JEREMIAH – CHAPTER 19

A LESSON FROM AN EARTHEN BOTTLE

As the sign of the potter’s house was for the benefit of JEREMIAH , himself, this one is intended for the kings, priests, prophets and people of Judah.

Vs. 1-2: AN EARTHENWARE VISUAL AID

1. Once again Jeremiah is to go to the pottery – this time to PURCHASE an earthenware bottle.

a. He does not demand to know what God can possibly want with a bottle.

b. He knows that God has a purpose for all that He commands; thus, acts on God’s command, knowing that, in His own time, God will tell him what he is to do with it.

2. Having secured the bottle, Jeremiah is to take with him, to “the valley of the Son of Hinnom” (which is outside the East gate of Jerusalem), some of the elders of the people, and of the priests.

3. There he is to proclaim whatever the Lord commands – which means that Jeremiah cannot be concerned about semantic, effect, tact or diplomacy; he is to proclaim the WORD OF THE LORD faithfully!

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

We see that the Prophet was sent by God to shew the people that there was no firmness in that state of which hypocrites boasted; for God, who had favored the people of Israel with singular benefits, did no less retain them in his own possession than the potter. The Prophet had before shewn to the Jews that the potter formed his vessels as he pleased, and also, that when he had taken the clay and the vessel did not please him, he formed another. This prophecy has a similar import, yet it is different, as we shall presently see. The Prophet is here bidden to buy an earthen vessel of the potter, and at the meeting of the people to break it, that all might understand that they were like earthen vessels, and that being thus admonished of their fragility, they might no longer be proud, as though they possessed a firm and perpetual state of happiness.

The main object of the two visions is, however, the same: for the Jews thought that they were not subject to the common lot of men, because they had been chosen as a peculiar people; nor would they have gloried in vain with regard to that inestimable privilege, had there been a mutual agreement between God and them; but as they were covenant-breakers, their glorying was vain and foolish, in thinking that God was bound to them. For what right had they to claim this privilege? God indeed had adopted the whole race of Abraham, but there was a condition introduced,

“

Walk before me and be perfect.” (Gen 17:2)

When they all had become apostates, the covenant, as to them, was abolished. Then God could not have been called, as it were, to an account, as though he had violated his covenant with them, for he owed them nothing. They had become aliens; for through their wickedness and perfidy they had departed from him. God then designed to show how vain and how false was their confidence, when they said, “We are a holy race, we are God’s heritage;” because they had wholly departed from the covenant which God had made with their fathers.

But in the form adopted, as I have said, there is some difference. The Prophet had before introduced the potter to shew that there was no less power in God than in a mortal man, because we are before him as the clay, so that he can form and destroy his vessels as he pleases: but here the Prophet shews, that though the Jews had been formed for a time, and so formed as to have been like an excellent and a beautiful vessel, yet it was not a perpetual condition. And it is probable that when they had heard that God could, like the potter, form and re-form them, they had devised an evasion, according to what men usually do who deal sophistically with God, — “O, be it so, the potter can from the same clay form both a precious and a worthless vessel; but we are the precious vessel, and God has given us that form; for when he made a covenant with Abraham, he adorned him with this singular distinction: he afterwards brought our fathers out of Egypt, and then there was a better form added; and since at length he raised a kingdom among us with this promise, that the throne of David would be perpetual, it cannot possibly be otherwise than that we are to continue in our state.” Hence the Prophet expresses here more than in the former prophecy, that not only God had the power of a potter in forming his vessels, but that when the vessel is already formed and possesses great splendor, it can again be broken: he stated this lest the Jews should object by saying, that the state in which they were under David and his posterity would be perpetual. He says, “This is nothing: for the earthen vessel, though splendid and elegant in its form, can yet be broken in the third or fourth year no less than at the time when it is formed, and can be broken for ever,” according to what is afterwards implied by the similitude.

We shall proceed now to the words: he says, Go and get for thee an earthen vessel. The Rabbins think the name given to the vessel to be factitious, as the grammarians say, that is, made from its sound; for it appears to have been a flagon or a bottle; and as the bottle has a narrow mouth, it makes this sound, בקבק bakbuk, when we drink from it; and hence they think the name is derived. There is, however, no ambiguity as to the thing itself, that the word means a bottle, not only made of earth, but also either of glass or of wood. By adding the word חרש cheresh, he specifies what but בקבק, bekbek, is a general word. He then adds what is literally, From the elders, and interpreters think that the words “bring with thee” are to be understood; and as to the sense I agree with them, for we shall hereafter see, that in the presence of those who went with him he broke the vessel: it then follows that the elders here spoken of were taken by Jeremiah as his companions; but as מ mem, sometimes means “with,” as in the fifty-seventh chapter of Isaiah, (Isa 57:8)

“

and made thee a covenant with them, מהם ”

I take it to be of the same meaning here; and this is doubtless suitable here, for he was to go with the elders of the people and with the elders of the priests (211)

(211) The literal rendering of this verse I conceive to be the following, —

“

Thus saith Jehovah, go and get; bottle from the maker of earthenware, and some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests.”

The מ, of, or from, before elders, implies a part; and it is the idiom of the language not to put in “some,” — “get (or take) from the elders,” etc. He was first to get the bottle, and then some of the elders. The Vulgate very strangely represents the Prophet as taking the bottle from the elders, omitting the ו, and as taking it from both elders! — Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE PARABLE FROM THE POTTERS HOUSE

Jer 18:1 to Jer 19:15.

IN continuing our studies from Jeremiah we come now to the parable from the potters house. One of the incidental proofs of Christs Deity is discoverable in Jeremiah. He, who is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever did not change His custom of teaching by parables. The Old Testament had its parables, for it was the same Spirit that moved the mind of its writer, that later voiced Himself at the lips of Jesus of Nazareth; and with that Holy One the parable, as a means of teaching, was often employed.

So we read,

The Word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

Arise, and go down to the potters house, and there I will cause thee to hear My Words.

Then I went down to the potters house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it

Then the Word of the Lord came to me, saying,

O House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potters hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O House of Israel.

At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

If it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord, etc.

If at a single sitting one reads through these two chapters he will be impressed with The Prophets Commission, The Prophets Crime, and The Prophets Course.

THE PROPHETS COMMISSION

This is clearly declared: The Word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying (Jer 18:1); Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying (Jer 18:11).

How repeatedly the inspired penmen remind us of the fact that they are not personally philosophizing, that they are not delivering personal convictions, they are not indulging themselves in a course of human reasoning. Quite the contrary, they are delivering a Divinely given message, and before attempting to instruct others they have themselves been instructed, and that instruction came to them, as Christ came to us, from above.

Note three facts in the first seventeen verses, namely, The Prophet is Divinely taught: The lesson is Divinely interpreted: Gods truth does not always prevail.

The Prophet is Divinely taught.

The Word of the Lord came to me, saying (Jer 18:5).

The whole material world is little other than an unlimited reservoir of spiritual truths. A man may go through the world as a bull passing through a China store, indifferent to the beauty and utility all about him; unconsciously trampling and breaking both, while learning nothing from what he sees or feels; and then he may go through the world, indulging in a limited measure what Jesus of Nazareth enjoyed to the full, namely, that vision or understanding of the true meaning of everything that He sees or touches. Of all the wonderful sayings and the wonderful workings of Christ, none are more astonishing than His spiritual interpretations of natural forces and features.

In the sower of the wheat field He saw and illustrated the truth spreading, and the application was so apparent that men, having once read the parable, never forgot its interpretation. A kindred remark could be made concerning the parable of the tares, a Divinely used illustration, with its exact opposite intentthe scattering of falsehood in the field of truth and its evil effects for men.

When He went to the home of Lazarus and watched Martha make bread with leaven that she used, effecting an immediate chemical change which resulted in disintegrating and destructive forces, it reminded Him of the leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees, the evil-working of false teaching.

How meaningful also were His parables of the laborers in the vineyard, the marriage of the kings son, the ten virgins, the talents, the rich but foolish farmer, the lost sheep, the prodigal son, the Pharisee and publican, and so on!

But this New Testament custom had also its Old Testament type. Jeremiah was both taught by the parable of the Potters House and in turn sought to show Israel its great truths, and so warn them against such behavior, as would defeat the Potters purpose and compel Him to form far less attractive, far more ignoble forms than He had planned, purposed and desired.

In fact, it may be accepted as fairly clear that there are few lives that ever take the shape God meant to give them; there are few righteous men that ever attain the degree of success that would be His delight; and there are few governments or nations that ever reach the Divine ideal.

This is not because of the Potters fault; but rather of the material with which He works; it is faulty, and at the very moment that He, the Lord, is seeking to put it into the most beautiful and blessed shape, it reveals an inability to take the same, and to His grief, becomes marred, not through lack of deftness in the Divine fingers, but of purity and adequacy in the human material.

Has it ever occurred to us that clay seldom reveals its true character while in its most plastic state? It is as it approaches the final form intended by the potter, and the hardening process effected by time, that its deficiencies become increasingly apparent.

Here also is a parable true to life, the child is amenable to every teacher, and youth can be easily shaped in this direction or that; but maturity is another matter; then the hardening process has had its effect, the winds of time have taken away the moisture of youth; the wet clay is no more, and the mar now is noticeable in its features and may compel the potter, whether he wish it or not, to cast away the deficient, cracked, or broken product.

That is why they are wise men who seek to win youth to Christ; that is why those are wise churches that major in work with the young.

The downtown mission, filled with the flotsam of society, may prove a clinic where expert workers will behold an occasional proof of the Great Physicians miracle working power, but if all the mighty products of mission work were brought together and solidified into one body of believers, they would never make a model church, nor even compare favorably with one of those great successful institutions that brought children to God and let Him form life from youth, handle the human material while yet it was in plastic state, and create for Himself vessels of honor indeed.

So it seems to me this lesson of the potters house was Divinely interpreted:

Then the Word of the Lord came to me, saying, O House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potters hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O House of Israel.

At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

If it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

The teacher must himself first be taught. When Christ was alive, and yet with His people, He made them an inspiring promise. Anticipating the time when He should no longer be with them, He said, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you (Joh 14:26).

When, therefore, the day of Pentecost was fully come and those men who had been for ten days in the prayer-meeting of the upper room, were suddenly called upon to testify they were not unprepared; having been in the school of the Spirit, and having been instructed by Him, they were able to teach. Therein is a uniformly recognized principle of teacher training.

One writes: Of all the people in the world who should be learning teachers should head the list. The fact is you cannot be a teacher until you have been taught. When a teacher ceases to be a learner he should also end his attempt at instruction. No reserve from former learning will remain fresh and dependable unless it is constantly being replenished. The teacher who has a closed mind will never succeed in opening the minds of those who sit at his feet. The Pentecostal principle will never pass from the experience of the Church.

Those who would teach in the streets must first have taken time with Him who is the Teacher of teachers. The upper room, therefore, must precede the Gospel deliverance whether it be made in the sanctuary or from the dry goods box on the street corner. Jeremiah must learn what he shall say and what he shall speak. The counsel of nations, or their denunciation, is equally futile except the preacher has brought his information from the higher source of Infinite knowledge and eternal truth.

He who would be obedient to the great commission itself to go and teach must first have responded to the Divine invitations Come and Learn.

Why does Jeremiah live? Why is he yet regarded as among the major Prophets? Twenty-five hundred to three thousand years have swept by since he uttered the words that we now study. Why have they survived the centuries and still command the attention of men?

Only one answer; he who was taught of God uttered truths of eternal value; and though Heaven and earth pass not one jot or tittle which the inspired man has spoken, fails. Teaching may be a great office indeed, but only on condition that he who attempts it is himself correctly instructed Divinely taught.

Gods truth does not always prevail. Mark the answer that comes up from the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They said:

There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart (Jer 15:12).

There are people who hold the opinion that failure to secure response to the Divine revelation is a reflection upon the preacher, an evidence that the Prophet is not Divinely sent. Not so! There were spots, visited by Jesus Christ, who was none other than God manifest in the flesh, that rejected the word at His lips. Even in His own country He could do no mighty works because of their unbelief. You recall what He said of Chorazin and Bethsaida,

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to Heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell (Luk 10:13-13).

Why? Because they were treating His words as the word of Jeremiah was treated. They said: There is no hope: we will walk after our own devices, end we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.

There has been enough truth preached to save the last man in the world; but preached truth, instead of redeeming men, may even become their condemnation, for the Gospel is a saver of life unto life to them that receive it, but of death unto death to them that reject it. While there is no promise that the heathen, in ignorance of God, will be saved through his ignorance, there is a clear statement to the effect that a man who knows the truth and rejects it will receive the greater condemnation.

How strange the speech, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. It sounds like a contradiction of terms. In the first instance they say, Salvation cannot be; and in the second, they say, Salvation shall not be. In fact, there is a perfect consonance therein. The only man for whom salvation is impossible is the man who opposes the same. The only man for whom there is no hope is the man who prefers sin to holiness, and hell to Heaven.

The virgin who says, There is no hope, has decided upon a horrible thing; the man who says, There is no spring at which to refresh ones soul, is the man who has quit the snows of Lebanon and passed by the clear waters that gushed from the mountain side. The man who has no memory of God is the man who burns incense to vanity; and the man who stumbles in his walk is the one who deliberately quits the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up; and the people who are scattered as an east wind and to whom God shows His back and not His face in the day of calamity are those whose conduct made the land desolate and the wagging of whose heads indicated their utter infidelity.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful Word of the Lord,True wisdom its pages unfold.

THE PROPHETS CRIME

The next sentence is true to all human observation, the latest relation of the true Prophets experience;

Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the Law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the Prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

How often the prophets speech is an insult to the sinner! No matter how deep-dyed his sins he does not propose to have them spoken against. Woe to the young man who dares, in his pulpit utterances touch upon the pet social vices of prominent members. Woe to the preacher, whose word is heard by a city, if he dare to uncover its moral sinks. Woe to that exponent of truth, who like the late William Jennings Bryan, has the ear of the nation, if he dare to call attention to either its false teachings or its false practices.

The most profound impression that is made upon my mind, as I move about among the churches of America, is at this point. There are comparatively few free men in the modern pulpit. In thousands of instances young pastors are ruthlessly slain in their pastorates by those whose sins they have condemned, even though unconsciously, and whose opponents in secret conclave said identically what was said in Jeremiahs day, Come, let us devise devices against him, let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words. Even among the more mature ministers of the land there are comparatively few, in fact, a very, very few, who dare to confront the laymen-leaders of influence on matters where there may be an inconsistency in their individual lives; a moral menace in their money making methods or political trickery in their ecclesiastical manipulations. More than once have I seen big men, eloquent men, brainy men retreat before this concentrated fire of devices, or else settle down to a silence on all questionable subjects to escape being smitten with the tongue of those to whom God had sent them.

Herein is the reason for the average short pastorate; herein is the explanation of the apostate condition of the Church in both its message and its morals; herein is the answer to the question, Why all the slowing of the ecclesiastical wheels and the annual depreciation of spiritual power?

The counsel of the Prophet is not only rejected, his tongue is to be forever silenced.

Some years ago, and before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect, the Indiana Legislature was in session. The Chaplain of the Senate was at prayer, and in his petition he prayed for the time to come when Indiana should refuse to sell to men the right to sell to other men that which makes them drunkards and murderers, and to fill prisons and asylums. Lieutenant Governor ONeal was presiding and in the midst of the petition he shouted out, STOP THAT! At that particular time the Republican party, which he represented, was back of the license system and it did seem inconsistent for a member of the same to plead with God to defeat the partys program. But the Lieutenant-Governor had at least this in his favor, beyond the conduct of the average opponent of the true prophet, viz., he spoke out loud; he even yelled at the Chaplain. Those who would silence the preachers tongue are still behaving much as they did in Jeremiahs day; now as twenty-five hundred years ago; they are sitting in secret session and devising devices; whispering, Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

This opposition to Jeremiah was scarcely justified. They were opposing the wrong person. They were planning to sacrifice the ambassador, for communicating to them the decision of his state or nation. They were making ready to mob the messenger boy for delivering what the Western Union had sent by his hand; they were making ready to kill the Clerk of the Court for recording the decision of the Judge.

The office of the Prophet is not a sine-cure; he is compelled to proclaim the words that have first been delivered to him; the message of the Book that he did not originate. The opposition, therefore, should have been against God and not His messenger. Jeremiah was not uttering an individual opinion nor pronouncing an individual sentence. He only consented to be the medium of the Divine mind, the delivery boy for the Divine message.

The French War Office once issued an order, specific in its wording, to the troops involved. The commanding officer communicated that order in his own words. The Minister of War punished the act, and on being criticised, as severe, said, He paraphrased an order which it was his duty only to read. Sir Robert Anderson, reciting the incident, said, What a lesson for the preacher of the Gospel! When he has to do with truths of transcendent importance, it behooves him to keep to the very words in which they are revealed.

Yet you will find if you turn but another page that when you read the twentieth chapter, Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the House of the Lord, when he heard what Jeremiah had prophesied concerning his nation, smote Jeremiah the Prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the House of the Lord.

True preaching has never been popular business; and the only reason, under Heaven, why so many of us get by as smoothly as we do, is our unfaithfulness to the Divine message. I have lived long enough to get to the point where when the public is rising up by the thousands against preachers, as they have risen against Bob Shuler in Los Angeles, and as they have, for years, raged against Frank Norris in Fort Worth, and as they used to fight Parkhurst in New York, to see in it the finest possible evidence that God has found some true prophets among the preacher-softies of the twentieth century.

Of one thing I feel more certain this morning than ever since I began this fifty year ministry, and that is the days of my greatest opposition have been the days when my delivery of the truth was most positive and uncompromising.

I am ashamed, now, that I have left the study of Jeremiah alone for so long a period; he is a tonic to my soul and I bring his deliverances to you, my people, not as the vain rationalizing of some so-called modernist minister, but as the very words of Almighty God, to attend upon whose statements is salvation, and to oppose whose deliverances is condemnation. Let us hear what God said at the lips of the Prophet. Instead of rejecting all, let us receive all, and where sin exists let repentance come; where unrighteousness reigns, let reformation arise, and where spiritual deadness holds in its embrace, let regeneration clothe the dry bones of folly with flesh and breathe into them the Divine life.

THE PROPHETS COURSE

This chapter not only reveals to us the Prophets criticism with its poor occasion, but it also records for us the Prophets course under criticism.

That is indeed a needful study, particularly for preachers. Let me call attention to the high points in Jeremiahs behavior.

First of all he confided in God. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. In other words, Hear me and at the same time listen to them that You may know what my situation is.

Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before Thee to speak good for them, and to turn away Thy wrath from them.

One is here strikingly reminded of the experience of Moses in dealing with this same folk. Again and again he, who was their best friend, the man who so loved them that he preferred personal death for himself to their just judgment, was yet the subject of their criticism and hatred, and at times, even of their attempted murder. It was Moses who had finally secured Pharaohs consent to release them from his land; it was Moses before whose feet God had parted the seas that they might pass over, and yet how speedily they forgot the affection that prompted him, the wisdom that guided him, and the Divine favor that rested upon him.

When they were in the wilderness without water they murmured against him; when they lacked for bread, they increased their complaint; when he ascended into the mount to receive the Law and his return was delayed, The people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

They turned their disappointment into a heathen dance and voiced their contempt in an orgy of idolatry and lechery.

The Book of Exodus is as perfect a revelation of mans inconstancy and iniquity as it is of the Divine will; and it is filled with repeated illustrations of Israels disloyalty to their great leader; and yet, it is also a marvel of suggestion for every minister of the Most High, since Moses did under every provocation, exactly what Jeremiah here does when he finds the Divine message opposed and the person of the Prophet despised.

HE PRAYED! In other words, he talked it over with God, confiding all in Him, and looking for relief from Him. Daniel discovered himself to be the object of envy on the part of a hundred and nineteen vice-presidents. His office of Gods Prophet was despised by them; and his deliverances, by inspiration, were rejected; and like the brothers of Joseph, they determined to silence him.

The answer of Daniel was not an opposition meeting, not a political maneuver that would outwit the presidents, not an enemy camp, set up by kindred devices; it was, instead, prayer. For when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.

Someone says, Is that all? Yes; and that was enough. If God be for us, who can be against us?

The Prophets re-commission is an answer to prayer. We come now to the nineteenth chapter.

Thus saith the Lord; Go. Where? GO. Do what? Rush into another field; quit the profession and sell life insurance? Hardly!

GO and get the potters earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;

And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

And say, Hear ye the Word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.

Because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into My mind:

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.

And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

And I will make this city desolate, and an kissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them (Jer 19:1-9).

That is Gods early method of answering the ministers prayer. There are a great many men that get release from difficult positions, hard pastorates, and trying circumstances. But the release is not Divine; it was not given of God; it was accomplished by human reasonings, by strategies of the intellect, by multiplied excuses, and a series of self-defenses.

If there is any one thing, with which my defenseless ears have wearied, it is preacher-explanations of why they quit the last pastorate, or why they must secure a change!

The difficulty with a great many of us is that we have not learned to endure hardness as good soldiers. Every skin-scratch, given, we reckon a vital wound, and the report of a single gun sounds, in our timid ears, like the attack of an army, and before the battle is well begun we are beating it to the tall timber; yea, looking even for a hollow tree in which to hide.

