Verse 44. - Subscribe evidences; rather, write (particulars of their purchase)in the deed (as ver. 10). In the land of Benjamin, etc. The catalogue of the districts of the Jewish kingdom heightens the realistic effect (see on Jeremiah 17:26). Everywhere the old social system will be reproduced in its entirety. The land of Benjamin is mentioned first, on account of the property of Jeremiah at Anathoth.

32:26-44 God's answer discovers the purposes of his wrath against that generation of the Jews, and the purposes of his grace concerning future generations. It is sin, and nothing else, that ruins them. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem is promised. This people were now at length brought to despair. But God gives hope of mercy which he had in store for them hereafter. Doubtless the promises are sure to all believers. God will own them for his, and he will prove himself theirs. He will give them a heart to fear him. All true Christians shall have a disposition to mutual love. Though they may have different views about lesser things, they shall all be one in the great things of God; in their views of the evil of sin, and the low estate of fallen man, the way of salvation through the Saviour, the nature of true holiness, the vanity of the world, and the importance of eternal things. Whom God loves, he loves to the end. We have no reason to distrust God's faithfulness and constancy, but only our own hearts. He will settle them again in Canaan. These promises shall surely be performed. Jeremiah's purchase was the pledge of many a purchase that should be made after the captivity; and those inheritances are but faint resemblances of the possessions in the heavenly Canaan, which are kept for all who have God's fear in their hearts, and do not depart from him. Let us then bear up under our trials, assured we shall obtain all the good he has promised us.Men shall buy fields for money,.... They shall have plenty of money, and they shall lay it out in land, and carry on husbandry, cultivate the ground, which had lain long untilled, but now should be manured for public as well as private good. This some understand of particular churches planted in Judea, and out of it, throughout the whole world; and of men's gathering and joining themselves to them by a profession of that faith which is more precious than gold or silver:

and subscribe evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses; as Jeremiah had done before, when he bought the field of his uncle's son, Jeremiah 32:10. This is spiritually understood by some of the word of God laid hold on by faith; of the sealing of the Spirit, and of the ordinances of the Gospel:

in the land of Benjamin; where Anathoth was, and Jeremiah's field lay; and where the same should be done by others as was done by him:

and in the places about Jerusalem; in the suburbs of it, and in the villages round about it:

and in the cities of Judah; throughout the whole country, divided into the three following parts:

and in the cities of the mountains; in the hilly country of Judea, where was Hebron, and other cities, Luke 1:39;

and in the cities of the valley. The Septuagint retains the Hebrew word "sephela", or the plain, in which were Emmaus, Lydda, Sharon, places mentioned in the New Testament:

and in the cities of the south; or Nagab, the south part of Judea, which led to Gaza, Acts 8:26. This division of Judea into the mountains, valley, and south, exactly agrees with the account of it in Joshua 15:21. Some understand this of the Gospel going out of Jerusalem after the day of Pentecost, not only to the places near that city, but to Samaria, and the cities of the south towards Egypt, and so into all the world:

for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord; their temporal captivity from Babylon, and their spiritual captivity from sin, Satan, and the law.