‘Till Death do us Part’ ? or the Continuation of Marriage... 69 vesting the garden, as well as eating its produce; building a home would also involve its dedication and occupation (Deut 20,5-6; Isa 65,21-22; Jer 29,5.28; Amos 5,11; 9,14; Zeph 1,13). But the word pair probably carries an even broader meaning: planting and building seem to be formulaic for the establishment of a permanent domicile, whether individually in the case of a person or collectively for a nation32. This meaning is perhaps best elucidated by Jer 35,6-10, where the rejection of sedentary life by the nomadic Rechabites is signified by their refusal to build houses, plant vineyards, or sew seed: But they said, “We will not drink wine, because Jonadab the son of Re- chab, our father, commanded us, ‘Neither you nor your sons will ever drink wine. And you will not build a house, sew seed, plant a vineyard, or have one. But you will live in tents all your days, so that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners’. So we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, so as not to drink wine … or build houses in which to live. And we have no vineyard, or field, or seed, but we have lived in tents”. (Jer 35,6-10) Other OT passages use similar vocabulary to describe either settle- ment during exile (Jer 29,5) or resettlement after exile (Amos 9,14; Ezek 28,26). We can therefore suppose, with some reassurance, that when Jesus said they were planting and building, he had in mind the pursuit of a permanent settlement and the stability associated therewith. As case in point, did not an itinerant Lot settle down in Sodom (Gen 13,12; 14,12; 19,1; 1Qap Gen 21.6-7)? 3. Buying-Selling Buying and selling comes at the end of our discussion simply be- cause there is a paucity of direct evidence for its expanded meaning, in comparison with the previous two. Nevertheless, because its formal characteristics are identical to the others in the list, there is every reason to expect it to behave in the same manner. Therefore, here, buying and selling probably involves more than just trade—examples of which are provided in the related eschatological parable (Luke 14,18-19), again with marriage (14,20)—but absorbs the full gamut of commercial activities, including lending and borrowing, labor and compensation, and slavery (Gen 47,18- 25). (Commerce would include the transactions between the 32 Cf. R. Bach, “Bauen und Pflanzen”, in R. Rendtorff - K. Koch (eds.), Studien zur Theologie der alttestestamentlichen Überlieferungen (Berlin 1961) 19; Berlin, “Jeremiah 29:5- 7”, 3, 5.