Old Joseph Parker was a prophet. He stood in the center of London and the swirl about him was a moral slush, and when the pipers of peace had fulfilled the prophecy of the day of smooth speech, he said,

What we need here is a prophet, a terrible man, a man of iron lips a man of throat of brass a man too strong for patronage, yet weak in the presence of tenderness, necessity and helplessness. Let him come, oh, living God, with his potters earthen vessel and break it before us!

And if I know my land that is the need of every city in it; yea, even of every people, of every church in the same.

To declare judgment is the Prophets hard fate.

Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potters vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods (Jer 19:10-13).

How hard for Jeremiah to have to speak these words to his own people, the people that he loved above his own life; and how difficult it is for every faithful preacher of the Gospel to proclaim the sentences of the law. How his very lips burn as such words emit from them, and his soul within him is sick because he has to say them!

And yet, before I finish let me justify God! Difficult as it is for the preacher to proclaim the words of the Lord, far more difficult for God Himself is it, to utter them, when, originally, what He desires is not judgment but mercy. It is men that necessitate the former by stubborn wills and rebellious hearts and hardened necks. At the first show of repentance how pleased is God; at the first sign of contrition how speedily His words soften! At the first cry for mercy how swiftly He comes to bestow the same. Judgment is His strange work; mercy His ever dear delight!

A few days since, in returning to my office, I sought out that excellent monthly the Christian Faith and Life to read the same. Every thirty days my faith is strengthened by the perusal of its pages; my path is illumined by its clear and spiritual interpretations of the Word. It always has in it some nuggets of gold, and often veritable mines! In the November 1931 edition I found Bishop Berrys story of Another Dying Thief. He put it in this way:

I was traveling through the southern end of New Mexico, when our train stopped at a little station below Deming. Several men came into our coach; one of them sat down beside me.

He was an athletic young fellow, rather good looking, and his dress belonged to the frontier region through which we were passing.

I greeted the young man as he sat down, and we began to talk. While we were chatting I noticed that he was looking at me closely. Presently he turned sharply upon me arid asked:

Is your name Berry?

It is, I replied.

I know you, was his hearty rejoinder, as he put out his big, brown hand. You were at our house when I was a kid, and I have never forgotten you, he went on. Dont you remember when you visited our house at Adrian?

Then I knew that the young fellow was from Michigan, and that his father was an old friend. It dawned upon me, also, that I had heard my friends laddie had become wayward and had gone west.

Then, sitting by my side as the train rumbled along, he told me a remarkable story; told with a kind of realism that made it very vivid and clothed with dramatic power:

A little while after you were at our house, began young BickelJoe Bickel was his name father and I had a difference one day. I became angry and said some things I ought not to have said.

That night I ran away from home.

A week later I was in the Sherman House at Chicago, and met a young fellow from Northwestern Ohio, who had also had trouble at home and had left abruptly. We struck up an acquaintance which ripened into a warm friendship.

There was something in the circumstances so similar, which caused us to run away from home, that drew us together and made a common bond.

We each got a job and saved our change, and finally came to Denver.

In Denver we went bad, he confessed. We learned to drink and gamble and went into sins that should have made us shudder. After a few months we drifted into New Mexico.

One afternoon, continued Bickel, my friend Clark and myself were in the back room of a saloon playing cards with two Mexicans. A dispute arose over the game and angry words were spoken.

Without warning, one of the Mexicans pulled his gun from his belt and shot Clark through the body.

The poor fellows face turned white, and he rolled off his chair to the mud floor of the room. I was too horrified to speak or act, but I heard Clark say, I guess Im done for, Joe; but I cant die here. For my mothers sake, take me out of this place.

With the help of an attendant, I lifted my chum and carried him out of the saloon, across the narrow street, and to the shade of a tree on a little hill. Then I took off my coat, made it into a pillow, and laid the poor fellow down upon the rocky ground.

He was quiet for a few moments and seemed to be scarcely breathing, but then he opened his eyes and whispered pathetically: Joe, I cant go this way. Both of us were taught to believe in God, and that Christ is merciful. Maybe He would be merciful to me if wed ask Him. Wont you pray a little for me? Ive tried, but this pain hurts me so, I cant keep my mind on the prayer.

I wondered for just a moment whether I could venture to pray, but I had gone so far from God and had been so reckless and wicked, that I dared not try to pray; so I shook my head. Excepting for the low moaning that escaped his lips involuntarily, Clark was very still for a time.

In a few minutes, however, he looked straight at me and said: Old man, Ive been trying to remember some of the words of the Bible that tell of Gods mercy to sinners, but I cant get any of them. Wont you get some of those words for me?

I reached back through the years and tried to compel my memory to reproduce some of the promises I had learned when a boy. Soon I got hold of one word that suggested another.

Then a verse came to me, and another and another.

He asked to be lifted to a sitting posture. Then after steadying himself, he said slowly: You will never know how much those words from the Bible mean to me. How beautiful! I never saw them so wonderful before. They seem to be just for me! Now, my chum, do one thing more. Sing one of the songs we used to know back home, something about His mercy.

I tried to remember some Gospel song.

At first the silly ditties I learned on the frontier came to my mind. I could also recall snatches of college songs. But for anything serious my mind seemed to be a blank.

Suddenly, like a flash, there came out of the rubbish of memory a line of an old hymn. That line suggested the stanza and other stanzas. With my arm around my dying chum I began to sing in a low voice:

Rock of ages, cleft for me Let me hide myself in Thee.

The eyes of my friend were fixed upon me as I sang the first stanza. Then I began the second:

Could my zeal no respite know,Could my tears forever flow,All for sin could not atone;Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Before the next line was reached I saw that Clark was trying to lift his right hand. He got it partly up and it fell by his side. Then he tried again. He seemed to be reaching for something he clearly saw.

Just as I was singing,

Nothing in my hand I bring;Simply to Thy Cross I cling,

he pushed his hand a little higher, clutching at something above him. He seemed to grasp it.

Then, turning a radiant face to me, he said: Its all right, Joe; its the Cross. Ive got hold of it, and Ill never let go.

In a moment his hand dropped, and he leaned heavily upon me. I was startled, and looked down into his face. Clark was goneto be with his Saviour.

When we listen to the thunderings of Divine wrath we are tempted to forget the infinity of Divine mercy; but no man truly knows God who does not understand that great as is His wrath against sin, greater yet is His compassion toward the sinner and His desire to save.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.See notes to preceding chapter for Chronology, &c. Vide also Introductory Notes to chap. 20.

Geographical References.Jer. 19:2. Valley of the Son of Hinnom, cf. note on chap. Jer. 2:31. The East gate, margin the Sun gate. But the word is not definite; . Jerome, Keil, and Henderson suggest the Pottery gate as the true rendering from . The word Harsuth occurs nowhere else, and probably is derived from the fact that the refuse from neighbouring pottery works lay about there. The Targum and Kimchi render it dung gate. But the word Harsith occurs in the Talmud for potters clay. The situation of the Pottery gate cannot be determined, but plainly it opened into the Valley of Hinnom (Jos. 15:8). The potters there formed vessels for the use of the Temple, which was close by (cf. Jer. 19:10-14; chap. Jer. 18:2; Zec. 11:13).Jamieson. Jer. 19:5. High places of Baal: cf. chap. Jer. 7:31. Jer. 19:11. Bury them in Tophet: cf. Notes, Geographical and Personal, on chap. Jer. 7:31.

Personal Allusions.Jer. 19:1. Ancients of the people and ancients of the priests. The Sanhedrim was composed of seventy-two elders, taken partly from the priests (2Ki. 19:2) and partly from the other tribes (Num. 11:16; Jos. 7:6; 1Ki. 8:1), and thus represented the nation. This great council presided over the ecclesiastical and civic affairs of the whole people.

Manners and Customs.Jer. 19:5. Burn their sons with fire: cf. chap. Jer. 7:31. Jer. 19:13. Houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense. On the flat roofs of Oriental houses festivals were held (Jdg. 16:27), booths were erected at feasts (Neh. 8:16), sacrifices were offered to the sun and planets (2Ki. 23:11-12; Jer. 32:29; Zep. 1:5).

Literary Criticisms.Jer. 19:1. A potters earthen bottle. The bottle was a flask with a long narrow neck, and called from the gurgling sound made when being emptied. Jer. 19:7. I will make void. The word , is used playing upon the symbol-word ; the root of both words being , to pour out. Jer. 19:8.Desolatean astonishment. Plagues thereof: lit. blows: plague being here used because regarded as a blow direct from Gods hand. Jer. 19:11. And they shall bury them in Tophet, &c.these words, and to the end of verse, are omitted in the Septuagint and by Hitzig, as interpolated from Jer. 7:32. Jer. 19:13. Defiled as the place, of Tophet: lit. shall be the defiled. The better rendering is (as Targum and Speakers Com.) shall be as the defiled Tophet: or lit., shall be as the place Tophet, the defiled.

HOMILETIC OUTLINE ON THE ENTIRE CHAPTER 19

Jer. 19:1-15.A SYMBOLIC PROPHECY OF DOOM

God bids His prophet attempt to impress this obdurate and heedless people with another enacted symbol, which was derived again from the potters craft. This time the symbol assumes a more alarming form.

1. The potters work is here completed; the vessel is in this instance formed; in chap. 18 it was a vessel in the process of being moulded.

2. The destructive work is here irremediable. In the former symbol the clay was worked again and again till perfected; here the vessel, being completed and baked, is incapable of being reshaped, and is hopelessly shattered, destroyed, and abandoned.

What are the different meanings of these two pottery symbols?
1. The patient working upon the clay, crushing the ill-formed vessel, and skilfully remoulding it till a perfect vessel was obtained, symbolised the Divine process of formation by which God was moulding a people whom He would not abandon till His design in them was realised.

2. The absolute shattering of the potters bottle now symbolises the complete destruction of that generation of the Jewish people, as useless for Gods purposes and contrary to His mind. This vessel, having been baked, could not be formed anew, was beyond reformation, and so must be destroyed.

This prophetic enactment arranges itself into three stages

I. The solemn exhibition of the doomed vessel.

1. The appropriate spectators. Ancients of the people and ancients of the priests. They represented the entire tribes, and so did the potters bottle: it was a symbol of that existing generation. The vessel which was typically used was not an unfinished piece of clay, but a bottle completed and duly hardened; and these ancients represented a nation whose usages and temperament were fixed and determined.

2. The scene of its exhibition. The pottery gate (see Geog. References, supra). The place where refuse was cast. That gate, opening into the valley of Ben-Hinnom, looked out upon the scene where this people had broken every law of God. Loathsome memorials of the nations vile criminality lay before these ancients. It thus justified the doom about to be pronounced, God would break them in pieces. Around their feet, moreover, as they stood at the entry of the gate, lay shattered fragments of pottery; suggestive of the evil (Jer. 19:3) God would bring upon this place and people; and the degradation also which impended.

3. The explanatory message of woe. (a) All classes were included in the coming woe (Jer. 19:3); (b) the doom would excite general amazementEars tingle, (Jer. 19:3; Jer. 19:8); (c) yet the justice thereof was manifest (Jer. 19:4-5); (d) and the ruin would be absolutely desolating and complete (Jer. 19:6-10).

II. The irremediable shattering of the vessel.

1. The violent method of its destruction. (a.) Not by accident but by design it was broken. God intended it; man performed it; and it was accomplished with violence. (b.) It was completely shattered. So shall Jerusalempeople and city, the entire generationbe broken to pieces; none, nothing spared. (c.) The destruction was easily and irresistibly effected. They would be powerless to avert the ruin. All the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem (Jer. 19:7) would have no utility in striving to thwart Gods purpose on this vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. (d.) No ingenuity could repair the ruin: cannot be made whole again. How dreadful is Gods work when He destroys! None can stay His hand, nor say unto Him, What doest Thou?

2. The suggestive scene of its destruction. Josiah had swept all the impurities of the nation into the valley of Ben-Hinnom. It was a scene of desecration and doom. The two things were connecteddesecration and doom. And this people had become a desecrated people; therefore should they fall in execrable scenes. Loathsome as Tophet was, it would become more horrible still as the valley of slaughter (Jer. 19:6). The bearing of the case is this, sin explains mans destruction: Tophet testified against the nations violation of Gods claims: Tophet would witness violence upon the offenders: they shall bury them in Tophet till there be no place to bury them (Jer. 19:11).

III. The reiteration of doom in the temple court.

1. Proclaim to a larger audience. All the people (Jer. 19:14). In this assembled the greatest crowd (2Ch. 20:5). Thus would the solemn predictions, founded upon the symbolic action in Tophet, gain currency over the entire country. None could therefore plead ignorance as an excuse. Nor can we. The doom of iniquity is knownthere is no speech nor language where the voice is not heard.

2. Uttered within the very house of God. Where messages of grace had often been delivered. But judgment must begin at the house of God. Men must not think to escape the denunciation of sin in Gods house.

3. Pronounced upon all transgressors. It was not Jerusalem, this city, which alone had sinned, but all her towns. Sinners would gladly pass over on to others the crimes God denounces: but here all are included. For in every instance there had been wilful rejection of Gods Word: they have hardened their necks that they might not hear My words. What need have we to pray to be kept from like hardness of heart and contempt for Gods Word and commandments!

HOMILIES AND COMMENTS ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 19

Jer. 19:1. The earthen bottle was a humiliating symbol of

i. Their mean origin (Gen. 3:19; Isa. 51:1).

ii. Their frail existence (Deu. 26:5; see Homilies on chap. Jer. 18:4, &c.).

Comments

Jer. 19:3. O kings of Judah. Spoken in the plural, because the message (Jer. 19:3-9) related not specially to the reigning king, but to the whole royal house. No king of Davids line was henceforth to sit upon the throne till He came whose is the true kingdom (Joh. 18:37).Speakers Com.

Jer. 19:4. See Homily on chap. Jer. 18:15.

Jer. 19:6; Jer. 19:6. These verses repeat chap. Jer. 7:31-32. Vide Notes and Homilies.

Jer. 19:7. I will make void, i.e., I will pour out (see Lit. Crit. on verse). Neumann suggests that Jeremiah carried to Tophet the bottle full of water, the Oriental symbol of life (Isa. 35:6; Isa. 41:18), and at these words emptied it in the presence of the ancients.

Jer. 19:8. See chap. Jer. 18:16.

Jer. 19:9. A description of the siege, (comp. Jer. 18:21). For the fulfilment see Lam. 2:20; Lam. 4:10.

Jer. 19:10-14. Theme: THE POTTERS VESSEL BROKEN IN TOPHET.

The scene of the peoples sin will also be the scene of their punishment. In the time of the good king Hezekiah, Tophet was the place in which the army of Sennacherib perished, when Jerusalem was delivered in consequence of the prayers and the faith of the king. (See Isa. 30:33; Isa. 33:4; Isa. 37:36).

This place, signalised by the merciful intervention of God in favour of Jerusalem, was afterwards polluted by idolatry. (See chap, Jer. 7:31-32; 2Ki. 23:10.)

I. The earthen vessel broken in Tophet. That vessel was typical of Jerusalem, which should thus be destroyed.

Its destruction in Tophet was accompanied by the declaration that the place of their idolatry should be the scene of their slaughter. The inhabitants of Jerusalem would be slain by the Chaldeans, and the scene of their idolatrous worship be defiled by their carcases, for there would be no sufficient place to bury them. Comp. Jer. 7:32.

II. Judas Iscariot perished in the potters field That traitor was typical of the Jewish nation; symbolising its rejection of Christ; and the Psalmist in his prophecies concerning Judas extends them to the Jewish nation, typified by him. (See Psa. 55:7-22; Psa. 109:8-31.)

The analogy between Judas and the Jews was made more awful by the very place in which he came to his miserable endthe potters field! (Comp. Act. 1:18-19 with Mat. 27:7 and Zec. 11:12.) There is reason for thinking that it was near Tophet, or the Valley of Hinnom, which the prophet connects with the potters house and the potters gate (Jer. 19:2). Both Judas and the potters earthen vessel, equally types of the Jews, were dashed to pieces [the vessel by Gods command] in that place.

Here is subject for devout reflection and solemn meditation.Wordsworth.

Jer. 19:14-15. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, &c.

Here commences the record of an incident which runs on connectedly with chap. 21, and should have formed part of the chapter. For general explanations of the facts see Introductory Notes to chap. 21.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

III. THE BROKEN VESSEL Jer. 19:1 to Jer. 20:6

In the parable of the potter and his clay the point was the possibility of remaking a vessel which has not met with approval; in chapter 19 the emphasis is on the destruction of a vessel which proves useless. Jeremiah first gathers the elders of the people and takes them to the edge of the valley of Hinnom and preaches to them (Jer. 19:1-9). He dramatically illustrated his message by smashing a clay vessel before them (Jer. 19:10-13). Returning to the Temple Jeremiah attempted to deliver the same message but was arrested (Jer. 19:14 to Jer. 20:6).

A. The Message to the Elders Jer. 19:1-9

TRANSLATION

(1) Thus said the LORD: Go and acquire the clay vessel of a potter and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests (2) and go out unto the valley of the son Hinnom which is in front of the gate Harsith and proclaim there the words which I will speak unto you. (3) And you shall say, Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I am about to bring calamity upon this place so that the ears of everyone who hears of it shall tingle. (4) Because they have forsaken Me and made this a foreign place by making offerings in it to other gods which they do not know, neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah; and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents. (5) And they have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as a burnt offering to Baal which I did not command nor did I speak of it nor did it enter My mind. (6) Therefore behold, days are coming (oracle of the LORD) when this place will no longer be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. (7) And I will empty out the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their lives; and I will make their corpses food for the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the land. (8) And I will make this city a desolation and a hissing. Everyone who passes by shall be astonished and shall hiss over all the smiting she has suffered. (9) And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters and each man shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall administer to them.

COMMENTS

Jeremiah needed to make certain preparations before he preached his next message. First, he is told to purchase the clay vessel of a potter i.e., a vessel fashioned by a potter. Then he is told to gather the elders of the people and the elders of the priests to hear his message (Jer. 19:1). Just how Jeremiah secured the cooperation of these leaders is not indicated in the text. The exact location of this message is specified by the Lord. Jeremiah is to take his audience to the edge of the valley of Hinnom in front of the gate Harsith or gate of the potter (Jer. 19:2). The valley of Hinnom where human sacrifice had been practiced must surely have been a source of embarrassment to these leaders of the people. The gate at which the sermon was delivered got its name no doubt from the scraps of pottery which were thrown there. The ancient Aramaic Targum suggests that it was the dung gate through which the city rubbish was taken to be disposed of. The strange processionJeremiah and his bottle leading the ruling priests and civil authoritiesmust have attracted a curious crowd of onlookers as it made its way through the streets of Jerusalem toward the gate of the potter.

Jeremiah delivered a message of doom to that group of dignitaries. A calamity is about to fall upon the land so severe that when people hear of it their ears will tingle (Jer. 19:3). The figure of tingling ears is used in connection with threats of severe judgment (1Sa. 3:11; 2Ki. 21:12) and probably represents the emotions of astonishment and fear. The word kings here, as in Jer. 17:20, seems to be used in the nontechnical sense for all the leaders of the nation. Jeremiah accuses his audience of making the city and land a heathen place by introducing foreign cults and practices and filling the land with the blood of innocents (Jer. 19:4). The blood of innocents may refer to the murder of those who opposed the wicked idolatry or it may refer to the children who were offered as sacrifices to the pagan gods. Certainly Jer. 19:5 makes it clear that children had been offered to Baal as burnt offerings (cf. Jer. 7:31). Such sacrifices were absolutely contrary to the will and purpose of the Lord. The term Baal is used loosely here for the god Molech, the pagan god who demanded child sacrifice. High places of Baal are to be distinguished from the high places of the Lord throughout the Old Testament. The former were always illegitimate places of worship. The latter became illegitimate after the building of Solomons Temple.

Jeremiah announces the judgment which is about to fall on Judah in language which he had used on a previous occasion (cf. Jer. 7:31-32). Pointing in the direction of that abominable valley Jeremiah declares that no longer will that place be called Topheth, i.e., fireplace; nor will it be known by the name of its former owner, Valley of Hinnom. Because of the great slaughter which will fall upon the land that valley will be used as a burial place for the dead and henceforth will be designated Valley of Slaughter (Jer. 19:6). God will empty out the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem. The verb translated empty out is derived from the same Hebrew root as the word for bottle in Jer. 19:1 and may have been chosen by the prophet for this reason. Perhaps Jeremiah slowly poured out the contents of the bottle as he referred to the emptying out of the counsel of Jerusalem. The word counsel points to worldly wisdom, counsel which is grounded in political expediency rather than in commitment to God. In particular Jeremiah has in mind the tangle of political alliances by which Judah thought to avoid enslavement to the Babylonian world power. No doubt the counselors in the royal court of Judah thought there was more benefit to be derived from treaties with foreign powers than from complete reliance on the power of God. But their counsel will fail. So many will fall by the sword of the enemy that burial will be impossible. The bodies of the fallen men of Judah will lie exposed to the birds and beasts of the land (Jer. 19:7). The city of Jerusalem will become such a desolation that all who pass by its ruins will hiss or whistle in astonishment at the extent of the devastation (Jer. 19:8). In the desperate hour of siege the last vestige of parental love shall disappear. People would resort to cannibalism. God had warned His people in the Law of Moses that they might be brought into such straits if they were unfaithful to Him (Lev. 26:29; Deu. 28:53). At least one example of such cannibalism is recorded earlier during the siege of Samaria by Benhadad (2Ki. 6:28 ff.). This terrible picture of parents eating their own flesh and blood also appears in the writings of Jeremiahs great contemporary Ezekiel (Eze. 5:10). The Book of Lamentations records the horrible fulfillment (Lam. 4:10). Warned by the Law and by the prophets, yet the hardened men of Judah persisted in the apostasy which would bring upon them this terrible curse.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XIX.

