The Broken Flask
Jer 19:1 This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests
Jer 19:2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you,
Jer 19:3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.
Jer 19:4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
Jer 19:5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.
Jer 19:6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
Jer 19:7 “‘In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals.
Jer 19:8 I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds.
Jer 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’
Jer 19:10 “Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching,
Jer 19:11 and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.
Jer 19:12 This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.
Jer 19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.'”
Jer 19:14 Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the LORD’s temple and said to all the people,
Jer 19:15 “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.'”
Under the type of breaking a potter’s vessel is foreshowed the desolation of the Jews for their sins.
The Broken Flask
Jer 19:1 This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests
Since there are many points of similarity between this chapter and ch. 7, many commentators have assumed that the two discourses Jeremiah here delivers belong to the early part of Jehoiakim’s reign. The close connection between the events of this chapter and those of chs. 25, 20, and 36 respectively, indicates that the events of ch. 19 likely occurred during the fourth year of Jehoiakim, probably 605/04 b.c. (see PK 432).
Jer 19:2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you,
See further on 2 Kings 23:10; Matt. 5:22.
The Potsherd Gate,” probably so called because it led into the place where the broken pieces of pottery were cast. If so, the whole setting here furnished Jeremiah with a graphic illustration of what was about to happen to the Jews because of their apostasy.
Jer 19:3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.
O kings of Judah. It may be that the plural is employed to include both Jehoiakim, who was then reigning, and his successor, Jehoiachin.
Ears tingle. This expression was first used in the OT in a prophecy foretelling the doom of the earlier sanctuary at Shiloh (1 Sam. 3:11; see Ps. 78:60), and it is introduced again here to show the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (see Jer. 7:14; cf. 2 Kings 21:12–15).
Jer 19:4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
A reference to the cruel sacrifices of children to the god Molech (see on ch. 7:31).
Jer 19:5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my min
He had forbidden them under the most severe penalties (see Lev. 18:21; 20:1–5; Deut. 12:31; 18:9, 10; Jer. 7:31).
Jer 19:6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
Tophet. This place connected, as this verse shows, with the “valley of the son of Hinnom” (see v. 2), where in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah children were made to “pass through the fire to Molech” as sacrifices (2 Kings 23:10; see on Jer. 7:31).
In righteous retribution for Judah’s cruel, idolatrous worship this infamous place would be turned into a place of “slaughter” when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians (see 2 Kings 25:1–9).
Jer 19:7 “‘In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals.
Jer 19:8 I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds.
Jer 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’
Josephus records one instance where a mother ate her own child because of the terrible famine in Jerusalem during the siege of Titus in a.d. 70 (Wars vi. 3. 4).
Jer 19:10 “Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching,
Jer 19:11 and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.
That cannot be repaired.
The Lord had repeatedly warned His people that He was bringing evil upon them for all their sins (chs. 4:6, 7; 18:11; etc.).
By a striking enactment the prophet was now to impress this truth upon their minds. The breaking of the vessel dramatically illustrated what the effects of the Babylonian invasion would be. However, the threat was conditional. It was not yet too late to avert the doom upon the city and the nation. God had declared:
“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” (ch. 18:7, 8).
The words, “that cannot be made whole again,” were not intended to imply that God had withdrawn His promises of a return and a reinstatement in the Promised Land following the Babylonian captivity (see p. 31). These promises were subsequently repeated (Jer. 29:10; 30:3; etc.). They were in no wise contradicted by this present prophecy.
Not until the Jews rejected Christ were they finally cast off from being God’s people (Matt. 21:33–43).
Jer 19:12 This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.
The contempt suggested by the name Topheth would be cast upon the whole city of Jerusalem (see on ch. 7:31).
Jer 19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.'”
The flat roofs of ancient houses were convenient places for the worship of the heavenly bodies (see Jer. 32:29; Zeph. 1:5).
Jer 19:14 Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the LORD’s temple and said to all the people,
Jer 19:15 “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.'” Jeremiah’s discourse to the people was repeated what he had given to the leaders in the Valley of Hinnom, so this verse contains only a summary of the message.