Jeremiah 19:1-9

III. THE BROKEN VESSEL Jeremiah 19:1 to Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 19:1-9). He dramatically illustrated his message by smashing a clay vessel before them (Jeremiah 19:10-13). Returning to the Temple Jeremiah attempted to deliver the same message but was arrested (Jeremiah 19:14 to Jeremiah 20:6).

A. The Message to the Elders Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 19:3). The figure of tingling ears is used in connection with threats of severe judgment (1 Samuel 3:11; 2 Kings 21:12) and probably represents the emotions of astonishment and fear. The word kings here, as in Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 19:5 makes it clear that children had been offered to Baal as burnt offerings (cf. Jeremiah 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 Solomon's Temple.

Jeremiah announces the judgment which is about to fall on Judah in language which he had used on a previous occasion (cf. Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 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 (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53). At least one example of such cannibalism is recorded earlier during the siege of Samaria by Benhadad (2 Kings 6:28 ff.). This terrible picture of parents eating their own flesh and blood also appears in the writings of Jeremiah's great contemporary Ezekiel (Ezekiel 5:10). The Book of Lamentations records the horrible fulfillment (Lamentations 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.