(1) And get a potters earthen bottle.The word for get involves buying as the process. The similitudeone might better call it, the parable dramatisedrepresents the darker side of the imagery of Jer. 18:3-4. There the vessel was still on the potters wheel, capable of being re-shaped. Now we have the vessel which has been baked and hardened. No change is possible. If it is unfit for the uses for which it was designed, there is nothing left but to break it. As such it became now the fit symbol of the obdurate people of Israel. Their polity, their nationality, their religious system, had to be broken up. The word for vessel indicates a large earthen jar with a narrow neck, the cruse used for honey in 1Ki. 14:3. Its form, bakbuk, clearly intended to represent the gurgling sound of the water as it was poured out, is interesting as an example of onomatopia in the history of language.

Take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests.The elders. and therefore the representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical rulers, were to be the witnesses of this acted prophecy of the destruction of all that they held most precious. The word take is not in the Hebrew, but either some such verb has to be supplied. or the verb go has to be carried on, Let the ancients . . . go with thee.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

THE BROKEN PITCHER AND ITS LESSON, Jer 19:1-13.

1. Potter Literally, shaper of earthenware.

Bottle A jar with a narrow neck, whose Hebrew name bakkuk comes from the noise made by liquids in flowing out.

Get Literally, buy. By a bold construction, not unusual in Hebrew, the word is carried over upon the incongruous nouns people and priests. The Septuagint and Syriac versions, as well as our own, insert the verb take.

Ancients Rather, elders, representing the commonwealth in both its civil and ecclesiastical aspects, and, as it would seem, those most ready to hear the word of God.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lesson Of The Potter’s Vessel ( Jer 19:1-15 ).

Jeremiah was now called on to perform a prophetic ritual through which he would vividly depict what was to happen to Judah and Jerusalem. This too was in terms of a potter. He was to buy a potter’s earthenware vessel (the word baqbuq indicates a jar with a long narrow neck and the Hebrew word is intended to sound like the gurgling of liquid as it leaves such a jar. In order to bring this out we could translate a ‘gurgle jar’) and in the presence of the elders of Judah, both priestly and lay, he was then to hurl it into the Valley of Hinnom where it would smash to pieces. The vessel represented Israel/Judah, bought by YHWH for a price when He redeemed them from Egypt, and the smashing indicated what YHWH was about to do to them, partly because of their antics in the Valley of Hinnom. He was about to hurl them away from Him and smash them in pieces. 

Jer 19:1-2

‘Thus said YHWH, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests, and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you.”

We have already seen in Jer 18:1-4 that the potter’s workmanship represented ‘the house of Israel’, and so the purchase of the long necked, earthen ‘gurgle-jar’ (baqbuq) represented YHWH’s ‘purchase’ of Israel/Judah out of the land of Egypt (Exo 20:2). But unlike the other, this jar was hardened in its shape and could no longer be ‘made again’. It was what it was. Thus if judged as unsatisfactory all that remained was to smash it. It was beyond reforming. The particular reason for it being termed a ‘gurgle-jar’ is brought out in Jer 19:7 where YHWH was to ‘gurgle out’ (baqaq) the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem into the Valley of Hinnom.

Jeremiah was then to call on the elders of the people (their authoritative tribal leaders) and the elders of the priests (elsewhere called ‘the chiefs of the priests’ (2Ch 36:14) or the ‘heads of the priests’ (Neh 12:7)) and take them with him to the gate that led out of the city into the Valley of Hinnom. The fact that they were willing to go with him, even though they despised him, was an indication of the awe in which he was held, and the effectiveness of his presence. They were presumably aware of his previous enactments (e.g. Jer 13:1-7) and no doubt wanted to know what he intended to do next, especially if it related to the Valley of Hinnom which had a certain reputation. The verb ‘take’ is not in the Hebrew and we are probably intended to carry forward the ‘go’ so as to embrace these elders (i.e. ‘go with –’). But the idea is right.

The Valley of the sons of Hinnom was well known both as a rubbish dump and as a centre of Molech worship in which human sacrifices were offered (Jer 7:31). The Gate Harsith may well mean ‘the Sherd Gate’ This may have been either the Fountain Gate or the Dung Gate (see Neh 3:13-15), or it may have been a small postern gate through which broken pottery (sherds) was cast into the Valley. And once Jeremiah had gathered the elders at the Sherd Gate he was to proclaim to them YHWH’s words prior to his visual display with the ‘gurgle-jar’.

Jer 19:3

“And say, Hear you the word of YHWH, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.”

He was to call on the elders (who were seen as representatives of the kings of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem) in YHWH’s Name as YHWH of Hosts, the God of Israel, and inform them that He was bringing on ‘this place’ such evil that it would make the ears of men ‘tingle’ just to hear of it. A similar expression was used in 1Sa 3:11 connected with a prophecy related to the destruction of the earlier Sanctuary at Shiloh, thus it contained within it a veiled warning of what was to happen to the Temple. (Compare also 2Ki 21:12 for another use of the phrase). ‘This place’ strictly means the Valley of Hinnom/Topheth (see Jer 19:6) but was intended also to include all Jerusalem (Jer 19:7; Jer 19:12-13).

Jer 19:4-5

“Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods, that they knew not, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings to Baal, which I did not command, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind,”

The reason for YHWH’s judgment is now given. It was because they had forsaken Him, and had ‘made foreign’ the place in which they were now standing, by burning incense in it to other gods, foreign gods which they had not known previously. And He adds that they had also filled the whole of Jerusalem with the blood of innocent people, and especially that they had built ‘the high places of Baal’ in order to ‘burn their sons in the fire’ for burnt offerings to Baal, something which YHWH had not only not commanded but was also something which He would not take on His lips or even think about it because it was so horrible.

Alternately the ‘estrangement’ may signify estrangement from YHWH, but the consequence is the same for to hand it over to false gods both estranged it from YHWH and treated it as foreign.

Note the threefold progression from one increasing horror to another:

1. They had burned incense to strange gods, thus multiplying their previous idolatry.

2. They had shed innocent blood. This is revealed elsewhere as referring to the shedding of innocent blood throughout Jerusalem, compare Jer 7:6; Jer 2:34; Jer 22:13; Jer 22:17; and see 2Ki 21:16. The idea was of judicial murder, wholesale violence and severe persecution of the righteous.

3) They had built high places to Baal and had sacrificed their sons to him. This was a combination of 1). and 2). taken to even further excess. Note how ‘the high places of Topheth’ (Jer 7:31) have now become ‘the high places of Baal’. Baal (which means ‘lord’) was so central in their thinking that they involved his worship with that of other gods such as Moloch, intermingling the ideas.

The last part of this verse together with Jer 19:6-7 are very similar in wording to Jer 7:31-32 a. It was clearly something at the very heart of Jeremiah’s and YHWH’s condemnation of Israel/Judah.

‘Topheth’ may mean ‘the hearth’ (tephath with the vowels altered to the vowels of bosheth = shame) indicating that it was a place of burning. The high places were erected there by the people for the purpose of offering their children as human sacrifices ‘in the fire’. This is stated to be against all that YHWH had taught. It was ‘beyond His imagination’. He had of course once called Abraham to sacrifice his son, but only so that He could teach the lesson that such sacrifice was not required (Genesis 22). Topheth was in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, an ancient valley known by that name as early as the time of Joshua (Jos 15:8; Jos 18:16), probably after its owner. This valley was also used for the burning of refuse, something which eventually made it a symbol of God’s fiery judgment (Gehenna = ge hinnom = the valley of Hinnom). To look over the walls of Jerusalem at night at the refuse fires continually burning far below in the valley must have been an awesome sight and readily recalled God’s fiery judgment.

Here Jeremiah linked these human sacrifices with the worship of Baal (‘lord’), although in most of the Old Testament they are connected with the fierce Ammonite god named Molech (melech = king, altered to take the vowels of bosheth = shame) who was worshipped throughout the area (e.g. 2Ki 23:10). This suggests a certain syncretism between the two gods, which may well have taken place because Molech was called ‘Lord Melech’ = Baal Melech = ‘Lord King’.

Jer 19:6

“Therefore, behold, the days come, says YHWH, that this place will no more be called Topheth, nor The Valley of the son of Hinnom, but The Valley of Slaughter.”

YHWH now warns that the day was coming when that particular valley would no longer be called Topheth, nor the valley of ben-Hinnom, but would be called the Valley of Slaughter, the idea being that it would subsequently become a graveyard for the huge number who would be slaughtered when the invasion came, and would also be the repository for many unburied corpses (see Jer 7:32, ‘they will bury in Topheth until there is no place left for burying.’). It had been rendered unclean by the activities conducted there. It would therefore be made even more unclean as a result of the dead that it would contain.

Jer 19:7

“And I will make void (literally ‘I will pour out’ or ‘gurgle out’) the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life, and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth.”

Having in mind the symbolism of the narrow-necked gurgling jar (baqbuq) YHWH declares that He will ‘pour out’ (baqaq) the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, that is, He would reveal their counsel for what it was by pouring it out on Jerusalem’s rubbish heap, and on its place of slaughter and potential graveyard. And the consequence will be that YHWH will cause the badly guided people of Judah to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life, and this will be followed by their dead bodies being given as food to the vultures and the beastly scavengers (compare Jer 7:33), always considered the most hideous of fates.

Jer 19:8

“And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing. Every one who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues ,”

So great will be the plagues that come on Jerusalem that the city will be ‘an astonishment’ and a total spectacle to be ‘hissed at’, so that all who pass by it will be astonished and hiss because of them (compare Lam 2:15-16). And this will be the result of the activity of YHWH, especially as described in the next verse.

Jer 19:9

“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, by which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”

For in words based on YHWH’s curse as pronounced in Deu 28:53 on those who would be disobedient to His covenant, YHWH declares that He will cause His disobedient people to eat the flesh both of their sons and their daughters, and of their friends, because of the distress that will be caused to them by their enemies in the coming siege. Those who had sacrificed their sons and daughters to idols under the influence of idolatry would in a grotesque way now find themselves reaping the consequences of that behaviour, their morality having been shaped and distorted by their earlier behaviour.

The language is very bold, but it is not to be taken as really saying that YHWH will be directly responsible for the details of what will happen. The basis behind the words is rather that YHWH is taking responsibility for not stopping the approaching Babylonian siege, a siege in which conditions will become so bad, and hunger so dreadful, that the people themselves will indulge in cannibalism. But the actual working out of the invasion and the decisions and reaction of the defenders are to be seen as their own responsibility and resulting from their own choice. YHWH is by no means justifying or encouraging cannibalism.

It is often asked why God brings about such terrible things, and it is important in this regard to bring out the difference between YHWH’s direct actions where He is directly responsible for everything that happens, and His ‘causing of events’ whereby He is the mainspring while the actual detailed outworking is the result of the activity of sinful man. There is a combination of sovereignty on God’s part and free will on man’s part. God encourages men to act, He does not encourage them to sin.

Jer 19:10

“Then will you break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you,”

Having declared YHWH’s words concerning what is to happen to Judah Jeremiah is now called on to illustrate it by breaking the bottle which represents Judah in the Valley of Slaughter in front of the eyes of the elders of the people and of the priests. With our mind’s eye we can see him dramatically standing on the slope of the valley and then, in full view of the watchers, hurling the earthenware jar on to the ground, shattering it into many fragments. Many of them would have seen this as a prophetic action which was in their eyes a deliberate attempt to guarantee the occurrence of what he had prophesied. But this would not have been Jeremiah’s view. He already knew that it was going to happen. Breaking the vessel was simply to be seen from his viewpoint as an outward enactment of it so as to bring home the impact of what was going to happen.

Jer 19:11

“And you will say to them, Thus says YHWH of hosts. Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again, and they will bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.”

And having broken the bottle Jeremiah was to declare in the Name of YHWH, that YHWH would do the same thing to ‘this people and this city’. He would break them as one breaks a potter’s earthenware vessel which cannot be made whole again, in other words the disaster would be permanent and not just temporary, at least for the near future. (And while the remnant might arise from the chaos, the bottle would never again be fully restored). The result of the disaster that was coming would be that burials would take place in Topheth of such magnitude that they would be unable to find places where they could bury all who had died. The number of the dead were probably intended to be seen in terms of the number of tiny pieces into which the vessel had shattered.

Jer 19:12-13

“Thus will I do to this place, the word of YHWH, and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth, and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings to other gods.”

Jeremiah then confirms in ‘the prophetic word of YHWH’ (neum YHWH) that what He had been saying about Topheth also applied Jerusalem itself, and to the houses in Jerusalem and to the kings’ houses. For they too were defiled as a result of the fact that on their flat roofs incense had been burned to all the host of Heaven (compare Zep 1:5; 2Ki 21:3; 2Ki 23:12), and because there they had poured out drink-offerings to other gods (compare Jer 7:18). Thus they would share in the judgment coming on Topheth.

Cuneiform texts discovered at Ugarit contained instructions for offering sacrifices to astral gods on flat rooftops, and this erection of private altars on flat roof tops was apparently quite common. Strabo describes similar worship of the sun by the Nabataeans.

Jer 19:14

‘Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where YHWH had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of YHWH’s house, and said to all the people,’

Having spoken YHWH’s words to the elders in the Valley of Hinnom Jeremiah majestically returned to the court of YHWH’s house (the Temple), and there he took his stand and spoke to all the people. His actions had probably taken place during a regular feast and there would therefore be large crowds gathered.

Jer 19:15

“Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.”

Speaking ‘in the Name of YHWH of Hosts, the God of Israel’ he declared to all the people who were there what YHWH’s intentions were, and that was that He would bring on Jerusalem and on all its towns all the evil that He had pronounced against them. And this was because they had so obstinately refused to hear what He had to say. A ‘stiff neck’ indicated deliberate obstinacy and unresponsiveness.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

SECTION 1. An Overall Description Of Jeremiah’s Teaching Given In A Series Of Accumulated, Mainly Undated, Prophecies, Concluding With Jeremiah’s Own Summary Of His Ministry ( Jer 2:4 to Jer 25:38 ).

From this point onwards up to chapter 25 we have a new major section (a section in which MT and LXX are mainly similar) which records the overall teaching of Jeremiah, probably given mainly during the reigns of Josiah (Jer 3:6) and Jehoiakim, although leading up to the days of Zedekiah (Jer 21:1). While there are good reasons for not seeing these chapters as containing a series of specific discourses as some have suggested, nevertheless they can safely be seen as giving a general overall view of Jeremiah’s teaching over that period, and as having on the whole been put together earlier rather than later. The whole commences with the statement, ‘Hear you the word of YHWH O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel, thus says YHWH —.’ It is therefore directed to Israel as a whole, mainly as now contained in the land of Judah to which many northerners had fled for refuge. We may divide up the main subsections as follows, based partly on content, and partly on the opening introductory phrases:

1. ‘Hear you the word of YHWH, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel —’ (Jer 2:4). YHWH commences by presenting His complaint against Israel/Judah because they have failed to continue to respond to the love and faithfulness that He had demonstrated to them in the wilderness and in the years that followed, resulting by their fervent addiction to idolatry in their losing the water of life in exchange for empty cisterns. It ends with a plea for them to turn back to Him like an unfaithful wife returning to her husband. This would appear to be mainly his initial teaching in his earliest days, indicating even at that stage how far, in spite of Josiah’s reformation, the people as a whole were from truly obeying the covenant, but it also appears to contain teaching given in the days of Jehoiakim, for which see commentary (Jer 2:4 to Jer 3:5).

2. ‘Moreover YHWH said to me in the days of King Josiah –’ (Jer 3:6). This section follows up on section 1 with later teaching given in the days of Josiah, and some apparently in the days of Jehoiakim. He gives a solemn warning to Judah based on what had happened to the northern tribes (‘the ten tribes’) as a result of their behaviour towards YHWH, facing Judah up to the certainty of similar coming judgment if they do not amend their ways, a judgment that would come in the form of a ravaged land and exile for its people. This is, however, intermingled with a promise of final blessing and further pleas for them to return to YHWH, for that in the end is YHWH’s overall purpose. But the subsection at this time ends under a threat of soon coming judgment (Jer 3:6 to Jer 6:30).

3. ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 7:1). In this subsection Jeremiah admonishes the people about the false confidence that they have in the inviolability of the Temple, and in their sacrificial ritual, and warned that like Shiloh they could be destroyed. He accompanies his words with warnings that if they continued in their present disobedience, Judah would be dispersed and the country would be despoiled (Jer 7:1 to Jer 8:3). He therefore chides the people for their obstinacy in the face of all attempts at reformation (Jer 8:4 to Jer 9:21), and seeks to demonstrate to them what the path of true wisdom is, that they understand and know YHWH in His covenant love, justice and righteousness. In a fourfold comparison he then vividly brings out the folly of idolatry when contrasted with the greatness of YHWH. The section ends with the people knowing that they must be chastised, but hoping that YHWH’s full wrath will rather be poured out on their oppressors (Jer 9:22 to Jer 10:25).

4. ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 11:1). He now deprecates their disloyalty to the covenant, and demonstrates from examples the total corruption of the people, revealing that as a consequence their doom is irrevocably determined (Jer 11:1 to Jer 12:17). The section closes with a symbolic action which reveals the certainty of their expulsion from the land (13).

5. ‘The word that came from YHWH to Jeremiah –’ (Jer 14:1). “The word concerning the drought,” gives illustrative evidence confirming that the impending judgment of Judah cannot be turned aside by any prayers or entreaties, and that because of their sins Judah will be driven into exile. A promise of hope for the future when they will be restored to the land is, however, once more incorporated (Jer 16:14-15) although only with a view to stressing the general judgment (Jer 14:1 to Jer 17:4). The passage then closes with general explanations of what is at the root of the problem, and lays out cursings and blessings and demonstrates the way by which punishment might be avoided by a full response to the covenant as evidenced by observing the Sabbath (Jer 17:5-27).

6. ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 18:1). Chapters 18-19 then contain two oracles from God illustrated in terms of the Potter and his handiwork, which bring out on the one hand God’s willingness to offer mercy, and on the other the judgment that is about to come on Judah because of their continuance in sin and their refusal to respond to that offer. The consequence of this for Jeremiah, in chapter 20, is severe persecution, including physical blows and harsh imprisonment. This results in him complaining to YHWH in his distress, and cursing the day of his birth.

7. ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 21:1). This subsection, which is a kind of appendix to what has gone before, finally confirming the hopelessness of Jerusalem’s situation under Zedekiah. In response to an appeal from King Zedekiah concerning Judah’s hopes for the future Jeremiah warns that it is YHWH’s purpose that Judah be subject to Babylon (Jer 21:1-10). Meanwhile, having sent out a general call to the house of David to rule righteously and deal with oppression, he has stressed that no hope was to be nurtured of the restoration of either Shallum, the son of Josiah who had been carried off to Egypt, nor of Jehoiachin (Coniah), the son of Jehoiakim who had been carried off to Babylon. In fact no direct heir of Jehoiachin would sit upon the throne. And the reason that this was so was because all the current sons of David had refused to respond to his call to rule with justice and to stamp down on oppression. What had been required was to put right what was wrong in Judah, and reign in accordance with the requirements of the covenant. In this had lain any hope for the continuation of the Davidic monarchy. But because they had refused to do so only judgment could await them. Note in all this the emphasis on the monarchy as ‘sons of David’ (Jer 21:12; Jer 22:2-3). This is preparatory to the mention of the coming glorious son of David Who would one day come and reign in righteousness (Jer 23:3-8).

Jeremiah then heartily castigates the false shepherds of Judah who have brought Judah to the position that they are in and explains that for the present Judah’s sinful condition is such that all that they can expect is everlasting reproach and shame (Jer 23:9 ff). The subsection then closes (chapter 24) with the parable of the good and bad figs, the good representing the righteous remnant in exile who will one day return, the bad the people who have been left in Judah to await sword, pestilence, famine and exile.

8. ‘The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah –’ (Jer 25:1). This subsection contains Jeremiah’s own summary, given to the people in a sermon, describing what has gone before during the previous twenty three years of his ministry. It is also in preparation for what is to follow. He warns them that because they have not listened to YHWH’s voice the land must suffer for ‘seventy years’ in subjection to Babylon, and goes on to bring out that YHWH’s wrath will subsequently be visited on Babylon, and not only on them, but on ‘the whole world’. For YHWH will be dealing with the nations in judgment, something which will be expanded on in chapters 46-51. There is at this stage no mention of restoration, (except as hinted at in the seventy year limit to Babylon’s supremacy), and the chapter closes with a picture of the final desolation which is to come on Judah as a consequence of YHWH’s anger.

While the opening phrase ‘the word that came from YHWH to Jeremiah’ will appear again in Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1; Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1; Jer 40:1 it will only be after the sequence has been broken by other introductory phrases which link the word of YHWH with the activities of a particular king (e.g. Jer 25:1; Jer 26:1; Jer 27:1; Jer 28:1) where in each case the message that follows is limited in length. See also Jer 29:1 which introduces a letter from Jeremiah to the early exiles in Babylon. Looking at chapter 25 as the concluding chapter to the first part, this confirms a new approach from Jer 26:1 onwards, (apparent also in its content), while at the same time demonstrating that the prophecy must be seen as an overall unity.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Subsection 6). Lessons From The Potter and The Subsequent Persecution Of Jeremiah ( Jer 18:1 to Jer 20:18 ).

