Jeremia 32:9

Lutherbibel

und kaufte den Acker von Hanameel, meines Oheims Sohn, zu Anathoth, und wog ihm das Geld dar, siebzehn Silberlinge.

Parallel Translations

Schlachter Bibel (1951)
und kaufte den Acker zu Anatot von meinem Vetter Hanameel und wog ihm das Geld dar, siebzehn Schekel Silber.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

weighed: Genesis 23:15, Genesis 23:16, 1 Kings 20:39, Esther 3:9, Isaiah 55:2, *marg.

seventeen shekels of silver: or, seven shekels, and ten pieces of silver, Genesis 37:28, Hosea 3:2, Zechariah 11:12, Zechariah 11:13

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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 strange in one that was a poor prophet, now a prisoner, and the land just going to be subject to the Chaldeans: but the design of this was to show that there would be a return from captivity, when houses and fields should be bought and sold again, of which this was a pledge:

and weighed him the money; agreed upon, which was reckoned not by tale, but by weight:

[even] seventeen shekels of silver; which, reckoning a shekel at half a crown, were no more than two pounds, two shillings, and sixpence; a small sum of money to make a purchase of a field with; though this may be accounted for by the scarcity of money, the field in the hand of the enemy, there being only his kinsman's life in it, the prophet bought the reversion, being his of right; and, besides, it might be only an orchard or garden that is so called. In the Hebrew text it is, "seven shekels and ten [pieces of] silver": and Kimchi and Ben Melech say, that by "shekels" are meant minas or pounds; and by "pieces of silver", selahs or shekels: and so the Targum renders it,

"seven minas, and ten shekels of silver.''

Now a minah or maneh, according to Ezekiel 45:12; was equal to sixty shekels, and so of the value of seven pounds, ten shillings; seven of these made fifty two pounds, ten shillings; and the other ten shekels being one pound, five shillings, the whole amounted to fifty three pounds, fifteen shillings, which would purchase a considerable field.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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. As Jeremiah had no children, at his death the land would devolve to the person who would have inherited it had Jeremiah not bought it. He therefore bought what never was and never could have been of the slightest use to him, and gave for it what in the growing urgency of the siege might have been very serviceable to himself. Still, as the next heir. it was Jeremiah’s duty to buy the estate, independently of the importance of the act as a sign to the people; and evidently he gave the full value.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 32:9. 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.