While imprisoned in the prison courtyard, as the Babylonians encircle the city and destruction is imminent, God commands Yirmiyahu to "redeem" the field of his cousin. The concept of ‘redemption’ is familiar from the Torah, where relatives are commanded to purchase the inheritance that a family member was forced to sell. A well-known example of such redemption appears in Megillat Rut, where Boaz redeems the field and takes Rut as a wife. The underlying idea of redemption is that family members take responsibility for the hardships of their relative, and our prophecy presents a direct application of this principle.

With the Babylonians at the gates and the city already in ruins, purchasing land seems absurd and futile to Yirmiyahu. Yet the Tanakh meticulously details the legal formalities ensuring the validity of the transaction (details from which Chazal derived numerous laws regarding legal documents and property acquisition). This emphasis underscores that the purchase was executed with the utmost precision and legitimacy. Despite its apparent irrelevance, the personal redemption of Chanamel’s field serves as a symbol of the broader redemption of Israel: “Houses, fields, and vineyards shall once again be purchased in this land” (32:15). Though it seems irrational — destruction is already here, and no one is investing in real estate — Yirmiyahu knows that the land's value will rise, for redemption will come.

The common interpretation is that the redemption promised by the prophet refers to the future return from Babylonian exile. The deed is preserved “so that it might be preserved for many days” (32:14), ensuring that the redemption, though seems distant, will ultimately arrive. However, Harav Medan offers a different understanding. Yirmiyahu has already prophesied numerous times that the redemption will come in seventy years, so what is the great innovation in our prophecy that leaves him so astonished?

Harav Medan explains that this is not a prophecy about a distant redemption seventy years later, following Babylon’s downfall, but about an immediate redemption that will unfold after Jerusalem is destroyed. The emphasis is: “This is what the Lord said:  I am  about to deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans… The Chaldeans who are attacking this city will come and set fire to city” (32:28-29). In contrast, the redemption is described with similar repetition: “I will plant them in this land faithfully, with all My heart and with all My soul… Fields will be purchased in this land of which you say, ‘it is desolate, devoid man and beast, delivered to the Chaldeans’. Fields will be purchased for silver, written in a scroll, and sealed and witnessed in the land of Binyamin and in the surroundings of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Yehuda and the cities in the mountains, in the cities of the lowland and the cities of the south, for I will bring them back from their captivity’, declares the Lord” (32:41-44).

Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the reign of Tzidkiyahu will end, but the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel still holds hope. Gedalyahu son of Achikam is meant to govern the land and gather back those who fled during the war. Though the people of Yehuda insisted on rebelling against the king of Babylon, defying the word of God and bringing ruin upon themselves, God offers them another chance to receive what had been promised from the start: life in the land under foreign rule. If they seize this opportunity, the prophecy of redemption will be fulfilled.