This subsection commences with the usual kind of formula, ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 18:1). Chapters 18-19 then contain two oracles from God illustrated in terms of the Potter and his handiwork, which bring out on the one hand God’s willingness to offer mercy, and on the other the judgment that is about to come on Judah because of their continuance in sin and their refusal to respond to that offer. The consequence of this for Jeremiah, in chapter 20, is severe persecution, including physical blows and harsh imprisonment. This results in him complaining to YHWH in his distress, and cursing the day of his birth.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jer 19:7  And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

Jer 19:7 “and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth” – Comments – This prophecy was fulfilled in Psa 79:1-2.

Psa 79:1-2, (A Psalm of Asaph.) O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth .”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Parabolic Action and its Explanation

v. 1. Thus saith the Lord, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, a pitcher with a long neck, and take of the ancients of the people, the elders of their chief council, and of the ancients of the priests, Cf Isa 36:2,

v. 2. and go forth unto the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, south and southwest of the city, which is by the entry of the East Gate, or the Potsherd Gate, probably identical with the Dung Gate, Neh 3:13-15, near which were the clay-pits or the dumping-grounds of the potters, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee, the fact of verbal inspiration being brought out again,

v. 3. and say, Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, both of whom had become guilty together of idolatrous customs such as were practiced in this valley, sacrifices to Moloch, the abomination of the Mo-abitee, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the only one entitled to worship on the part of the people bearing the name of Israel: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle, ringing as after a peal of thunder with the unequaled horror of the news.

v. 4. Because they have forsaken Me and have estranged this place, devoting it to the worship of strange gods, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, idols which should have been utterly foreign to the mind of the nation, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, namely, in the unnatural sacrifice of children offered to Moloch;

v. 5. they have built also the high places of Baal, the chief idol of the Canaanites, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not nor spake it, neither came it into my mind, the heaping of synonymous expressions indicating that the very idea of such offerings was utterly loathsome to Him:

v. 6. therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, a name thought by some commentators to have been given to the place because drums (Hebrew, toph) were beaten to drown out the cries of the children that were being sacrificed, nor The Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but The Valley of Slaughter, where the enemies would descend upon the men of Judah to cut them down unmercifully.

v. 7. And J. will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, frustrating their plans for the defense of their city, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of them that seek their lives, in a general slaughter, and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth, the birds and beasts of prey making a welcome meal of their unburied corpses.

v. 8. And I will make this city desolate and an hissing, so that people would make noises of surprise and sneering at its downfall, Jer 18:16; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof, because it was so severely smitten by Jehovah.

v. 9. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, in a form of the most abhorrent cannibalism, as threatened in the special curses of the Law, Lev 26:29; Deu 28:53, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, in the severity of the famine, wherewith their enemies and they that seek their lives shall straiten them, all demands and considerations of friendship and kinship being forgotten. All this was literally fulfilled, as we read in Lam 4:10. All this was said in explanation of the clay pitcher which Jeremiah carried.

v. 10. Then shall thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, thereby calling their attention to the symbolism of his action,

v. 11. and shall say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the great Commander of the heavenly armies, the Ruler of the universe, Even so will I break this people and this city as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, whose fragile nature is so obvious, that cannot be made whole again, though the same material may be used once more in making another vessel; and they shall bury them in Tophet, in an unclean place, the regular burial-places being insufficient to hold them all, till there be no place to bury. It is significant that Aceldama, the Field of Blood, Mat 27:3 ff. ; Act 1:18-19, was located in this neighborhood.

v. 12. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the Inhabitants thereof, as He had now described in detail, and even make this city as Tophet, as an unclean place, full of rubbish and carcasses,

v. 13. and the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, the various buildings comprising their palaces, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, polluted with dead bodies, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, offering sacrifices to the sun and to the planets, this form of idolatry having been established or fostered by Manasseh, 2Ki 21:3, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods, the Lord’s complaint with regard to these transgressions being repeated time and again. In our days the gross idolatry of ancient days has been replaced by a finer form of false worship, but its guilt is just as bad as in those days.

Jer 19:14-15

Various Experiences of Jeremiah.

Pashur Opposes Jeremiah.

v. 14. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, where his last parable had been proclaimed, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house, the outside court, where the people assembled in the largest numbers, and said to all the people, probably after repeating the prophecy pronounced in the Valley of Ben-hinnom,

v. 15. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, whose majesty and supreme authority is here purposely emphasized, Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns, all the suburban villages, all the evil that I have pronounced against it, threatening destruction to the capital and death and captivity to its inhabitants, because they have hardened their necks, like a rebellious beast of burden, that they might not hear My words. Cf. Jer 16:12; Jer 18:10.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

With this chapter, Jer 19:1-6 of the next ought undoubtedly to be connected to complete the narrative. Jeremiah here comes before us performing another symbolical action. By breaking a potter’s vessel he foreshows the ruin impending over Jerusalem for the idolatry practiced in the valley of Hinnom. Not (remarks Graf) as if the worship of Moloch had been restored after the death of Josiah; verse 13, in fact, sufficiently shows that the Tophet had, ever since Josiah’s time, continued to be an unclean place, and the sins which are here rebuked are the unexpiated abominations of Manasseh’s reign (described in Jer 15:4, as the immediate causes of the Captivity). Jeremiah’s prophecy on the Tophet is followed by one on the fate of a certain Pashur, a high officer in the temple. The principal prophecy presents striking points of contact with Jer 7:1-34. (comp. Jer 7:4-6 with Jer 7:30-32; and Jer 7:13 with Jer 7:18; Jer 8:2), and we may presume that the events here related belong to the time to which we have already referred Jer 7:1-34, viz. the early part of the reign of Jehoiakim. The same date is confirmed for the narrative of Pashur by the office which is therein given him; for according to Jer 29:25, Jer 29:26, the office was not held by him, but by Zephaniah.

Jer 19:1

A potter’s earthen bottle. Dr. Thomson speaks of the extreme cheapness and brittleness of the common pottery of Palestine (comp. Isa 30:14). The ancients of the people. The natural popular representatives (comp. Exo 3:16; 2Sa 19:11; 1Ki 8:1; 1Ki 20:7). It was an announcement concerning the whole people that Jeremiah was about to make. The ancients of the priests.

Jer 19:2

The valley of the son of Hinnom (see on Jer 7:31). The east gate; rather the potsherd gate, i.e. the gate where potsherds were wont to be thrown. Another possible rendering is “sun gate,” of which “east gate” is but a paraphrase. But there is evidently a connection between the name of the gate and the action performed by Jeremiah. The Authorized Version seems to have misled Captain Warren into identifying the valley of Hinnom with that of Kedron. He confirms his view, it is true, by the Arabic nomenclature, which speaks of the Kedron as the Wady Jehinnama nomenclature, however, which is by no means uniform. The situation of the “potsherd gate” must remain uncertain.

Jer 19:3

O kings of Judah; i.e. the numerous clan of royal princes, kings by courtesy (see on Jer 17:20). His ears shall tingle.

Jer 19:4

Have estranged this place; rather, have treated this place as strange; i.e. as one that did not belong to their God, that was unholy (comp. Jer 16:18, “They have defiled ray land”). With the blood of innocents; comp.” Innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters” (Psa 106:38)the children sacrificed in Hinnom to Moloch.

Jer 19:5

Baal. This seems to be used loosely for Moloch (comp. on Jer 2:8).

Jer 19:6

(Comp. Jer 7:32.) Tophet; rather, the Tophet (see on Jer 7:31).

Jer 19:7

I will make void; literally, I will pour out, alluding to the etymology of the word rendered “bottle” in Jer 19:1.

Jer 19:8

(Comp. Jer 18:16.)

Jer 19:9

The same description, almost verbatim, is given in Deu 28:53; (comp. Le 26:29; Eze 5:10). For the fulfillment, see Lam 4:10.

Jer 19:11

As one breaketh a potter’s vessel (comp. Isa 30:14). Dr. Them-son speaks of the utter indifference with which the common pottery of Palestine is handled. It is not only brittle, but so cheap that no one is distressed at breaking it. And they shall bury them in Tophet, etc. These words form the conclusion of Jer 7:32 (see note), the greater part of which is repeated in Jer 7:6. They are certainly out of place here, and are wanting in the Septuagint.

Jer 19:12

As Tophet; i.e. an unclean spot, avoided by mankind.

Jer 19:13

The houses of the kings of Judah; i.e. the palaces and other buildings which together made up the king’s house (Jer 22:6). Shall he defiled as the place of Tophet. This is one of the few places in which the Authorized Version has allowed itself to interfere with the received text; for the Hebrew has “which are defiled,” etc. The common reading, in fact, seems untranslatable. Because of all the houses; rather, even all the houses.

Jer 19:14, Jer 19:15

Here begins a fresh section of the narrative. Jeremiah has executed his commission, and now proceeds to the temple, where he repeats before the assembled people his announcement of the awful judgment.

Jer 19:15

Upon all her towns. The cities of Judah are regarded as in a manner subject to the capital.

HOMILETICS

Jer 19:1-13

The broken bottle.

That was a strange scenethe royal family, the nobles, the chief priests, together with the populace of Jerusalem, gathered, at the summons of a prophet whose power could not be ignored though his teaching was opposed, in the valley of Hinnom, now reeking with the odors of foul crime; and the prophet facing them, alone and fearless, with a common potter’s vessel in his hand, while he draws a most awful picture of impending calamity, and sternly charges his audience with the terrible wickedness which is bringing it upon their heads, and brings his discourse to a dramatic climax by breaking the vessel to pieces.

I. CONSIDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DISCOURSE.

1. It was addressed especially to the leaders of the people (Jer 19:1). “To the poor the gospel is preached,” but to the great sterner messages must often be declared. Nothing in the history of the prophets is more exemplary than the directness of their accusations of guilt in high places. They were no flattering court preachers. Yet they were court preachers. -They did not reserve their harsh words for the poorest and lowest of the people, as modern popular preachers are too apt to do. The leaders were first in crime; they should be first in responsibility.

2. It was spoken on the site of the greatest wickedness. The guilty people had the memorials of their crimes before their eyes while judgment was being pronounced for them. Men naturally shun these valleys of Hinnom, these scenes of old sins, the sight of which stings the conscience. But they must revisit them. It is sometimes the duty of the preacher to take his hearers back in memory to the circumstances of the past which they would gladly forget.

3. It was dearly and boldly expressed. The language was precise, detailed, and graphic, the description of the approaching ruin vivid and appalling. Jeremiah used no euphemisms. His words are enough to make our blood curdle as we read them, more than a score of centuries after they were spoken. How must they have sounded in the ears of the criminals who heard them as the sentence of their own doom? Lurid pictures of future punishment frequently strike one as unreal, as though only drawn for effect; they rouse unbelief in some, despair in others, or a hardening in sin. Yet a clear and uncompromising statement of the scriptural revelation of the horrors of the future is not to be set aside for more pleasing doctrines, especially in preaching to the great and the self-satisfied.

4. It was accompanied by a significant action. Jeremiah broke the bottle in the presence of his audience. This would strike the eye and impress the imagination. It is not enough that we convince the reason of a truth; we must rouse the imagination to realize it before it will be effectual. The Eastern imagery of the Bible is useful to us in this way. The preacher finds the value of illustrations in making truth vivid and interesting. Ideas may be received through the eye as well as through the ear.

II. CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF THE DISCOURSE.

1. It accused of sin,

(1) in for-raking God and

(2) in practicing vice and cruelty.

We must feel the intensity of guilt to realize the justice of punishment.

2. It denounced a most terrible doom. This was to correspond to the crimes committed. The Tophet of sin was to be the Tophet of punishment. They who had sacrificed children to Moloch would eat the flesh of their sons, etc.

3. It exposed the rottenness of false confidence. “I will pour out the counsel of Judah.” People imagine that somehow, without repentance, by ingenuity or by daring, they may escape the consequences of their sins. They will find that all such devices must end in ignominious failure.

4. It was accompanied by a symbol of hopeless destruction. The bottle was broken.

(1) This potter’s vessel was a comparatively worthless thing: wickedness robs men’s lives of all value.

(2) It was very brittle: nothing is so unstable as the security of the wicked before their sins have wrought out their natural consequences.

(3) It was broken to pieces: the punishment of sin is destructionthe destruction of a nation for national sin as seen in the breaking up of the Jewish people, the destruction of a soul in the killing out of it of spiritual activities and all the higher capacities of its being.

Jer 19:14, Jer 19:15

The warning confirmed.

The warning of the discourse in the valley of Hinnom is confirmed by a repetition of it under more ordinary circumstances.

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CONFIRMATION OF THE WARNING.

1. It was repealed. The scribe must bring from his treasury things old as well as things new. Men need “line upon line.” Unpopular truths must not only be revealed once for all, they must be impressed upon people until they are accepted.

2. It was repeated in the temple. The horrible associations of Tophet were wanting there. All was decorum, order, propriety. Yet the message was not the less true there than in a more congenial place. Terrible truths must be uttered in face of the religious respectability of our Church worship. Such outward correctness should not make us forget the true condition of men’s hearts, which is apparent enough in the darker scenes of life, in the Tophets of iniquity. We are tempted to be deceived by the appearance of religions assemblies into a blindness to the greatness of sin which is visible enough in common life.

3. It was repeated in the ears of all the people. The leaders were first selected to hear the warning (Jer 19:1). But it was not confined to them. The people generally were guilty. They had quietly acquiesced in the wickedness of their great men. Nay, they had furthered, them, in it (Jer 5:31), had followed their example, and become guilty’ of similar crimes. They, too, must not expect to escape in the hour of judgment.

II. THE FORM IN WHICH THE WARNING WAS CONFIRMED.

1. It was epitomized. Truth needs to be broken up into detail that it may be clearly understood and vividly conceived by the imagination. But it is possible to lose ourselves in details and miss the drift of the sum of them. Hence the advantage of broad, sweeping enunciations of principle.

2. It was repeated as a prediction of real facts. The warning was not to be regarded as an empty threat, nor as the indication of a danger that might be evaded. ‘I will bring the evil that I have pronounced,’ etc. It is both weak and cruel to threaten without the intention of executing the threatweak, for the hollowness of the alarm is soon discovered by experience, and then it is impotent; cruel, for why create distress about a mere “bogey” danger? God is merciful, but firm. His threats are conditional, but, while the conditions subsist, the execution is as certain as any event that depends on the uniform laws of nature.

3. It was repeated without diminution. All the evil pronounced will fall on all the towns. The effect of stern warnings fades with the lapse of time. We are tempted to think that things will not be so very bad as at first seemed likely, and to take comfort from such reflections. But danger is not lessened by our growing indifference to it.

4. It was strengthened by an appeal to the increasing necessity for it. “Because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.” A deep consciousness of guilt makes the just punishment of it seem inevitable. Willful persistence in wickedness after warning can only increase the guilt and make the punishment the more certain and the more severe.

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR

Jer 19:1, Jer 19:2, Jer 19:10, Jer 19:11

The breaking of the potter’s vessel.

Another symbolic action, but in this case the revelation to the mind of the prophet was not dependent upon its being performed. It is because of the public significance of it he is enjoined to perform it. The “elders of the priests” and the “elders of the people” are invited to the scene.

I. THE SYMBOL. This was a “potter’s earthen bottle [or ‘vessel‘],” and thus had to be carefully distinguished from the “clay” spoken of in Jer 18:1-23. The latter is soft and unshaped, and may be molded as the potter wishes; but the vessel is already formed and hardened into a certain definite shape, which it is impossible materially to alter. As that represented the stuff or material of which nations and institutions could be made, this must stand for the Jewish nation, with its character historically matured and fixed. Jehovah had already given it the form he intended it to assume, and placed it in certain relations with himself as a theocracy. The historic institutions and nations of the world are the creation of God. He has raised them up and controlled the forces that molded and determined their specific character and work. “The powers that be are ordained of God.” The position, character, and life of individual men are also his work. No man is “self-made” in any fundamental sense of the word. A gracious providence has nurtured and cared for him; and, it may be, saving grace has redeemed and sanctified him. He “is the noblest work of God.”

II. THE ACTION. This was threefold, viz:

1. The vessel was bought. “Get;” literally, “buy.” Jehovah had redeemed Israel to be a people for himself. The outlays of Divine love and mercy are suggested. The providence and grace of God are now being expended. The blood of Christ was shed for all nations, “the Jew first, and afterwards the Gentile;” and for every man born into the world. “Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price. A deeper, obligation is thereby incurred to him, and a grander authority on his part justified. We are all made and saved, or, as it may be expressed, made and remade by him.

2. It was probably poured out. Jer 18:7, “I will make void [literally, ‘pour out’].” This action would be natural under the circumstances, and highly impressive. And if it be objected that the vessel was empty, that very fact might still render the action the more emphatically significant. Their counsels were also vain and empty. God suffers wicked nations and men to devise evil, but only as it works out his own ends is it allowed to be executed. He will bring to naught the counsel of the ungodly. That which is devised without his blessing will come to no successful issue.

3. It was broken. (Jer 18:10.). This was intended to depict the extreme and final character of the impending, judgment”As one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again” (Jer 18:11). The nationality of the Jews was to be destroyed. The Babylonion captivity, although only obscurely predicted, is apparently alluded to; but some hold that, as this was but an incomplete fulfillment, the Roman conquest must have been meant. All nations and individuals are on their trial, and may be subjected to this extreme penalty. God holds the sovereign power in his own hand. There is no remedy; the past is irrevocable. And there is no appeal from his sentence, when the limit of his forbearance has been Fussed.

4. It was disgraced by being cast into Tophet. A double purpose was thereby expressed. The scene of idolatrous rites was to be disgraced by being made the burial-place of the slaughtered thousands of Jerusalem, as, on the other hand, such a burial and the necessity for it would be humiliating to the metropolis of the faith.

III. THE ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. It was done in presence of the representatives of the nation. “Take of the ancients [eiders] of the people, and of the ancients of the priests.” They were probably responsible for the national guilt, and by their personal and artificial influence might be able to avert the catastrophe. Those who influence a nation’s lifekings, princes, statesmen, ministers of religion, authors, etc.should be specially appealed to in cases of national sin. So the parent for the child. It is both respectful and just that such persons should be addressed in the first instance. But every man is responsible for his own sin. His intelligence and moral nature must, therefore, be addressed.

2. The language used was such as to recall the general penalties to be incurred by breaking the Law. (Deu 28:1-68.) The fact was thus suggested that the judgment was willfully and knowingly incurred. There is nothing new about the evils that come upon transgressing nations and individuals, or about their history. It is not for man to judge. God knows the reasons for his procedure, and the sinner himself is not ignorant.

3. The meaning of the breaking of the vessel is fully explained beforehand. This is ever the Divine order. There is “space for repentance” given even to the worst sinners. No man will go wholly unwarned into perdition. Nay, even the historic and so-called secular character of nations, institutions, and individuals is precious in God’s eyes, and effort is constantly made to convert it into an influence of blessing. The sinner is offered the “means of grace” that he may become a saint and a servant of the Most High. And it is only as he obstinately continues in his sin that the irrevocable judgment falls.M.

HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY

Jer 19:1-15

Denunciations of doom.

This chapter is filled with these awful warnings of the prophet. And they are made the more awful by the reflection that, fitted as they were to rouse the most careless and hardened, yet they failed with those to whom they were addressed. And so this sad chapter teaches us such lessons as these:

1. The earnest purpose of God to save man from his sin. Hence these warnings.

2. The awfully hardening power of the sin which could despise them.

3. What wise methods are to be employed in the endeavor to arouse and alarm the ungodly. On this we will dwell awhile. This chapter shows

I. THAT THOSE MOST LIKELY TO INFLUENCE THEM SHOULD BE SPECIALLY APPEALED TO. Cf. Jer 19:1, “Take of the ancients,” etc. No doubt this was because of their influence over the people generally. If they could be won the rest would follow.

II. WE SHOULD AVAIL OURSELVES OF ANY LOCALITIES LIKELY TO LEND FORCE TO WHAT IS SAID. The prophet led forth his audience to “the valley of the son of Hinnom.” It was the Tophet, the Gehenna, the place haunted with memories of Divine wrath against idolatry, and whose ever-burning fire and gnawing worm symbolized the quenchless anger of God against it. With what added power, then, would the prophet’s message come when spoken in such a place!

III. SUCH MODES OF ADDRESS SHOULD BE ADOPTED AS WOULD BE MOST LIKELY TO IMPRESS. The prophet was bidden take an earthen bottle, and, after he had solemnly denounced the doom of God against the idolatrous city, he was to dash the bottle on the ground and shatter it utterly, past all possibility of mending. By this dramatic action he was to declare the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. Thus vividly and powerfully to the minds of such as witnessed him would the awful truth he had to tell be impressed on their minds. But also in clear words and in full copious detail he set forth what was to come. Now, such symbolic action as that of the prophet might be of very little service to such as we speak to, however impressive to the Oriental mind, but it teaches us that whatever is likely to deepen the effect of our words upon men’s minds we are to use, and fearlessly, as did the prophet, set forth the coming judgments of God. And most of all

IV. OUR MESSAGE MUST BE GOD‘S MESSAGE. God put into the prophet’s mouth the words he was to speak and taught him how to speak them, and he obeyed. Here is the great essential. If denunciations of judgment be spoken simply as part of an orthodox sermon, or for any other reason than that God has borne in upon our souls the conviction that we must speak such words, we are likely to do but little goodindeed, harm rather than good. And let such servant of God who speaks as God bids him remember that, even when speaking thus, his words may fail in the effect designed and desired. “Lord, who hath believed our report,” etc.? They did so here. But they will never entirely fail. God’s promise is against that. Some will receive them. Some did even in Jeremiah’s day. There was a faithful remnant. And the preacher will have delivered his own soul, and God’s righteousness in the doom of the impenitent will be vindicated before all. May we be delivered from the necessity of declaring such doom as that which Jeremiah had to speak of; but if we have to, may we be taught of God, as he was, and have better success.C.

