note on Jeremiah 32:7). Hanameel, as said above, was probably glad to part with it at any price. It is possible, however, that the smallness of the sum was owing to the fact that the sale, as above suggested, conveyed possession only for the unexpired term of a tenancy which was to end with the next year of Jubilee. On that assumption the prophet’s motive in purchasing may have been to keep it in the family instead of letting it pass to a stranger who might be unwilling to surrender it when the year of Jubilee arrived. As the prophet was unmarried he had no son to inherit it. The precise sum fixed, perhaps even the form in which the sum is stated, may have originated in Jeremiah’s wish to connect in this way the two numbers, ten and seven, which when multiplied together produced the number which he had fixed for the years of captivity, and therefore for the term of restoration. Such an elaborate artifice of symbolism would, at least, be quite in character in a prophet who adopts the acrostic form in his Lamentations and the cypher of an inverted alphabet known as the Athbash. (See Note on Jeremiah 25:26.)

Verse 9. Weighed him the money] It does not appear that there was any coined or stamped money among the Jews before the captivity; the Scripture, therefore, never speaks of counting money, but of weighing it. Seventeen shekels of silver.] The shekel at this time must have been a nominal coin; it was a thing of a certain weight, or a certain worth. Seventeen shekels was the weight of the silver paid: but it might have been in one ingot, or piece. The shekel has been valued at from two shillings and threepence to two shillings and sixpence, and even at three shillings; taking the purchase-money at a medium of the value of the shekel, it would amount only to about two pounds two shillings and sixpence. But as estates bore value only in proportion to the number of years before the jubilee, and the field in question was then in the hands of the Chaldeans, and this cousin of Jeremiah was not likely to come back to enjoy it after seventy years, (nor could he then have it, as a jubilee would intervene and restore it to the original family,) and money must now be very scarce and high in its value, the seventeen shekels might have been a sufficient sum for a field in those circumstances, and one probably not large in its dimensions.

9. that was in Anathoth] Omit with LXX. weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver] The shekel weighed about 220 of our grains. The amount may appear small (about £2. 6s. 6d. of our money), but we do not know the size of the field. It is clear from the aim of the whole transaction that it was a fair price in ordinary times. We must remember also that in those days the purchasing power of silver was much greater. Araunah’s threshing floor, oxen, and implements were bought at a time of great prosperity for fifty shekels (2 Samuel 24:24).

Seventeen shekels of silver - literally, as in the margin, probably a legal formula. Jeremiah bought Hanameel’s life-interest up to the year of Jubilee, and no man’s life was worth much in a siege like that of Jerusalem.

9. Seventeen shekels — Two things arrest attention in this price: 1) The peculiar form, literally “seven shekels and ten of silver.” 2) Its smallness, about ten dollars.