The prayer begins with a long ascription of praise to Yahweh (vv. 17-23) and concludes by expressing incredulity that the Lord had commanded His servant to buy the land in Anathoth (vv. 24-25; cf. Neh. 9:6-37; Dan. 9:4-19).428
32:16 Shortly after Jeremiah gave Baruch the purchase deed, he prayed to the Lord.
32:17-18 Citing God's creation of the cosmos as evidence that nothing was too difficult for Him, Jeremiah acknowledged God's extreme covenant loyalty and the justice of His punishment of Judah. Not even restoring Israel to her land and making the property in Anathoth valuable to the Israelites again was too difficult for Yahweh, Jeremiah believed.
32:19 God is wise and strong, fully aware of all that happens, and just in giving everyone what he deserves. This is a classic statement of how God judges: according to people's deeds, what they really do rather than what they intend or promise to do. The basis of divine judgment is human works (cf. John 6:29; Rev. 22:12).
32:20-21 Yahweh had established His reputation of being powerful in the Exodus both among the Israelites and among all people.
32:22 He had given the Israelites the good land of promise, as He had sworn to the patriarchs.
32:23 The Israelites had taken possession of the land but had not obeyed the Lord, either spoken messages from prophets or the written Torah (instruction). Consequently all the calamities that the Israelites were facing had come upon them.
32:24 Calamity had culminated in the siege of the city by the Babylonian soldiers. They were about to take it in fulfillment of what the Lord had warned His people about, but He was fully aware of present conditions.
32:25 Yet the Lord had commanded Jeremiah to buy the field in Anathoth even though the Chaldeans were ready to take Jerusalem.
Though Jeremiah did not ask for an explanation of the Lord's directions to him, that is the point of his prayer. He wanted an explanation for this unusual command. Did he have second thoughts after purchasing the property, did his faith waver, or was his prayer an expression of his faith?
"It is a fine example of the way to pray in a desperate situation: concentrating first on the creative power (17) and perfect fidelity and justice (18-19) of God; remembering next his great redemptive acts (20-23a; to which the Christian can now add the greatest of them all)--and then with this background, laying before God the guilt of the past (23b), the hard facts of the present (24) and the riddle of the future (25)."429