Jer 19:14

Jer 20:6

The sin and punishment of Pashur.

This man is to be distinguished from him of the same name mentioned in Jer 21:1. The Pashur mentioned here was a priest, and one holding high office in the temple. After Jeremiah had delivered his discourse at Tophet, he seems to have returned to the city and temple, and then to have spoken in substance the same predictions of woe. Whereupon Pashur, with less patience than these who heard the prophet and had seen his symbolic declaration of the coming ruin when he broke the earthen bottle at Tophet, falls upon him and smites him, and tortured him by putting him in what is called the stocks (see Exposition). Thus

I. HE CRUELLY PERSECUTED THE PROPHET OF GOD. It was sad that any one should do this. But yet more that it should be the act of a priest of God, and holding high position amongst the priests. What hope can there be of the people when their appointed leaders and those to whom they are wont to look up for instruction and example in what is good thus prostitute their office? Thus the “wicked husbandmen beat” the servants who were sent to them (Mat 20:1-34 :35). And it was the same order that ever opposed, and yet more fiercely, our Lord himself. The sanctity and authority attaching to the priest’s office have ever been fatal to the integrity of unworthy holders of the office, and have caused that amongst the most infamous of mankind not a few priests should be found. But

II. HE FAILED TO SECURE THE END HE HAD IN VIEW. Jeremiah was not silenced, but goaded, as it were, to declare yet more terrible judgments in which Pashur himself should be awfully involved (cf. Paul, “God shall smite thee,” etc; Act 23:3). The stout heart of a true servant of God is an anvil on which many hammers may fiercely smite, but it will wear them out long before they wear it out. Saul of Tarsus found that the persecution he had done so much to further in connection with Stephen only made matters worse. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. And the reason is that a faith for which men are willing to die convinces all beholders that it must be exceedingly precious and well founded, and inspires them with an irresistible desire to know and possess it for themselves, or at least to know what it is.

III. HE BROUGHT DOWN ON HIMSELF SORE JUDGMENT. Jeremiah declares to him that the Lord has changed his name to Magor-Missabib, for he will be given up a prey to the torments of mortal anguish, his friends shall be slain before his eyes, Judah carried away to Babylon, all its treasures plundered; he himself shall witness all this and die and be buried in Babylon, “There thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.” Thus, look where he would, he should see nothing but terror. Abovethe anger of God; beneatha dishonored grave; aroundcalamity and woe on all near and dear to him, and of which he had been largely the procuring cause; withina conscience tormenting him day and night. It was an awful doom. “Let persecutors read it and tremble; tremble to repentance before they be made to tremble to their ruin.”C.

HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG

Jer 19:1-13

The breaking of the potter’s vessel.

I. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE BREAKING. Spectators of the proper sort needed to be deliberately gathered together in the proper place. We may suppose that the elders of the people and of the priests were peculiarly responsible for all that concerned the safety of the city. This symbolic action was best performed before the select responsible few. As they went forth with the prophet they had time to ask themselves what the meaning of this unusual summons might be. It is, perhaps, a little to be wondered at that they should have gone with the prophet at all. And yet, although none might have quite the right motive for going, each would have his own motive, and so an acquiescent assembly be formed. God knows how to subdue and blend the motives of men for his own purposes. In some minds there would be a superstitions regard for the prophetic office; in others, curiosity would operate; and in a few there might be somewhat of the hearing ear and understanding mind. We are, then, to imagine this company going forth; and they do not go forth at random. It is not for mere seclusion they go out of the city. They are led to the very place which, because of the abominations practiced in it, is to be one of the principal causes of future woe. Thus we see how carefully God arranges the circumstances in which his truth is to be proclaimed.

II. THIS BREAKING HAD A REASON. The thing was not clone in mere wantonness and thoughtlessness, nor in passion, nor in carelessness. The prophet did not draw his lesson from a jar which some one else had happened to break. He got the vessel with the deliberate purpose, divinely put into his mind, of breaking it. This was far enough away from the purpose with which it was made, and the vessel, once shattered, could be of no further use for this first purpose; but in its destruction it served a far nobler end than if it had been carefully kept to carry water for many long years. Rightly considered, indeed, the vessel was not destroyed, but only its service divinely and wisely changed. So, looking from the symbol to the reality behind it, we must bear in mind that the capture of Jerusalem and the conquest of the land of Israel served certain purposes of God. He did not separate this people and give them this laud that at last they might be scattered, even beyond the usual scattering of a conquered people. But when the scattering did come, he sought to make it evident that it was from his hand. It was not a mere chance of war, but something prepared for and prophesiedsomething to teach and warn the thoughtful among all nations.

III. THE REASONS WHY THIS VESSEL WAS THUS SHATTERED BEFORE THESE SPECTATORS.

1. To show the ease with which God can shatter any construction of man. One lesson had already been drawn from the potter’s vessel (Jer 18:1-10). That lesson was drawn from the plasticity of the raw material. Now another lesson has to be drawn from the fragility of the finished article. This fragility was part of the nature of the article. The potter could not be blamed because the result of his work was so fragile. Fragility, indeed, is a relative quality. An insect could no more have broken this vessel than men by a single blow could level a forest tree. Men talk of their power to do and their power to resist; but this is only in ignorance of the immense, exhaustless power which God in mercy hides from the eyes of man. A potter’s vessel may be preserved for millenniums if it is sufficiently guarded; but it has no strength in itself. These people of Jerusalem were reckoning on the natural position and artificial securities of their city. Yet these very things would only heighten their calamities and miseries. For they would persist in defense, ever hoping against hope, until, in their extremity, they were forced to devour their very children. We need to bear in mind that, however great our natural advantages, our prudence and foresight, we, as far as our natural life is concerned, are but as this fragile vessel in the prophet’s hand.

2. To show the impossibility of man retrieving the disaster. “That cannot be made whole again” (Jer 19:11). This vessel was not merely cracked. It was more than simply broken. It not only fell, but was dashed to the ground with special force and determination. These people of Israel, once scattered, could not gather themselves together again. God could do it, but only God. And God would not do it; because that would only have been to reconstitute, the fragile. The breaking’ of this vessel is only one of many lessons by which God would teach man his natural weakness. He destroys the old and the fragile, that he may put in its place the new and the indestructible. Our wisdom is not to waste time in trying to strengthen what is inherently weak; but to accept with glad thankfulness that real mercy of God which, in destroying the old Jerusalem, makes way for the new and heavenly Jerusalem, that city of God based on the truly everlasting hills.Y.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Jer 19:1. Go, and get a potter’s earthen bottle The meaning of this significative emblem is fully explained in the subsequent verses; and indeed the whole chapter requires very little comment.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Second Symbol:The Broken Vessel
Jeremiah 19, 20

1. The symbolic action and its interpretation

Jer 19:1-13

1Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], Go and get [buy] a potters earthen bottle [vessel],1 and take [some] of the ancients [elders]2 of the people, and of the ancients 2[elders] of the priests; And go forth into the valley of the Son of Hinnom [valley of Ben-Hinnom], which is by the entry of the east [Potters] gate,3 and 3proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee, And say, Hear ye the word of the Lord [Jehovah], O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus saith the Lord of hosts [Jehovah Zebaoth] the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon 4this place, the which whosoever heareth,4 his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged5 this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and 5have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons [children] with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.

6Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord [Jehovah], that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The Valley of the Son of Hinnom [valley of 7Ben-Hinnom] but The Valley of Slaughter. And I will make void [pour out] the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of them that seek their lives; and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the 8beasts of the earth [land]. And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing [a horror of desolation and a derision]; every one that passes thereby [through] shall be astonished and hiss[deride] because of all the plagues thereof.6 And I will 9cause them to eat the flesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.7

10Then shalt thou break the bottle [pitcher] in the sight of the men that go with thee. 11And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts [Jehovah Zebaoth], Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potters vessel, that cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet, till [because] there be 12[is] no place [room] to bury [elsewhere]. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord [Jehovah], and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: 13and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be denied as the place of Tophet, [because of]8 all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out9 drink-offerings unto other gods.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The prophet receives the command to buy another pitcher from the potter, and in company with the elders of the people and priests to betake himself to the valley of Ben-Hinnom, near a gate, which appears here under the name of the Potters gate (Jer 19:1-2). There he is to proclaim the words which we read in Jer 19:3-13. In these words a severe divine judgment is first proclaimed in general (Jer 19:3). Then the crimes are narrated in detail, which the people and the kings of Judah have committed in this place. Then the divine punishments are mentioned, of which the witness and theatre will be the valley of Ben-Hinnom or Tophet: 1. This will be called the Valley of Slaughter, (Jer 19:6), in consequence of the slaughter, which after the failure of the plans determined on by the people (here the prophet must have made the gesture of pouring out of the pitcher), both the enemy will make among the people, and the people among themselves (Jer 19:8-9). 2. The people and city shall be broken in pieces, which the prophet indicates by the breaking of the pitcher; Tophet for lack of room shall become a place of interment, and the city, with all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been made to Baal, shall become a place like the desolate and unclean Tophet (Jer 19:10-13).

Jer 19:1-2. Thus saith I shall tell thee. This opening is like that in Jer 17:19bottle, Heb. bakbuk, is an earthen pitcher with a long neck. The sound of the word seems to imitate the noise of water being poured out.Comp. the Greek , , and the German Kutterkrug.Elders of the priests are mentioned besides only in Isa 37:2 (2Ki 19:2). Whether they are identical with the princes or chief of the priests (2Ch 26:14; Neh 12:7) or only in general the most respectable of the priests is doubtful. Comp. Oehler, in Herzog, R.-Enc., XII. S. 183.Valley of Ben-Hinnom. Comp. Comm. on Jer 7:31 coll. Jer 2:23.By the entry (), comp. Gen 18:1; Jdg 9:35, etc.Naegelsb. Gr., 70, c.Potters gate. 1. concerning the form, comp. Textual Notes. 2. As to the meaning, (a) some of the older Rabbins, cited by Kimchi, who however does not agree with them, are of opinion that the word is to be derived from sun, and that by the sun-gate is to be understood the eastern gate of the temple, since there was no gate in the city-wall to the South. So also Teemellius, Piscator, J. D. Michaelis and Hitzig, but they would have the southern gate of the outer court (a solis stu sic dictam) understood to be the nearest way to Tophet. (b) The other commentators agree in deriving from , testa. But opinions greatly differ whether the gate was so called because the potsherds were thrown out there [the Chaldee paraphrast renders: the dung-gate], or because the potters lived in its vicinity, or because the clay-pits were just outside the gate. The last is the view of Hofmann (Weiss, u. Erf. II., S. 124, etc. Vid. Comm. on 7. 31). Apart from the etymological signification of the word Tophet, which Hofmann gives, it is in favor of this interpretation that this same place is called in Mat 27:7 (observe the generic article). This name decidedly favors the supposition that the place stood in closer relation to pottery than that of a mere depository of potsherds. White clay, a kind of pipe-clay, is also still dug there. Comp. Herzog, R.-Enc, 5. S. 475; Raumer, Pal. S. 306. Finally the choice of an earthen pitcher for the prophetic symbol must have been occasioned by the inner relation which the pitcher bore to the place of the action. If it was merely intended to indicate that death and destruction would come upon Jerusalem even so as to fill Tophet with corpses, the breaking and throwing away of any other object would have answered as well. But Jeremiah is to take an earthen pitcher because Tophet was the place where such vessels were produced, consequently nothing was more natural than to choose for this place of breaking an object to be broken which originated there, in connection with which it is not to be denied that other reasons, as the comparatively easy frangibility, and the climax in relation to Jeremiah 18. (there transformation, here destruction) may have co-operated. And by all this also it. is not disputed that the potters may have lived in the vicinity of the clay-pits, and that the same place may have served at the same time for the deposit of potsherds and other refuse. 3. To what gate otherwise known does the pottery-gate correspond? The name occurs here only. The remark on 17. 19 is here confirmed that the names of the gates of Jerusalem have been often changed. Many commentators proceed, as we have remarked, on the hypothesis that the city wall had no gates to the South. That this is an error will now scarcely be doubted by anyone. Comp. Raumer, Pal., S. 291. On the southern side of the city were the well-gate [Zion-gate?S. R. A.] and the dung-gate. Both opened on the Tyropum, both therefore conducted to Tophet, the former being nearer to this place. But the latter corresponds better to the character of Tophet as an unclean spot, receiving the impurities of the city. Here also the cloaca Betzo disembogued. The site of this gate, says Raumer, S. 352, is the lowest point of the city, to which all the filth of the city and the ravine of Siloah descends.[Comp. Thomson, The Land and the Book, II. 497]. A definite conclusion is however not to be reached with respect to things concerning which so much uncertainty still prevails.

Jer 19:3-5. And say into my mind. Here it is not recorded, as in Jer 18:3, that the prophet performed the command received in Jer 19:1-2, and thereupon in the valley of Hinnom received the revelation contained in Jer 19:3 sqq. For there (Jeremiah 18.) the revelation to be received was occasioned by the observations made at the potters (18. 3, 4). There is no similar occasion here, so that Jer 19:3 proceeds at once to communicate the revelation.And say, reads as though the previous discourse were continued, which cannot be the case on account of I shall tell. We shall not err if we attribute the mode of expression here chosen to the written representation.Kings of Judah. Here, as in Jer 19:4 coll. 13. 13; 17. 20 the prophet has in view not only the person of the present, king, but the kingdom of Judah generally.This place is here, in accordance with what follows. Tophet.They, etc. Comp. Jer 9:15; Jer 16:13; Jer 44:3; Jer 44:2Have filled. On the verbal form comp. Comm. on 18. 4.Blood of innocents. According to the connection and Psa 106:37-38 we must understand this of the blood of the children offered in sacrifice.

Jer 19:5 is almost verbatim the same as Jer 7:31; Jer 32:35. Comp. the remarks on the first of these passages.

Jer 19:6-9. Therefore behold shall straiten them. After, in Jer 19:4-5, the abominations practised in Tophet have been enumerated, the announcement is now made of the corresponding punishments. This announcement, which appears to be a specification of the summary denunciation in Jer 19:3 b, is made in two stages, of which the first (Jer 19:6-9) is accompanied by the gesture of pouring out (Jer 19:7), and the second by the act of breaking (Jer 19:10).The days come, etc., Jer 19:6. Comp. Comm. on Jer 7:32.Pour out. Isa 24:1; Nah 2:3. What is poured out falls to the ground, which is frequently used as a figurative expression for coming to naught. Comp. 1Sa 3:19; 2Ki 10:10.In this place. Is this the term, in quo, or in quern? I believe the latter. In Tophet all the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem is to find its tragical end, as this is indeed expressed by the name Valley of Slaughter, and by burying in Tophet (Jer 19:11) and by becoming like Tophet (Jer 19:12).I will give, etc. Comp. 7. 30; 16. 4.A hissing, Jer 19:8. Comp. 18. 16; 25. 9, 18; 51. 37.Every one, etc. Comp. 1Ki 9:8; Jer 18:16; Jer 49:17; Jer 1:13.

Jer 19:9 is taken entire from Deu 28:53-55 (Lev 26:29). Comp. Lam 2:20; Lam 4:10. As historical analogies, comp. 2Ki 6:28-29. Joseph, Bell. Jud., 4. 3, 35.

Jer 19:10-13. Then shalt thou break unto other gods. The second stage of the symbolic action. The progress consists in this, that by the breaking of the pitcher the total ruin of the city and people (therefore not merely of individuals) and by the casting into Tophet its desolation and defilement, or in other words its becoming itself Tophet, is symbolized.As one breaketh (Jer 19:11). Comp. Comm. on 5. 26; 6. 29; 8. 4; 10. 3; 12. 11; Naegelsb. Gr., 101, 2, b.Cannot be made whole again. Though uttered concerning another object, we find the same words verbatim in Deu 28:27; Deu 28:35.And they shall bury, etc. Comp. Jer 7:32. These words being wanting in the LXX., have been suspected. But they stand in a good connection, and correspond to the casting out, by which the pitcher was not merely broken but buried in Tophet. Consequently by this act Tophet is as it were dedicated to the purposes of a cemetery. Jeremiah says interments will be made in Tophet for want of room. This prophecy may have been fulfilled after the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar (comp. Jer 32:29) though we have no positive statements to this effect. But Tophet. having once become a place of burial, must have accomplished this destination afterwards in a significant manner. It is the which was bought with the price of blood for the burial-place of pilgrims (Mat 27:3 sqq.; Act 1:18-19). And still at the present day Aceldama is the burial-place of pilgrims dying in Jerusalem; indeed the whole of the valley surrounding Zion on the West and South, on its right side, contains numerous rock sepulchres, a true Necropolis, says Raumer. Comp. his Pal., S. 306.

Jer 19:12. Thus will I do, etc. The Lord will do to the city as is indicated by the breaking of the pitcher. Thus will Jerusalem become a heap of ruins, and unclean, for the want of room presupposes that even the city itself will be full of corpses. Therefore we find before = and indeed. Comp. rems. on Jer 17:10.Shall be defiled, (). [Henderson renders: which are polluted, shall be as this place; Hitzig, Umbreit, Naegelsbach: shall be as the place of Tophet, the unclean, or unclean.S. R. A.]. Since the Hebrew in a much higher degree than our modern languages is capable of the constructio ad sensum, since especially an ideal plural is often contained in singular words (comp. 1Ki 5:17; 2Sa 15:23. Naegelsb. Gr., 105, 2f.) so the connection of the singular Tophet with presents in itself no difficulty. Only it is not clear what are the several elements included in the unity of Tophet. Hofmann and others suppose them to be graves, a referred above, on Jer 7:31, to altars. This word is certainly elsewhere used as feminine. But in respect also to gender, the same ideal construction prevails in the Hebrew. (Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 60, 4). It appears to me therefore that the prophet had here the places of worship in view. These he calls unclean both en account of the abominations practised there, and the defilements caused by Josiah, 2Ki 23:10. The other renderings (defiled as the predicate, or as in apposition to houses or to place or another division of the words: ) are opposed by such strong grammatical objections, that the remaining uncertainty of our explanation is scarce worth consideration in comparison with them. The houses of Jerusalem will however in this sense be like Tophet, that the place where they now stand, will in the future become as desolate and unclean as it.Upon the roofs. Comp. Zep 1:5; 2Ki 23:12. J. D. Michaelis quotes Strabo (16. p. 1131): (comp. 1Ma 5:25; 1Ma 9:35) , .

Footnotes:

[1]Jer 19:1. is found as an appellative in 1Ki 14:3, and as a proper name in Ezr 2:51; Neh 7:53, coll. , Neh 11:17; Neh 12:9; Neh 12:25. Gesenius (Thes., I., p. 232 [Lax. s, v.]) derives it from , evacuavit (comp. Jer 19:7), according to the analogy of ,, etc. So also Olsh. 190, e. [Hitzig renders: a bottle,Naegelsb.: a pitcher,from the maker of earthenware.S. R. A.] . There is also , Isa 44:9 coll. Isa 54:16-17. synonymous with , is that which has become dry and rough by heat. (Comp. , scabies a scabiendo, as Krtze from kratzen in German), Deu 28:27, and , sun, in Jdg 8:13; Job 9:7; then especially the burnt earthenware: , Lev 6:21, etc. , Lam 4:2.

[2]Jer 19:1. . LXX., , etc. They certainly did not read , but correctly supplied it from , for the prophet was not merely to buy the pitcher, but to take it with him. It is a species of very bold construction pegnins, the verb to be supplied governing not the preposition present in the sentence, but the preposition of a second sentence, connected by , to which it forms a predicate, comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 112, 7.

[3]Jer 19:2. . The form is not the later, as Hitzig supposes, but is the only form used by the Rabbins, and from this both the Keri and the (LXX.) or (Aqu., Symm., Theod.), of the Greek translators is to be explained. The Syriac text in the London Polyglot strangely has Chadsit.

[4]Jer 19:3Comp. 1Sa 3:11; 2Ki 21:12. As to the construction 1. Partic. absolutum to be resolved into a hypothetical sentence. (Comp. Exo 12:15; Num 21:3 : Naegelsb. Gr., 97, 2 b); 2. is accusative, attracted by ; 3. The apodosis on account of the brevity of the sentence is without the connecting Vau. (Comp. Gen 4:15; Rth 1:16-17). for (so in 1Sa 3:11) according to the Aramaic formation. Comp. Ewald, 197, a; Olsh., 243, b, d.

[5]Jer 19:4. LXX. ; Vulg., alienum fecerunt. This rendering accords both with the connection and the etymology of the word. The latter occurs in Piel besides only in Deu 32:7; 1Sa 23:7; Job 21:29; Job 34:19. With the exception of the passages in Job, in which the Piel evidently has the meaning of the Hiphil, the meaning is everywhere appropriate, to estrange ones self or another.

[6]Jer 19:8.On the suffix form in comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 44, 4 Anm. coll. Olsh., 131, 1.

[7]Jer 19:9. wherewith they procure them distress (Deu 28:53; Deu 28:55; Deu 28:57). is the Acc. instrumentalis (comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 70, i.); , is that Hiphil, which has the substantive idea contained in the verb with respect to the nearer object (comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 69, 1 Anm. 2; Jdg 16:16; Isa 29:2; Isa 29:7).

[8]Jer 19:13. . is distributive. Comp. Eze 44:9. Naegelsb. Gr., 112, 5 b.

[9]Jer 19:13.. Comp. rems. on Jer 7:18; Jer 44:17 sqq. coll. Jer 32:29. With respect to the construction, comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 92, 2 a.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The Prophet’s sermon is here delivered, under the similitude of a Potter’s bottle, by way of representing the broken state of the Jews.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

There are several weighty circumstances which strike our m in d, on reading this sermon of Jeremiah. Let the Reader observe in the first place, the Persons whom the Prophet was to gather to hear it: the ancients of the people and of the priests. Is it not rather strange, that in a time of such general departure from the truth, and from the service of ordinances, that the hearts of those men should be inclined to attend the Prophet’s ministry? But no doubt, the thing was of the Lord. Reader! if the Lord would incline men in our day to attend a preached gospel, the same would take place now. But what an awful consideration is it, that the word of truth is so evil spoken of, and so little regarded. We may observe further, that the place of preaching was no less remarkable; not the temple, but the valley of the son of Hinnom. So called from Jos 15:8 . See also 2Ki 23:10 . Here, where Israel had provoked the Lord to anger with their idolatries and sacrifices; in the same spot should the Chaldeans put them to shame and destruction by the sword. Never were calamities more striking, nor lamented more bitterly. See Lam 4:10 . The third observation on this sermon, is the faithfulness of the Preacher. Who can behold Jeremiah thus going on from day to day, undaunted, and without fear, but must admire the firmness of the man, and the glory of the cause in which he was engaged. The fourth remark is, the affirmation the Prophet, at the Lord’s command made at the close of his Sermon, in breaking the bottle, to intimate the certainty of it, and as an assurance of what the Lord had said, that as clay in the hand of the Potter: so were the people in the Lord’s hands. Jer 18:6 . And lastly, to add no more: it should be observed, on the Prophet’s sermon, that as the Lord had said, so it came to pass. Jer 52:4-11 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Dramatised Truth

Jer 19

“Thus saith the Lord, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle” ( Jer 19:1 ). We do not like dramatised truth, and therefore there are large portions of the Bible which we do not admire. We admire those portions sentimentally, but not practically; we look upon them as upon pictures of long ago, never intended for reproduction or imitation. Were a man to dramatise the truth now, he would be reported as an eccentricity. Jesus Christ dramatised it in parables; Jeremiah and Ezekiel dramatised it in various ways: we like this dramatisation to be confined to the Bible, as we like the Commandments also to be confined to the same limit; we never like to see any of them loose, and doing active work in the Church. In this way we allow the Bible to become old, an archaic treasure, a very valuable curiosity. We have seen in the previous chapter what the potter could do with the vessel. Let us make no mistake about that vessel, for it was then in wet clay, and so long as a vessel is in wet clay the potter can do with it what he pleases; but once let it pass the oven, and there is no potter on earth can do anything with it. It is most desirable and essential that we should have right ideas about the potter and the clay, for that image, by being mistaken in its purpose and scope, has wrought infinite mischief in the Church. There is a point up to which the potter can do what he pleases with the clay: he can make the vessel high or low, broad or narrow, shapely or ungainly; he can play with the wet clay. There was a time when the Lord could do this with man; when he took the dust out of the ground and shaped it, and prepared it for the reception of inspiration, he could have broken it, or re-shaped it, or done what he liked with it, but not after he had breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Reverently, then, God conditioned and limited himself. The Lord cannot convert the world without the world’s consent. In Almightiness the Lord still reigneth in the fulness of his power. He can make the nations, and put them down; but what can he do with a little child’s heart when that heart is set in deadly animosity against him? He could break the child upon the wheel, but breakage is not conversion, destruction is not reconciliation. How does he propose to proceed in this matter of bringing the world to himself? We find the answer in the music of the New Testament. What is there? Any hint of omnipotence? Not one. What is the tone of the New Testament? Reasoning, entreaty, persuasion. In it there is a Man who shall tell good news and ask men to believe it; and he must put upon all the eloquence this terrible climax, yet this climax full of gracious-ness “He that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be damned.” Everything depends, then, upon the state in which the potter’s vessel is found. Once let it be hardened by fire, and the potter can do nothing with it, but save it, use it, or break it; it has passed out of his hands. There is a sense in which we pass out of the hands of the mere power of God. He can always destroy us. Omnipotence is always available for crushing; but in the matter of salvation there must be pleading, standing at the door and knocking, patient waiting, loving and tender appeal. Omnipotence must soften itself by its infinite lovingkindness, that the two may work together in zealous co-operation. A potter can only work with the clay whilst it is in a certain condition. We are not clay. When a man asks us in theological anger or impatience, Cannot the potter do what he likes with the clay? we answer, Yes, before it has gone through the oven, not after; and we answer, No, we are not clay, we are men, souls, thinkers, and it hath pleased God, with whom alone rests the thunder of Almightiness, so to make us that we can disobey him; otherwise we could not be men. We must take the risks of manhood with its advantages. Our dejection is great only because our exaltation is unequalled by any creatures known to ourselves. It is because we can blaspheme God that we can pray.

Jeremiah is to take a potter’s earthen bottle for dramatic uses. He is to go forth, not personally, but officially: “Take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; and go forth.” Cruelly have these prophets been used, as if they intended all the harsh expressions they used. They had nothing to do with them; they were errand-bearers; they were sent with messages of thunder, and all they had to do was to deliver them. They themselves trembled under the very burden they carried. This will remove a great deal of the difficulty felt in relation to what are known as imprecatory psalms, objurgatory prophecies, cruel denunciations, and the like. The men were not scolds, furies, people who delighted in the use of violent language as a kind of rhetorical exercise; they were men who were charged with the judgments of God, and were bound to deliver them under pain of” death. Men are sent on hard errands. The men do not like the business they have to do oftentimes. We could be so popular, say they, if we could but say just what we pleased out of our own imagination; and then we should offend no one, we should enjoy the hospitality of nations; we should prophesy smooth things, and make the lives of men comfortable; we should take the sting out of the law, and all darkness we should blow away from the heavens, that they might shine in beautiful blueness and radiance; then we should be sent for, and patronised, and compensated, and honoured, and mayhap might sit sometimes with the king on his throne that we might whisper into his ear more tenderly and intently sweet lies. A prophet’s life was a hard one. What could it be to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, or to Ezekiel to talk this retributive thunder and lightning? Yet they could not be silent; the carriage was made for the gun, and the gun it must carry. The Lord has made men different. Some men could not read a prophecy aloud without taking out of it all that is distinctive of its intellectual energy and spiritual dignity. Such men would turn a denunciation into a kind of lying benediction. Others, again, could not read the Beatitudes as they ought to be read, with musical tremulousness, with tears, with infinite suggestiveness of tone, with sympathy that would not irritate a wound. Each man must operate according to his own gift and function. Here we come face to face with the sovereign election of God, and we accept it as a gracious truth. One man is made of iron, and another of finest porcelain, and another hardly made at all simply blown into a kind of trembling existence, more a figure, a wraith, a cloudy shape, than a solid personality. Each accepts his gift of God, and works accordingly, and thanks God for any measure of grace and power, and for any opportunity, how limited soever, of proclaiming the eternal kingdom of light and truth and grace.

We need some such introduction as this to the tremendous sentence which Jeremiah pronounced when he went unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate. He was there to recite a lesson: “proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,” at the moment. How he must have writhed under the torture! How his lips must have been made again to speak this molten lava! How he must have lost consciousness in a certain way for a time, and have become a mere instrument or medium for the using of Almighty God! Man never conceived these supreme judgments; they bear an impress other than human. What an awful cataract of judgment what complaining of neglect and forsakenness what an exhibition of treachery, blasphemy, self-idolatry, and all shame! And what resources of retaliation what mockery what taunting! Thus: “And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place,” a word in the Hebrew which corresponds to the sound of gurgling. “I will make void:” I will pour out as men pour water out of a bottle, and it gurgles its way out into the ditch; so I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem. A kind of subtle laughter as of mockery, a ghostly taunting, runs through this declaration. “Their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth:” I will spread a banquet for birds and beasts of prey. “And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness.” Jeremiah never invented these words; as a human invention they would be wholly out of proportion to the thing spoken about. Man can never take such a view of sin as can justify such judgments on a merely human scale. It is not in man’s moral nature to see sin in its sinfulness, except in a very limited and suggestive degree. Only he who can see sin as it is black, infamous can fit the judgment to it. Therefore, in the judgment of God let us read the divine estimate of wrong being and wrong doing. Yet we feel that history without this spirit of judgment would be intolerable. Imagine human history rolling forth in ever-increasing volume without the spirit cf judgment having its days of criticism and audit and doom! The spirit of judgment has made the centuries what they are. But for the action of that spirit how the black river would have increased, and overflowed all the green fields and blooming gardens, and turned the whole earth into a black sea! But now and again the spirit of judgment has come down, set up a great white throne, sat upon it, and meted out penalty, and given fear its place in the ministry of Providence, and has thus held in limitation that which would have inundated and overwhelmed the whole green earth. Let us be thankful for death; let us bless God for plague and pestilence: they are the servants of the Almighty. Even when they come to avenge neglect of law, they do not divest themselves of religious suggestion. There have been men who have laughed almost atheistically because they have traced plague and pestilence to the neglect of sanitary law. But who made sanitary law? Whose law is it? Why was not nature so made that we could do just as we pleased? Is not man greater than any sanitary law? The answer is, No; sanitary law is a law of heaven as well as a law of earth, and plague and pestilence are the black wolves which God keeps to bite men who sin against sanitary law. We do not by merely using secular or scientific terms do away with the central and abiding principle of a religious judgment and a religious penalty.

What then happened? Jeremiah, having thus denounced the judgment of the Lord, took up the bottle and broke it in the sight of the men that went with him. Then he was to say: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again.” Sometimes we need graphic displays of God’s meaning. We cannot understand abstract reasoning, we are lost in spiritual metaphysics; sometimes, therefore, God has to employ means for writing the lesson in very graphic letters before our eyes, and he must say as bottle and vessel are broken in the sight of the people “Thus!” Why have we not ears to hear the noises which are made thus in penal providence? Why do we not exercise our eyes and behold how many bottles are broken upon the floor of history, that men may be taught how God will act in certain moral crises? We call such exhibitions dramatic, theatrical, eccentric; still the prophets go forth and declare God’s truth in God’s way: long, elaborate, minute, critical, eloquent appeals and denunciations would have been lost, but the shivered bottle taught the observing people what God meant to do with them; they would be as a little bottle in his hand, as a thing that could be broken to pieces at their very feet. The Lord resorts to all manner of exhibition and illustration and appeal, if haply he may save some. This is the reason why he dashed your fortune to pieces. You remember when the sum was large, and you said you would die in your nest, how he took you up the bottle and broke it at your feet, and you started, and wondered as to what was coming next. It was thus that God broke the bottle of your little child’s life; he saw that this was the only way in which your attention could be excited, for you were becoming imbruted and carnalised; you were losing all spiritual life and dignity and value, and were rapidly amalgamating yourself with the dust; therefore, he had to send infinite trouble before your eyes could be opened in wakeful and profitable attention. Thus the Lord is defeating crafty politicians, and selfish statesmen, and ambitious kings, and families that are bent on their ruin through their dignity: and thus, and thus, by a thousand breakages, God is asking man to think, ere it be too late.

Throughout this condemnation there is a spirit of justice. We never have mere vengeance in the providence of God, any more than we have mere power in the miracles of Christ. The miracles of judgment and the miracles of providence are all explained by a moral impulse or purpose. The Lord condescends to use the explanatory word, “Because.” Thus we read: “Because they have forsaken me.” A wondrous word, of frequent occurrence in the sacred books, is this word “forsaken.” God feels it when we do not keep near him; he misses us; he cannot bear to be forsaken. Has he a heart? Has he sensitiveness in regard to creatures short-lived upon the earth, as ephemera are short-lived in the sunbeam? Can he not make more men to keep him company? Are we of consequence to him? Why this divine wail because God has been left, neglected, forsaken? This is not the complaint of mere fastidiousness; this is the revelation of the divine nature. He condescends to cry that we may understand that he has a heart; he is willing to send upon the earth a shower of tears that we may know how capable he is of being grieved. There is, then, a spirit of justice in the whole condemnation. Verily, there is a reason or an explanation of all the judgment that falls upon our life. Why was the one; ewe lamb taken? Because we had forsaken God. Why was our house ruined by the storm? Because we had estranged the sanctuary. Why was the whole business turned back upon us in disappointment and confusion? Because we had burned incense unto other gods. Why this long continuance of cloud, and frown, and difficulty, and humiliation? Dost thou ask, thou masked pretender? Dost thou ask in the tone of injury? Put thine hand within thy breast, now draw it out, and it is white with leprosy; put it back, it is more leprous still: the answer is within thee the heart is set against God. It will be always difficult to make amiable persons understand this, because they have not strength enough to go many a mile in the devil’s road; it is impossible, therefore, for them to believe that the devil’s road is so long, and that other men can take a journey into a far country and there waste their substance with riotous living. You can account for your poisoned blood if you like. Do not make a mystery when you can solve the riddle. Do not ask men to pray with you until you have damned yourself. Why should we waste our prayers upon men who have covered up their iniquity, and then wanted us to plant the flowers of piety in the black soil? There is a reason behind all this; probably we cannot always understand that reason, because all judgment does not fall because there has been sin; sometimes judgment is sent to try men, that they may be baffled and disappointed and humbled; sometimes God says, I will inflict a loss upon Job in order that he may pray with tenderer pathos and larger scope of language and desire; I will teach the patriarch how to pray; at last I will make him pray for the very friends whom he has been contradicting all this time. Sometimes he makes us poor that he may make us rich. Every man, therefore, must judge the case for himself; the one anxiety of the teacher should be that no man should lay flattering unction to his soul when he has no right to it; and on the other hand, the true teacher should see that no man is cast down of sorrow overmuch when he cannot trace the sin which accounts for the judgment; in that instant it may be that God is trying and testing and training, and all the while is looking over the furnace and watching until he can catch sight of his own image, then he will deliver and glorify those who have been purged and tested. This is a double question. The face on each side must be studied, and no man must pronounce for another, but let each be faithful to himself, or he never can receive explanation, condolence, or true sustenance. What looks like severity is really profoundly beneficent. This we have tested in many an instance. Man cannot always pronounce upon his trouble on the day of its occurrence; he needs the help of distance. Let a man look upon the first grave he ever dug a quarter of a century after he made that pit in the black ground. How awful it was on that day of digging! How near despair the man was when he took his first journey into the cemetery! But time came and wrought its wizardry in explanation and soothing sympathy; the horizon enlarged; events occurred which without being ostentatious were expository; things fell into their places; out of chaos came order, out of tumult came music, out of darkness came light; and now the way to the cemetery is almost a flowery way; there are joys to be had there not to be found otherwhere not shouting, exulting joys, but those tender gladnesses which are charged with a deeper pathos because of the melancholy which throws upon them a hue as of heaven’s own light. Experience alone can understand this. Such conclusions cannot be rushed to and violently forced; they must come as the result of a long educational process. We see here, however, the place of the prophet in society; he is a moral teacher, he speaks great spiritual truths; he is not an expositor of science and art, he is an expositor of the ways of God to men.

Jeremiah having delivered his message, what became of it all? “Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet” ( Jer 20:1-2 ). The word “smote” is grammatically peculiar. Within the grammar of it is held the meaning that the blow was struck with the priest’s own hand. It was not a stroke delivered by another. So excited did Pashur the son of Immer the priest become, that he lifted up his hand and smote the prophet who had thus denounced the sin of the nation. Did Jeremiah retire dismayed? We find the answer from Jer 20:3 to Jer 20:6 . Jeremiah was not overborne by this blow from the priest’s hand; he said, “The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib:” there shall no longer be joy round about, but fear round about; and the worst kind of fear, “for thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Prophets must not accept a flesh wound as a period to their function, as an exhaustion of their prerogative; while the poor flesh smarts under the stinging blow the soul must rise to the occasion, and the smiter himself must be struck with. a deadlier hand than his own. Thus the prophet has a bad time: of it in the world. We pray that a prophet may arise. Yet who dare say Amen? He would have a hard time of it! We need him much. The Lord hath forsaken me utterly if at this moment the Church does not in all her departments and communions need a prophet, a terrible man, a man of iron lips, a man of throat of brass, a man too strong for patronage, yet weak in the presence of all tenderness, necessity, and helplessness. Let him come, O living God, with his potter’s earthen vessel, and break it before us. Yet how dare we ask thee to send that man? We should ill-use him. Yet we need him very much.

Prayer

Almighty God, who can answer all thy questions? Thou hast hedged us round about with mystery. Dost thou taunt us with thine inquiries that we may know how small we are? or dost thou seek to lure us to nobler subjects that we may cultivate the whole inheritance of our mind? Thou dost take us into faraway places and plunge us into immeasurable shades, and we hear thy questions and cannot answer them; when we think we know something, thou dost overwhelm and confound us with some new question; we are dazed and blinded and lost. We are glad of this, for things are larger than they look; every stone has a temple in it, every shadow veils its own little mystery; all things have voices, though we have not yet given them opportunity to pour upon our attention their sweet music. It is a great world, it is a wondrous life; sometimes we want the word Immortality to eke out our speech, for this is more than life, it is rapture, it is agony, it is joy supreme, it is a quivering weakness that indicates inexhaustible strength. We bless thee for all these contradictions and mysteries, these crosslights and vexing shadows; they humble us, and bring us to the right attitude, and call upon us to cry out unto the living God, What art thou, and where? and, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Is it always to be this living under the shadow of a stone wall? are we to be hemmed in always by this granite? We want the horizon, radiant and yielding, going back as we go forward to charm us into more solemn solitudes. Heighten all our thoughts, deliver us from all littleness, from all envy, bitterness, uncharitableness, and monotony, and lift us up into those high exercises of contemplation and homage that shall bring us back to the world more industrious and more earnest after the things of God. We are now following the call of Jesus: Greater things than these shall ye do, said he, when he pointed to all his miracles. The Spirit of God was promised by the Saviour of the world to abide with us. What can we do on one short visit? what can we see by one transient glance? We want a teacher to abide with us, and thus destroy all time by giving us to feel that we are lost in God’s eternity. Pity us one and all, save us from our distresses, and when thy waves and thy billows come over us, may we not call them billows and waves, but thy billows and thy waves; then they shall be like summer dreams. Be in the house that everybody else has forsaken: charm the solitude that no human friendship breaks: help those who are heavy-laden to carry their burdens, and upon eyes that are weary with watching send some refreshing slumber. O Man of the Cross, Christ of Calvary, turn our prayers into great answers! Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Jer 19:1 Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and [take] of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;

Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lord. ] By the former type of a potter and his vessel, God had showed the Jews what he could do to them – viz., break them at his pleasure, and remake them upon their repentance. Here, by a like prophetic paradigm, is set forth what the Lord now will do to them – viz., break them so for their obstinace, as that they should never be repaired, and restored to their ancient lustre and flourish. And this the prophet Jeremiah ( fortissimus ille Dei athleta, as one calleth him) that valiant champion of the Lord, telleth them freely, though he kissed the stocks and was well beaten for his boldness. Jer 20:2 Where it is worthy our observation, that as the prophet’s task was more and more increased, so was his strength and courage. Deus gratiam multiplicat onere ingravescente. So it was with Athanasius, Luther, Latimer, Calvin, &c.

Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle.] Called in Hebrew Bakbuk, a either from the emptiness and hollowness of it, or else from the guggling sound that it made when it was either filled or emptied. By a like figure it is said of the vulturine eagle, Job 39:30 that they do glutglut blood. b

And take of the ancients. ] Of both sorts for witnesses.

a Onomatopoeia.

b Jegnalegnudam.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jeremiah Chapter 19

In Jer 19 Jehovah summons the prophet to take a potter’s earthen bottle before the ancients of the people and of the priests and in the valley of Hinnom to proclaim His new message. “Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; they have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which 1 commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.” (Ver. 3-9.)

Then (ver. 10) he was to break the bottle with the words, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.” (Ver. 11-13.) Nor was this all: the prophet on his return from Tophet stood in the court of Jehovah’s house, and said to all the people, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, 1 will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.” (Ver. 15.)

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 19:1-9

1Thus says the LORD, Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests. 2Then go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you, 3and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle. 4Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent 5and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind; 6therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter. 7I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. 8I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters. 9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them.’

Jer 19:1 Jeremiah 18, 19 are connected by the use of imagery, potter and pottery jar (BDB 132 CONSTRUCT 427, i.e., a small drinking flask).

The pottery jar would have been a fired clay vessel between 4 and 10 with a narrow neck used for liquids. This type of container was very common in the ANE.

the elders of the people and some of the senior priests Elders was the title of older, respected, established leadership. It was a carryover from the tribal days of Israel’s past (cf. Exo 3:16; Exo 3:18; Exo 4:29; Exo 12:21, etc.).

These two groups would represent the civic and religious leadership of Judah/Jerusalem.

SPECIAL TOPIC: ELDER

Jer 19:2 the valley of Ben-hinnom The following information on Gehenna is taken from the Special Topic: The Dead, Where Are They? (Sheol/Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus) . Gehenna reflects the OT phrase, the valley of the sons of Hinnom (south of Jerusalem). It was the place where the Phoenician fire god, Molech (BDB 574) was worshiped by child sacrifice (cf. 2Ki 16:3; 2Ki 21:6; 2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6), which was forbidden in Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2-5.

Jeremiah changed it from a place of pagan worship into a site of YHWH’s judgment (cf. Jer 7:32; Jer 19:6-7). It became the place of fiery, eternal judgment in I Enoch 90:26-27 and Sib. 1:103.

The Jews of Jesus’ day were so appalled by their ancesators’ participation in pagan worship by child sacrifice that they turned this area into the garbage dump for Jerusalem. Many of Jesus’ metaphors for eternal judgment came from this landfill (fire, smoke, worms, stench, cf. Mar 9:44; Mar 9:46). The term Gehenna is used only by Jesus (except in Jas 3:6).

1. Jesus’ use of Gehenna

a. fire, Mat 5:22; Mat 18:9; Mar 9:43

b. permanent, Mar 9:48 (Mat 25:46)

c. place of destruction (both body and soul), Mat 10:28

d. paralleled to Sheol, Mat 5:29-30; Mat 18:9

e. characterizes the wicked as son of hell, Mat 23:15

f. result of judicial sentence, Mat 23:33; Luk 12:5

g. the concept of Gehenna is parallel to the second death (cf. Rev 2:11; Rev 20:6; Rev 20:14) or the lake of fire (cf. Mat 13:42; Mat 13:50; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:10; Rev 20:14-15; Rev 21:8). It is possible the lake of fire becomes the permanent dwelling place of humans (from Sheol) and evil angels (from Tartarus, 2Pe 2:4; Jude Jer 19:6, or the abyss, cf. Luk 8:31; Rev 9:1-11; Rev 20:1; Rev 20:3).

h. it was not designed for humans, but for Satan and his angels, Mat 25:41

2. It is possible, because of the overlap of Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna, that

a. origiinally all humans went to Sheol/Hades

b. their experience there (good/bad) is exacerbated after Judgment Day, but the place of the wicked remains the same (this is why the KJV translated hades (grave) as gehenna (hell).

c. the only NT text to mention torment before Judgment is the parable of Luk 16:19-31 (Lazarus and the Rich Man). Sheol is also described as a place of punishment now (cf. Deu 32:22). However, one cannot establish a doctrine on a parable.

NASBthe potsherd gate

NKJV, NJBthe Potsherd Gate

JPSOAHarsith Gate

LXXthe gate Charsith

Peshitta, KJVthe east gate

A gate of Jerusalem by this name is found only here in the OT. Here are the suggestions.

1. Dung (refuse) Gate of Neh 2:13; Neh 3:13-14; Neh 12:31 (Aramaic Targums). This would be the place for garbage to be dumped.

2. Gate on the south side of Jerusalem, which led to the Hinnom Valley, would be close to the potters’ workshops.

3. The Peshitta (Syriac translation) gets east from the similarity of the Hebrew name with the Greek heres for sun. This is surely inaccurate. The NKJV changes it to Potsherd Gate.

Jer 19:3 the LORD. . .the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel See Special Topic: Special Topic: Names for Deity .

Notice that these are covenant titles and are repeated several times in the chapter. The covenant people are being confronted by the God of the covenant. They have totally failed as YHWH’s revelation to the nations (cf., Jer 19:15)!

NASBa calamity

NKJVa catastrophe

NRSV, TEV,

NJBa disaster

The root () has several distinct meanings.

1. pasture, project, or shepherd – BDB 944 I, KB 1258 I, 27 times in Jeremiah

2. be associated with (i.e., friend or companion) – BDB 945 II, KB 1262 II, used 21 times in Jeremiah

3. pleasure or desire – 946 III

4. that which is harmful (from , BDB 948, used 32 times in Jeremiah) – BDB 949, KB 1262, used 92 times in Jeremiah.

It is translated by NIV in several different ways.

a. disaster

b. wickedness

c. trouble

d. evil

e. punishment

f. harm

g. sin

h. calamity

i. offense

j. ruin

k. crimes

l. evil deeds

m. discomfort

n. destruction

o. cruelty

the ears of everyone that hears it will tingle This is a Hebrew idiom of a surprising judgment (cf. 1Sa 3:11; 2Ki 21:12). This is similar to the lips quivering in Hab 3:16.

Jer 19:4-5 The calamity is coming on Judah because

1. they have forsaken YHWH (cf. Jer 1:16; Jer 2:13; Jer 2:17; Jer 2:19; Jer 5:7; Jer 5:19; Jer 16:11; Jer 17:13; Deu 28:20; Deu 31:16)

2. they worship foreign gods (cf. Deu 11:28) in the valley of Ben-hinnom

3. they have either

a. sacrificed their children to Molech (Jer 19:4-5; 2Ki 17:17; Psa 106:37; see Special Topic at Jer 2:23)

b. killed innocent people, cf. Jer 2:34; Jer 7:6; Jer 12:3; Jer 12:17; Jer 26:15; Psa 106:38, cf. TEV

4. they built high places to Ba’al (cf. Jer 7:9; Jer 11:13; Jer 11:17; see Special Topic at Jer 2:20)

Jer 19:5 a thing which I never commanded or spoke of nor did it ever enter My mind This reflects YHWH’s thoughts about human sacrifice. It is possible some misunderstood Gen 22:2 or Exo 13:2 and used it as a proof-text for the child sacrifices to

1. Molech

2. Ba’al

Even the death of Job’s family (cf. Job 1) could be seen by some as instigated by YHWH to test Job.

The one thing that must be added to this issue is that YHWH will sacrifice His only, unique Son (symbolized in Abraham’s offering Isaac, cf. Gen 22:9-19) for the good of the whole (cf. Joh 3:16; 2Co 5:21). Jesus’ death was a human/divine death/gift for human sin (i.e., child sacrifice)!

Jer 19:6-9 YHWH describes the judgments He will send on them for their wickedness.

1. the name of the valley of Ben-hinnom will be changed to the valley of Slaughter

2. the counsel of their wise men will be voided (cf. Jer 8:8-9)

3. many will be killed by invasion

4. there will be no proper burial, cf. Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4

5. Jerusalem will be turned into an object of hissing, cf. Jer 15:4; Jer 18:16

6. cannibalism will develop (i.e., siege warfare), cf. Lev 26:29; Deu 28:53; Deu 28:55; Deu 28:57; Lam 4:10

Jer 19:7 I shall make void This VERB (, BDB 132 II, KB 150, Qal PERFECT), BDB says it is used of a mug dipped in water, or emptied of water. Therefore, this is an intentional play on the word for drinking flask (, BDB 132) in Jer 19:1.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

saith the LORD. Some codices, with two early printed editions, Aramaean, Septuagint, and Syriac, read “Jehovah said unto me”.

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

bottle = pitcher. Often seen hanging by a well to this day. Not a leathern wine-skin.

take. The Figure of speech Ellipsis (Absolute), must be thus supplied.

ancients = elders.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 19

Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle ( Jer 19:1 ),

Take one of the bottles that the potter has made. Clay bottles.

and take the old men of the people, and of the priests; And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee ( Jer 19:1-2 ):

Now the valley of Hinnom runs along the south side of the city of Jerusalem and joins the Kidron valley right down at the base of the hill of Ophel, which was the city of David. And as you’re standing on Mount Zion, as you look down into the valley to the south, you’re looking down into the valley of Hinnom. And this is where the children of Israel had done so much of their pagan worship of the gods of the Canaanites and the people who inhabited the land before they came in. And so he is to go into this valley where all of these pagan rites were done by the people with this clay jar from the potter’s house. “So call the ancient priests and the old men and gather them into the valley and I’ll give you My word there. I’ll tell you what to speak.”

And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever hears it, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me ( Jer 19:3-4 ),

The reason why the judgment’s coming, “They’ve forsaken Me.”

and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal [altars to Baal], to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings ( Jer 19:4-5 ),

Now if you go over to Israel in the Museum of Natural History, they have a collection in there of these little representations of the god Baal. And they are many of them made of iron; some of them are made of stone. And as you look at them, their hands are always pointed upwards with their palms in. And they are little figurines that look somewhat human with little arms out like this and hands pointed up. Now what they would do there in the valley of Hinnom is that they would set these little irons representations of the god Baal in the fire until they were glowing red hot and then they would take their live little babies and place them in the glowing red hot arms of the little god Baal and burn them to death, as they would dance around and worship Baal.

Now this is the thing God is crying out against. These are the horrible things that God’s people were doing. These were the horrible sacrileges that they were guilty of. And so God says, “They built also the high places to Baal to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal.”

which I commanded not, nor spoke, neither came it into my mind ( Jer 19:5 ):

Now, God would never think of having a person make a live sacrifice of a child unto Him.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter. For I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them [here in this valley] to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city desolate, and a hissing; every one that passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss, because of all the plagues. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege because of the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with you ( Jer 19:6-10 ),

After you pronounce this, just break that clay bottle in their sight.

And say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, until there is no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. So Jeremiah came from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD’S house; and said to all the people, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words ( Jer 19:11-15 ).

And so the people were just refusing to listen to the warnings of God.

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Jer 19:1-2

Jer 19:1-2

THE SMASHED POTTER’S VESSEL

The feature of this little chapter is the irrefutable and irremediable cancellation of the status of racial Israel as God’s Chosen People, a status which, by their reprobacy, they forfeited to the New Israel in whom all the glorious prophecies of the fathers would be fulfilled.

Here is the parable of the smashed potter’s vessel. The previous chapter showed God’s patience and ability to accommodate to the imperfections of the clay; but this one stresses a far different lesson. It is no longer possible for even God to work with hardened Israel.

The symbol here is a potter’s vessel; but one that has already been fired and hardened, a perfect symbol of the judicial hardening of Racial Israel, which, as Isaiah stated, had already taken place a full century before Jeremiah came upon the scene (Isaiah 6).

It was a new vessel, one just purchased, which means that it was empty. This symbolized the fact of the emptiness of the racial Israel and their complete failure to produce the righteous works which God desired.

The shattering of the vessel symbolized the divorce and casting off of racial Israel as God’s wife and as God’s chosen people.

There was no known way by which such a shattered vessel could be mended or repaired, and this symbolized the final, total, and irreversible nature of Israel’s rejection, always with the exception of the “righteous remnant” destined to form the nucleus of the New Israel in the kingdom of Messiah.

Laden with such a terrible message, the events recorded here resulted in bitter persecution for Jeremiah; and Satan still releases his fulminations against what is written here: affirming that, “it is not written in Jeremiah’s style”; “It was probably written by Baruch”; “It is conjectured that certain verses were added later by an editor”; (regrettably, Ash neglected to tell us whether this was his opinion or the opinion of unbelieving critics), stating that, “the reader can judge” the matter: Very well, this reader will judge such allegations; and the judgment is simple enough: such postulations are worthless.

(1) The claim that the style here is different actually refers to the fact that the third person is used instead of the first; and there’s nothing unusual about that. Barnes declared that such an objection belongs to the “babyhood of criticism,” and that, “It is the exception when any sacred writer refers to himself in the first person.” In our introduction to Jonah (see the Minor Prophets, Vol. 1) we discussed this fully, pp. 261-263. Also, Jeremiah would, in a moment, quote verbatim from Moses the author of Deuteronomy; and since Moses invariably referred to himself in the third person, it was quite natural and should have been expected that Jeremiah would also use the third person here.

(2) Ash’s reference to “an editor” comes from the assertion of some critics that “the Deuteronomic editor” has influenced this chapter, as if such an imaginary figure were in any sense a real person, which he was not. Moses wrote Deuteronomy, not some editor; and it is not that imaginary editor that influenced this chapter but Moses himself. “Jer 19:9 is quoted almost literally from Deu 28:33.” This fully accounts for the alleged influence of “some Deuteronomic editor,” that influence pertaining to Moses the author of the Pentateuch.

(3) In a more positive attitude, the style of Jeremiah is most evident in this chapter and is seen in the scrambling of his subject matter, a characteristic of the whole prophecy. Green pointed out that, “Jer 19:1-2; Jer 19:10-11 deal with the destruction of Israel, and Jer 19:3-9 and Jer 19:12-13 are portions of the sermon!” Nothing could be any more Jeremiahic than such an arrangement. This total lack of any usual type of organization requires us to look at the chapter only one or two verses at a time.

Before leaving this discussion of the allegations about ‘interpolations, etc.’ in this chapter, we summarize it by this quotation from F. Cawley and A. R. Millard, who rejected all such changes, writing, “There is insufficient reason for treating Jer 19:3-9 as insertions.”

Jer 19:1-2

Thus said Jehovah, Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and [take] of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests; and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee;

Other occasions when the actions of Jeremiah became a part of his message are: the Marred Girdle (Jeremiah 13), his Abstinence from Marriage (Jeremiah 16), the Potter’s Clay (Jeremiah 18), the Bonds and Bars (Jeremiah 27), and his Buying a Field (Jeremiah 32).

See chapter heading above for the meaning of this symbol; but there are additional teachings evident here. The fact of the bottle’s being “earthen” symbolized the humble beginnings of Israel; the delicate design and value of the bottle symbolized Israel’s earlier glory; and, if, as some allege, it was a very cheap and fragile bottle, it symbolized the vulnerability of the nation of Israel. It would be difficult indeed to think of a metaphor as effective as this one.

Furthermore, the very place where this sermon would be preached and where the bottle would be shattered carry their own implications. The gate mentioned here is hard to identify.

“Two gates led to the valley of the son of Hinnom: (1) the Fountain Gate at the southeast corner, and the Dung Gate at the southwest corner of Zion. Keil could not decide which was meant here; and Kimchi thought it was neither, but a small, postern gate, used for throwing out rubbish, the valley having been put to this degrading use from the time when Josiah defiled it (2Ki 23:10). And thus the mean symbol of a proud nation was carried out through the back door to be broken upon the heaps of rubbish already there.”

Of the elders. of the priests …..

(Jer 19:1). These were probably prominent members of the Sanhedrin, representatives of the whole people.

The valley of the son of Hinnom…

(Jer 19:2). Some scholars write this: Valley of Ben-hinnom, which means the same thing. It was located south of Jerusalem and was the location of the shrine of Molech, where the infants were burned as sacrifices to that god; after Josiah defiled the place, it was used for burning garbage and cremating the bodies of dead criminals.

The potter’s field was just a little southward, and it was there that Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Lord committed suicide.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Jeremiah was now commissioned to go forth into the valley of the son of Hinnon, taking with him a potter’s vessel. His message there was of judgment. Because the people had forsaken Jehovah, and had set up the most fearful abominations, even to the burning of their own sons in the fire, therefore judgment was determined against them.

This declaration of judgment Jeremiah was commanded to emphasize by breaking the vessel in the sight of the people, and declaring that in like manner Jehovah would break the people, and the city. Returning from Topheth, having obeyed this command, he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and repeated the declaration of coming judgment.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Widespread Corruption

Jer 5:1-6; Jer 19:1-15; Jer 20:1-18; Jer 21:1-14; Jer 22:1-30; Jer 23:1-40; Jer 24:1-10; Jer 25:1-38; Jer 26:1-24; Jer 27:1-22; Jer 28:1-17; Jer 29:1-32; Jer 30:1-24; Jer 31:1-40

Diogenes, the cynic, was discovered one day in Athens in broad daylight, lantern in hand, looking for something. When someone remonstrated with him, he said that he needed all the light possible to enable him to find an honest man. Something like that is in the prophets thought. God was prepared to spare Jerusalem on lower terms than even Sodom, and yet He was driven to destroy her. Both poor and rich had alike broken the yoke and burst the bonds. The description of the onset of the Chaldeans is very graphic. They settle down upon the land as a flock of locusts, but still the Chosen People refuse to connect their punishment with their sin. It never occurred to the Chosen People that the failure of the rain, the withering of their crops, and the assault of their foes, were all connected with their sin. There is nothing unusual in this obtuseness for as we read the history of our own times, men are equally inapt at connecting national disaster with national sin.

How good it would be if the national cry of today were that of Jer 5:24 : Let us now fear before the Lord our God! Notice the delightful metaphor of Jer 5:22. When God would stay the wild ocean wave a barrier of sand will suffice. The martyrs were as sand grains but wild persecutions were quenched by their heroic patience.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

In Jer 19:1 he is sent to get a potter’s earthen bottle, and is told to take elders of the people and of the priests with him as witnesses.

Going forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, the place where the refuse of the city was afterwards burned, but which at this time was still the theater of the performance of the abominable rites of Moloch-worship, he was to proclaim once more to the kings of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem both the guilt of the people and the judgment that was about to be meted out to them (Jer 19:2-5).

The Valley of Hinnom should soon be known as the Valley of Slaughter; for as they had slain their sons in that dreadful Tophet as offerings to Baal and Moloch, He would cause them to fall there by the sword of their enemies, and would give their unburied carcases to be meat for the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the field (Jer 19:6-9).

The bottle was then to be broken in the sight of the ancients, as he proclaimed the Lord’s message: “Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury” (Jer 19:11).

Such should be the end of their rejection of GOD for the idols of the heathen.

Returning from Tophet, or the valley of Hinnom, “he stood in the court of the Lord’s house, and said to all the people, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear My words” (Jer 19:14-15). He had warned, pleaded, and entreated, but their hearts had not relented. They must know the bitterness of the cup of His wrath.

~ end of chapter 9 ~

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

CHAPTER 19

The Broken Bottle

1. The broken bottle and the message (Jer 19:1-13)

2. The fate announced in the court of the Lords house (Jer 19:14-15)

Jer 19:1-13. He was to get a potters earthen bottle accompanied by elders and priests, and go to the valley of the son of Hinnom. There he should proclaim the words Jehovah would breathe into him. The message is another judgment message and needs no further comment. In Tophet, the valley of Hinnom, they had worked their abominations, burnt their sons with fire. Now it should become the valley of slaughter, so that their carcasses should be eaten by the fowls and wild beasts. He would cause them to eat the flesh of their loved ones. It was fulfilled during the siege of Jerusalem Lam 4:10. Then he broke the bottle as a sign that thus the people and the city should be broken.

Jer 19:14-15. When the prophet returned from the valley of Hinnom he took his place in the court of the LORDs house and declared the fate of the city.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

am 3397, bc 607

Go: Jer 19:10, Jer 19:11, Jer 18:2-4, Jer 32:14, Isa 30:14, *marg. Lam 4:2, 2Co 4:7

the ancients of the people: Jer 26:17, Num 11:16, 1Ch 24:4-6, Eze 8:11, Eze 8:12, Eze 9:6, Mat 26:3, Mat 27:1, Mat 27:41, Mat 27:42, Act 4:5, Act 4:6

Reciprocal: Jdg 7:19 – brake Isa 7:11 – a sign Isa 20:2 – Go Isa 30:29 – Ye shall Jer 13:1 – Go Jer 26:12 – The Lord Jer 27:2 – put Jer 43:9 – great Eze 4:1 – take Eze 12:3 – prepare Hos 12:10 – used

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jer 19:1. In various instances God has caused his inspired men to go through a performance that may be called acting.” The exact reason for it has not been told us, hut I have offered comments and given reference to various cases in 1Ki 20:35, Vol. 2 of this COMMENTARY. One of those instances of acting is in the present verse with others in the chapter. An earthenware bottle was chosen because when it is broken it cannot be repaired as might a vessel made of skins of animals. The ancients means the older persons among the people and the prophets. These were to represent the nation in the performance that was to he carried out in their sight.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Jer 19:1-2. Go and get a potters earthen bottle The meaning of this emblem is fully explained in the subsequent verses; and indeed the whole chapter requires little more comment than a reference to the passages in the margin. And take of the ancients of the people Or, take with thee some of the ancients, &c. By these, men of reputation and eminence are meant, probably such as were members of the Sanhedrim. And of the ancients of the priests The heads of the four and twenty courses: see 1Ch 24:4. Such were the most proper to be witnesses of those things which the prophet was about to say and do. And go unto the valley of the son of Hinnom A most noted valley, to the east of Jerusalem; which is by the entry of the east gate By which men entered into the temple; from whence they had a prospect of the valley of Hinnom, which lay south- east of the temple, Jos 15:8. The Hebrew is , the gate Harsith, which some interpret, the dung gate, mentioned Neh 2:13; others, the potters gate; the potters field being near the temple: see Zec 11:13.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jer 19:1. Take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests, that aged men might have weight in reforming the bloody worship of the idolaters.

Jer 19:2. The valley of the son of Hinnom. See Isa 30:33. The prophet stood in the very place where the infants were murdered, as in Jer 19:4, the seat of their idolatry.

Jer 19:9. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons. In ancient war, the citizens being soldiers, those who resisted the assailant, and refused his terms, were all put to the sword. The Romans often did this. In all such cases therefore, the defenders would hold out to the last extremity, as was foretold would be the case with the apostate Jews. Lev 26:29. Deu 28:53. And indeed it was so in Samaria, 2 Kings 6; and in Jerusalem, when they resisted the Chaldeans. Lam 4:10. It was the same also when they resisted the Romans, as is stated by Josephus, in his wars of the Jews: 7:8.

Jer 19:10. Then shalt thou break the bottle, with anathemas, that Jerusalem shalt be so broken up by the army of the Chaldeans and reduced to ashes, that it must entirely be rebuilt and made a new city. Perhaps he saw as it were through the flames, what the Romans also would do in the final visitation.

REFLECTIONS.

We here find Jeremiah in the character of a patient, laborious, and suffering minister: though he knew that many sought his life, yet nothing could deter him from his duty. He well knew that God would yet save a ruined nation, if they should repent. Oh how kind is the Lord to take so many methods to prevent the ruin of sinners.

It becomes the greatest of men to pay a deference to all divine messages. The princes, priests, and elders of Judah, though they hated Jeremiah, had yet such a sense of decency and regard to the message from God, that they followed him to Tophet. Thus should those who are most respectable for age, wealth and station, reverence the word of God, and attend upon his institutions. Their own salvation depends upon it; and their example will have great influence upon others. If superiors allow themselves to show any slight to divine ordinances, their inferiors will pay no regard; and thus the little religion which is left among us may soon be quite lost.

God will do all that he has declared, and bring about all the evil he has pronounced. His judgments will be found to be as dreadful as his word, whether men will believe it or not. They think him to be such a one as themselves; that he forgets what he has threatened, or will not fully execute it. But God is faithful, and cannot deny himself. Let us therefore never harden our hearts, but diligently hear and obey his word: so shall we escape the evil which shall come upon the obstinate, and stand before the Son of man.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jer 19:1 to Jer 20:6. The Earthenware Flask; Jeremiah in the Stocks.This section seems to be editorially grouped with the last because of the further reference to pottery; the original prophecy may have been expanded in Jer 19:3-9 by a later writer. It seems more natural to date these incidents after the Temple-sermon (Jer 19:7) rather than before it; in either case, in the early years of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah is to take representatives of Judah to the Valley of Hinnom (Jer 7:31), by the gate of potsherds (mg.; i.e. where these were thrown away), that he may warn them of the punishment about to come for their introduction of alien worship, their injustice, and their sacrifice of children by fire. A new name shall be given to the valley (Jer 7:32) to denote the coming slaughter, appalling (Jer 18:16) to behold. As a symbol of this destruction, the prophet is to break the flask he has bought; deaths shall be so numerous that burials will take place even in the defiled valley (2Ki 23:10) for want of room (Jer 19:11 mg.), and the city itself shall be defiled, because of its Babylonian cults (Jer 32:29). Jeremiah repeats his warning in the Temple (Jer 19:14 f.), with the result that the responsible officer put him in the stocks. To this official Jeremiah gives a symbolic name (Jer 20:3), denoting the terror of his fate and that of his friends at the hands of the Babylonians.

Jer 19:4. estranged this place: i.e. Jerusalem, by the worship of other gods.the blood of innocents: Jer 2:34, 2Ki 21:16; 2Ki 24:4.

Jer 19:5. Omit, with LXX, for burnt-offerings unto Baal, since these offerings were made to Molech, Jer 32:35, i.e. probably to Yahweh under this name; cf. Jer 7:31 and the note.

Jer 19:6. Topheth, see on Jer 7:31.

Jer 19:7. make void: playing on the Hebrew word for flask; cf. mg.

Jer 19:8. plagues: strokes or wounds.

Jer 19:9. cf. Deu 28:53. On the breaking of the flask, cf. Thomson, p. 641; for the significance of such symbolism, see the note on Jer 13:1.

Jer 19:13. The use of the Oriental roof is described in Thomson, p. 42.

Jer 20:2. See Jer 29:26, Act 16:24; a more modern parallel in Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, p. 197.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

The broken jar object lesson 19:1-20:6

This message to the people involved another symbolic act (cf. Jer 13:1-11). This incident may have occurred between 609 and 605 B.C.

"In ch. 18 God explains to Jeremiah that sovereign grace is able to take the marred vessel (Israel) and remake it a vessel of usefulness (Jer 19:4). But to the elders, in ch. 19, the prophet declares that their generation will be irreparably destroyed like a smashed fragile vessel, and the fragments taken to Babylon. That generation of the nation was not restored to the land (Jer 19:10-13)." [Note: The New Scofield Reference Bible, p. 789.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Yahweh told Jeremiah to take some of Judah’s elders and senior priests and to go and purchase a potter’s earthenware water-jar (Heb. baqbuq). The Hebrew word is onomatopoetic, suggesting the sound the water made as it poured out of the bottle. These jars, which archaeologists have found in abundance, range in size from four to 10 inches in height, and they have very slim necks. [Note: Feinberg, p. 495.] Perhaps these leaders were willing to accompany Jeremiah, even though he was very unpopular (cf. Jer 20:1-2; Jer 20:10; et al.), because they wanted to gather incriminating evidence against him.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER XII

THE BROKEN VESSEL – A SYMBOL OF JUDGMENT

Jer 19:1-15

THE result of his former address, founded upon the procedure of the potter, had only been to bring out into clearer distinctness the appalling extent of the national corruption. It was evident that Judah was incorrigible, and the Potters vessel must be broken in pieces by its Maker.

“Thus said Iahvah: Go and buy a bottle” (baqbuq, as if “a pour pour”; the meaning is alluded to in the first word of Jer 19:7 : ubaqqothi, ” and I will pour out”) “of a moulder of pottery” so the accents; but perhaps the Vulgate is right: “lagunculam figuli testeam,” “a potters earthen vessel,” A.V.; lit. a potters bottle, viz., earthenware), “and” (take: LXX rightly adds) “some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, and go out into the valley of ben Hinnom at the entry of the Pottery Gate” (a postern, where broken earthenware and rubbish were shot forth into the valley: the term is connected with that for “pottery,” Jer 19:1, which is the same as that in Job 2:8), “and cry there the words that I shall speak unto thee,”-Jeremiah does not pause here, to relate how he followed the Divine impulse, but goes on at once to communicate the tenor of the Divine “words”; a circumstance which points to the fact that this narrative was only written some time after the symbolical action which it records; “and say thou, Hear ye Iahvahs word, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Lo, I am about to bring an evil upon this place, such that, whoever heareth it, his ears shall tingle!” If we suppose, as seems likely, that this series of oracles (Jer 18:1-23; Jer 19:1-15; Jer 20:1-18) belongs to the reign of Jehoiachin, the expression “kings of Judah” may denote that king and the queen mother. Another view is that the kings of Judah in general are addressed “as an indefinite class of persons,” here and elsewhere, {Jer 17:20; Jer 22:4} because the prophet did not write the main portion of his book until after the siege of Jerusalem (Ewald). The announcement of this verse is quoted by the compiler of Kings in relation to the crimes of king Manasseh. {2Ki 21:12}

“Because that they forsook Me, and made this place strange”-alienated it from Iahvah by consecrating it to “strange gods”; or, as the Targum and Syriac, “polluted” it-“and burnt incense therein to other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew”; {Jer 16:13} “and the kings of Judah did fill this place with blood of innocents” (so the LXX “Nor the kings of Judah” gives a poor sense; they are included in the preceding phrase), “and built the bamoth Baal” (High places of Baal; a proper name), {Jos 13:17} “to burn their sons in the fire,” (“as burnt offerings to the Baal”; LXX omits, and it is wanting, Jer 7:31, Jer 32:35. It may be a gloss, but is probably genuine, as there are slight variations in each passage), “which I commanded not” (“nor spake”: LXX omits), “neither came it into My mind: therefore, behold days are coming, saith Iahvah, when this place will no more be called the Tophet and valley of ben Hinnom but the Valley of Slaughter!” (“and in Tophet shall they bury, so that there be”-remain-“no room to bury!” This clause, preserved at the end of Jer 19:11, but omitted there by the LXX, probably belongs here). “And I will pour out” {Isa 19:3} “the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place”-that is, I will empty the land of all wisdom and resourcefulness, as one empties a bottle of its water, so that the heads of the state shall be powerless to devise any effectual scheme of defence in the face of calamity {cf. Jer 13:13} -“and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies”, {Deu 28:25} “and by the hand of them that seek their life; and I will make their carcases food unto the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth” (Deu 28:26; Jer 7:33, Jer 16:4). “And I will set this city for an astonishment” {Deu 28:37} “and a hissing”; {Deu 18:16} “every one that passeth by her shall be astonished and hiss at all her strokes” {Jer 49:17; Jer 1:13} or “plagues.” {Deu 28:59} “And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each the flesh of his fellow shall they eat-in the stress and the straitness wherewith their enemies and they that seek their life shall straiten them.” It will be seen from the references that the Deuteronomic colouring of these closing threats (Jer 19:7-9) is very strong, the last verse being practically a quotation. {Deu 28:53} The effect of the whole oracle would thus be to suggest that the terrible sanctions of the sacred Law would not remain inoperative; but that the shameless violation of the solemn covenant under Josiah, by which the nation undertook to observe the code of Deuteronomy, would soon be visited with the retributive calamities so vividly foreshadowed in that book.

“And break thou the bottle, to the eyes of the men that go with thee, and say unto them: Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth; So will I break this people and this cry, as one breaketh the potters vessel so that it cannot be mended again! Thus will I do to this place, saith Iahvah, and to the inhabitants thereof, and make” (infin. constr), as in Jer 17:10, continuing the mood and person of the preceding verb; which is properly a function of the infin, absol., as in Jer 19:13) “this city like a Tophet”-make it one huge altar of human sacrifice, a burning place for thousands of human victims. “And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah”-the palace of David and Solomon, in which king after king had reigned, and “done the evil in Iahvahs eyes,”-“shall become like the place of the Tophet, the defiled ones! even all the houses upon the roofs of which they burnt incense unto all the host of heaven, and poured outpourings” (libations of wine and honey) “unto other gods.” (So the Hebrews punctuation, which seems to give a very good sense. The principal houses those of the kings and grandees, are called “the defiled,” because their roofs especially have been polluted with idolatrous rites. The last clause of the verse explains the epithet, which might have been referred to “the kings of Judah,” had it preceded “like the place of the Tophet.” The houses were not to become “defiled”; they were already so, past all cleansing; they were to be destroyed with fire, and in their destruction to become the Tophet or sacrificial pyre of their inhabitants. We need not, therefore, read “Tophteh,” after Isa 30:33, as I at first thought of doing, to find afterwards that Ewald had already suggested it. The term rendered “even all,” is lit. “unto all,” that is, “including all.” {cf. Eze 44:9}

The command “and break thou the bottle and say unto them” compared with that of Jer 19:2, “and cry there the words that I shall speak unto thee!” seems to indicate the proper point of view from which the whole piece is to be regarded. Jeremiah is recalling and describing a particular episode in his past ministry; and he includes the whole of it, with the attendant circumstances and all that he said, first to the elders in the vale of ben Hinnom, and then to the people assembled in the temple, under the comprehensive “Thus said Iahvah!” with which he begins his narrative. In other words, he affirms that he was throughout the entire occurrence guided by the impulses of the Spirit of God. It is very possible that the longer first address (Jer 19:2-9) really gives the substance of what he said to the people in the temple on his return from the valley, which is merely summarised in Jer 19:15.

“And Jeremiah came in”-into the temple “from the Tophet, whither Iahvah had sent him to prophesy, and took his stand in the court of Iahvahs House; and said unto all the people: Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth Israels God; Lo, I am about to bring upon” (Jer 19:3) “this city and upon all her cities” (“and upon her villages”: LXX adds) “all the evil that I have spoken concerning her; because they stiffened their neck,” {Jer 7:26} “not to hear My words!” In this apparent epitome of His discourse to the people in the temple, the prophet seems to sum up all his past labours, in view of an impending crisis. “All the evil” spoken hitherto concerning Jerusalem is upon the point of being accomplished. {cf. Jer 25:3}

In reviewing the entire oracle, we may note as in former instances, the care with which all the circumstances of the symbolical action are chosen, in order to enhance the effect of it upon the minds of the witnesses. The Oriental mind delights in everything that partakes of the nature of an enigma; it loves to be called upon to unravel the meaning of dark sentences, and to disentangle the wisdom wrapped up in riddling words and significant actions. It would have found eloquence in Tarquins unspoken answer to his sons messenger. “Rex velut deliberabundus in hortum aedium transit, sequente nuncio filii: ibi inambulans tacitus summa papaverum capita dicitur baculo decussisse” (Liv. 1:54). No doubt Jeremiahs companions would watch his every step, and would not miss the fact that he carried his earthenware vessel out of the city by the “Sherd Gate.” Here was a vessel yet whole, treated as though it were already a shattered heap of fragments! They would be prepared for the oracle in the valley.

It is worth while, by the way, to notice who those companions were. They were certain of “the elders of the people” and of “the elders of the priests.” Jeremiah, it seems, was no wild revolutionary dreamer and schemer, whose hand and voice were against all established authority in Church and State. This was not the character of the Hebrew prophets in general, though some writers have conceived thus of them. There is no evidence that Jeremiah ever sought to divest himself of the duties and privileges of his hereditary priesthood; or that he looked upon the monarchy and the priestly guilds and the entire social organisation of Israel, as other than institutions divinely originated and divinely preserved through all the ages of the national history. He did not believe that man created these institutions, though experience taught him that man might abuse and pervert them from their lawful uses. His aim was always to reform, to restore, to lead the people back to “the old paths” of primitive simplicity and rectitude; not to abolish hereditary institutions, and substitute for the order which had become an integral part of the national life, some brand new constitution which had never been tried, and would be no more likely to fit the body corporate than the armour of Saul fitted the free limbs of the young shepherd who was to slay Goliath.

The prophets never called for the abolition of those laws and customs, civil and ecclesiastical, which were the very framework of the state, and the pillars of the social edifice. They did not cry, “Down with kings and priests!” but to both kings and priests they cried, “Hear ye Iahvahs word!” And all experience proves that they were right. Paper constitutions have never yet redeemed a nation from its vices, nor delivered a community from the impotence and the decay which are the inevitable fruits of moral corruption. Arbitrary legislative changes will not alter the inward condition of a people; covetousness and hypocrisy, pride and selfishness, intemperance and uncleanness and cruelty, may be as rampant in a commonwealth as in a kingdom.

The contents of the oracle are much what we have had many times already. The chief difference lies in a calm definiteness of assurance, a tone of distinct certitude, as though the end were so near at hand as to leave no room for doubt or hesitation. And this difference is fittingly and impressively suggested by the particular symbol chosen-the shattering of an earthenware vessel, beyond the possibility of repair. The direct mention of the king of Babylon and the Babylonian captivity, in the sequel (chapter 20), points to the presence of a Babylonian invasion, probably that which ended with the exile of Jeconiah and the chief citizens of Jerusalem.

The fatal sin, from which the oracle starts and to which it returns, is forsaking Iahvah, and making the city of His choice “strange” to Him, that is, hateful and unclean, by contact with foreign and bloody superstitions, which were even falsely declared by their promoters to be pleasing to Iahvah, the Avenger of innocent blood! {Jer 7:31} The punishment corresponds to the offence. The sacrifices of blood will be requited with blood, shed in torrents on the very spot which had been so foully polluted; they who had not scrupled to slay their children for the sacrifice, were to slay them again for food under the stress of siege and famine; the city and its houses, defiled with the foreign worships, will become one vast Molech fire, {Jer 32:35} in which all will perish together.

It may strike a modern reader that there is something repulsive and cold blooded in this detailed enumeration of appalling horrors. But not only is it the case that Jeremiah is quoting from the Book of the Law, at a time when, to an unprejudiced eye, there was every likelihood that the course of events would verify his dark forebodings; in the dreadful experience of those times such incidents as those mentioned (Jer 19:9) were familiar occurrences in the obstinate defence and protracted sufferings of beleaguered cities. The prophet, therefore, simply affirms that obstinate persistence in following their own counsels and rejecting the higher guidance will bring upon the nation its irretrievable ruin. We know that in the last siege he did his utmost to prevent the occurrence of these unnatural horrors by urging surrender; but then, as always, the people “stiffened their neck, not to hear Iahvahs words.”

Jeremiah knew his countrymen well. No phrase could have better described the resolute obstinacy of the national character. How were the headstrong, self-will, the inveterate sensuality, the blind tenacity of fanatical and non-moral conceptions which characterised this people, to be purified and made serviceable in the interests of true religion, except by means of the fiery ordeal which all the prophets foresaw and foretold? As we have seen, polytheism exercised upon the popular mind a spell which we can hardly comprehend from our modern point of view; a polytheism foul and murderous, which violated the tenderest affections of our nature by demanding of the father the sacrifice of his child, and violated the very instinct of natural purity by the shameless indulgence of its worship. It was a consecration of lust and cruelty, -that worship of Molech, those rites of the Baals and Asheras. Meagre and monotonous as the sacred records may on these heads appear to be, their witness is supplemented by other sources, by the monuments of Babylon and Phoenicia.

It is hard to see how the religious instinct of men in this peculiar stage of belief and practice was to be enlightened and purified in any other way than the actual course of Providence. What arguments can be imagined that would have appealed to minds which found a fatal fascination, nay, we must suppose an intense satisfaction, in rites so hideous that one durst not even describe them; minds to which the lofty monotheism of Amos, the splendid eloquence of an Isaiah, the plaintive lyrical strain of a Jeremiah, appealed in vain? Appeals to the order of the world, to the wonders of organic life, were lost upon minds which made gods of the most obvious subjects of that order, the sun, moon, and stars; which even personified and adored the physical principle whereby the succession of life after life is perpetuated.

Nothing short of the perception “that the word of the prophets had come to pass,” the recognition, therefore, that the prophetic idea of God was the true idea, could have succeeded in keeping the remnant of Judah safe from the contagion of surrounding heathenism in the land of their exile, and in radically transforming once for all the religious tendencies of the Jewish race.

In Jeremiahs view, the heinousness of Judahs idolatry is heightened by the consideration that the gods of their choice are gods “whom neither they nor their fathers knew” (Jer 19:4). The kings Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, had introduced novel rites, and departed from “the old paths” more decidedly than any of their predecessors. In this connection, we may remember that, while modern Romish controversialists do not scruple to accuse the Church of this country with having unlawfully innovated at the Reformation, the Anglican appeal has always been to Scripture and primitive antiquity. Such, too, was the appeal of the prophets. {Hos 6:1; Hos 6:7; Hos 11:1; Jer 2:2; Jer 6:16; Jer 11:3} It is the glory of our Church, aglory of which neither the lies of Jesuits nor the envy of the sectaries can rob her, that she returned to “the old paths,” boldly overleaping the dark ages of mediaeval ignorance, imposture, and corruption, and planting her foot firmly on the rock of apostolic practice and the consent of the undivided Church.

Disunion among Christians is a sore evil, but union in the maintenance and propaganda of falsehood is a worse; and the guilt of disunion lies at the door of that system which abused its authority to crush out legitimate freedom of thought, to retard the advancement of learning, and to establish those monstrous innovations in doctrine and worship, which subtle dialecticians may prove to their own satisfaction to be innocent and non-idolatrous in essence and intention, though all the world can see that in practice they are grossly idolatrous. God preserve England from that toleration of serious error, which is so easy to sceptical indifference! God preserve her from lending an ear to the siren voices that would seduce her to yield her hard won independence, her noble freedom, her manly rational piety, to the unhistorical and unscriptural claims of the Papacy!

If we reverence those Scriptures of the Old Testament to which our Lord and His Apostles made their constant appeal, we shall keep steadily before our minds the fact that, in the estimation of a prophet like Jeremiah, the sin of sins, the sin that involved the ruin of Israel and Judah, was the sin of associating other objects of worship with the One Only God. The temptation is peculiarly strong to some natures. The continual relapse of ancient Israel is not so great a wonder to those of us who have any knowledge of mankind, and who can observe what is passing around them at the present day. It is the severe demand of Gods holy law, which makes men cast about for some plausible compromise-it is that demand which also makes them yearn after some intermediary power, whose compassion will be less subject to considerations of justice, whom prayers and entreaties and presents may overcome, and induce to wink at unrepented sin. In an age of unsettlement, the more daring spirits will be prone to silence their inconvenient scruples by rushing into atheism, while the more timid may take refuge in Popery. “For to disown a Moral Governour, or to admit that any observances of superstition can release men from the duty of obeying Him, equally serves the purpose of those, who resolve to be as wicked as they dare, or as little virtuous as they can” (Bp. Hurd).

Then too there is the glory of the saints and angels of God. How can frail man refuse to bow before the vision of their power and splendour, as they stand, the royal children of the King of kings, around the heavenly throne, deathless, radiant with love and joy and purity, exalted far above all human weakness and human sorrows? If the holy angels are “ministering spirits,” why not the entire community of the Blessed? And what is to hinder us from casting ourselves at the feet of saint or angel, ones own appointed guardian, or chosen helper? Let good George Herbert answer for us all.

Oh glorious spirits, who after all your bands

See the smooth face of God, without a frown,

Or strict commands

Where every one is king, and hath his crown,

If not upon his head, yet in his hands:

Not out of envy or maliciousness

Do I forbear to crave your special aid.

I would address

My vows to thee most gladly, blessed Maid,

And Mother of my God, in my distress:

But now, (alas!) I dare not; for our King,

Whom we do all jointly adore and praise,

Bids no such thing:

And where His pleasure no injunction lays,

(Tis your own case) ye never move a wing.

“All worship is prerogative, and a flower

Of His rich crown, from whom lies no appeal

At the last hour:

Therefore we dare not from His garland steal,

To make a posy for inferior power.”

In this sense also, as in many others, the warning of St. John applies:

LITTLE CHILDREN, KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS!

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary