Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Jeremiah 19:1

Clarke's Commentary

CHAPTER XIX

By the significant type of breaking a potter's vessel, Jeremiah

is directed to predict the utter desolation of Judah and

Jerusalem, 1-15.

The prophets taught frequently by symbolic actions as well as

by words.

NOTES ON CHAP. XIX

Verse Jeremiah 19:1. Go and get a potter's earthen bottle — This discourse was also delivered some time in the reign of Jehoiakim. Under the type of breaking a potter's earthen bottle or jug, Jeremiah shows his enemies that the word of the Lord should stand, that Jerusalem should be taken and sacked, and they all carried into captivity.

Ancients of the priests — The chiefs of the twenty-four classes which David had established. See 1 Chronicles 24:4.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The broken pot (19:1-20:6)

In another acted parable Jeremiah, carrying an earthenware pot in his hand, took the leaders of Jerusalem to a place outside the city walls where old pottery was dumped. This was in the valley where the Judeans once sacrificed their children to Molech and carried out other pagan rites (19:1-2; see 7:30-34 and section, ‘Tophet and the Valley of Hinnom’).
Through their leaders, the people of Judah are told that in this valley, where they have killed their children, they themselves will be killed. The place had been named the Valley of Hinnom, but the prophet announces that in the future it will be called the Valley of Slaughter (3-6). When the Babylonians finally destroy Jerusalem, many Judeans will be slaughtered in this valley, while those who remain in the besieged city will be so near to starvation that they will eat their own children (7-9).
Jeremiah then smashed the pot, to symbolize God’s coming judgment on Jerusalem. The city will be smashed, destroyed. Tophet, which is already unclean through its association with idolatry, will become a dump for corpses. The defilement of Tophet will be the measure of Jerusalem’s defilement (10-13).
Having made his announcement at the site of the coming slaughter, Jeremiah returned to the temple, where he repeated the announcement of judgment (14-15). Pashhur, the chief officer of the temple, furious at Jeremiah’s words, arrested him, flogged him and imprisoned him for the night (20:1-2). But Jeremiah would not be silenced. He boldly announced that Pashhur himself would see the people slaughtered and the city plundered and destroyed. After that, Pashhur would be taken off to humiliating captivity in Babylon, where he would die (3-6).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"Thus saith 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 there proclaim 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 (2 Kings 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."Scribner's Bible Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898), p. 426.

"Of the elders… of the priests" "These were probably prominent members of the Sanhedrin, representatives of the whole people."Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary, p. 535.

"The valley of the son of Hinnom" 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.R. K. Harrison, Jeremiah in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, p. 111.

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

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Get (i. e., purchase) a potter’s earthen bottle - The “bottle” was a flask with a long neck, and took its name from the noise made by liquids in running out.

The ancients - These “elders” were the regularly constituted representatives of the people (see Jeremiah 29:1; Numbers 11:16), and the organization lasted down to our Saviour’s time Matthew 26:47. Similarly the priests had also their representatives 2 Kings 19:2. Accompanied thus by the representatives of Church and State, the prophet was to carry the earthen bottle, the symbol of their mean origin and frail existence, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

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.” (Genesis 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, (Isaiah 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

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 19

Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 19:11-15 ).

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

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

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. Jeremiah 20:1-2; Jeremiah 20:10; et al.), because they wanted to gather incriminating evidence against him.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Thus saith the Lord, go and get a potter's earthen bottle,.... From the potter's house, where he had lately been; and where he had been shown, in an emblematic way, what God would do in a short time with the Jews; and which is here further illustrated by this emblem: or, "go and get", or "buy, a bottle of the potter, an earthen one" k; so Kimchi; called in Hebrew "bakbuk", from the gurgling of the liquor poured into it, or out of it, or drank out of it, which makes a sound like this word l:

and [take] of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; the word "take" is rightly supplied by our translators, as it is by the Targum, the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions; for these words are not to be connected with the former, as in the Vulgate Latin version; as if the prophet was to get or buy the earthen bottle of the elders of the people, and of the priests; but those who were the greatest and principal men of the city, and of which the Jewish sanhedrim consisted, were to be taken by the prophet to be witnesses of what were said and done, to see the bottle broke, and hear what Jeremiah from the Lord had to say; who, from their years, it might be reasonably thought, would seriously attend to those things, and would report them to the people to great advantage; and the Lord, who sent the prophet to them, no doubt inclined their hearts to go along with him; who, otherwise, in all probability, would have refused; and perhaps would have charged him with impertinence and boldness, and would have rejected his motion with contempt, as foolish or mad.

k וקנית בקבק יוצר חרש "emas, [vel] emito oenophorum a figulo testaceum", Munster, Tigurine version. So Kimchi and Ben Melech. l Vid. Stockium, p. 150.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      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;   2 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,   3 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.   4 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;   5 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:   6 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.   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.   8 And I will make this city desolate, and a hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.   9 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.

      The corruption of man having made it necessary that precept should be upon precept, and line upon line (so unapt are we to receive, and so very apt to let slip, the things of God), the grace of God has provided that there shall be, accordingly, precept upon precept, and line upon line, that those who are irreclaimable may be inexcusable. For this reason the prophet is here sent with a message to the same purport with what he had often delivered, but with some circumstances that might make it the more taken notice of, a thing which ministers should study, for a little circumstance may sometimes be a great advantage, and those that would win souls must be wise.

      I. He must take of the elders and chief men, both in church and state, to be his auditors and witnesses to what he said--the ancients of the people and the ancients of the priests, the most eminent men both in the magistracy and in the ministry, that they might be faithful witnesses to record, as those Isaiah 8:2. It is strange that these great men should be at the beck of a poor prophet, and obey his summons to attend him out of the city, they know not whither and they knew not why. But, though the generality of the elders were disaffected to him, yet it is likely that there were some few among them who looked upon him as a prophet of the Lord, and would pay this respect to the heavenly vision. Note, Persons of rank and figure have an opportunity of honouring God, by a diligent attendance on the ministry of the word and other divine institutions; and they ought to think it an honour, and no disparagement to themselves, yea, though the circumstances be mean and despicable. It is certain that the greatest of men is less than the least of the ordinances of God.

      II. He must go to the valley of the son of Hinnom, and deliver this message there; for the word of the Lord is not bound to any one place; as good a sermon may be preached in the valley of Tophet as in the gate of the temple. Christ preached on a mountain and out of a ship. This valley lay partly on the south side of Jerusalem, but the prophet's way to it was by the entry on the east gate--the sun gate (Jeremiah 19:2; Jeremiah 19:2), so some render it, and suppose it to look not towards the sun-rising, but the noon sun--the potter's gate, so some. This sermon must be preached in that place, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, 1. Because there they had been guilty of the vilest of their idolatries, the sacrificing of their children to Moloch, a horrid piece of impiety, which the sight of the place might serve to remind them of and upbraid them with. 2. Because there they should feel the sorest of their calamities; there the greatest slaughter should be made among them; and, it being the common sink of the city, let them look upon it and see what a miserable spectacle this magnificent city would be when it should be all like the valley of Tophet. God bids him go thither, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee, when thou comest thither; whereby it appears (as Mr. Gataker well observed) that God's messages were frequently not revealed to the prophets before the very instant of time wherein they were to deliver them.

      III. He must give general notice of a general ruin now shortly coming upon Judah and Jerusalem, Jeremiah 19:3; Jeremiah 19:3. He must, as those that make proclamation, begin with an Oyes: Hear you the word of the Lord, though it be a terrible word, for you may thank yourselves if it be so. Both rulers and ruled must attend to it, at their peril; the kings of Judah, the king and his sons, the king and his princes and privy-counsellors, must hear the word of the King of kings, for, high as they are, he is above them. The inhabitants of Jerusalem also must hear what God has to say to them. Both princes and people have contributed to the national guilt and must concur in the national repentance, or they will both share in the national ruin. Let them all know that the Lord of hosts, who is therefore able to do what he threatens, though he is the God of Israel, nay, because he is so, will therefore punish them in the first place for their iniquities (Amos 3:2): He will bring evil upon this place (upon Judah and Jerusalem) so surprising, and so dreadful, that whosoever hears it, his ears shall tingle; whosoever hears the prediction of it, hears the report and representation of it, it shall make such an impression of terror upon him that he shall still think he hears it sounding in his ears and shall not be able to get it out of his mind. The ruin of Eli's house is thus described (1 Samuel 3:11), and of Jerusalem, 2 Kings 21:12.

      IV. He must plainly tell them what their sins were for which God had this controversy with them, Jeremiah 19:4; Jeremiah 19:5. They are charged with apostasy from God (They have forsaken me) and abuse of the privileges of the visible church, and which they had been dignified--They have estranged this place. Jerusalem (the holy city), the temple (the holy house), which was designed for the honour of God and the support of his kingdom among men, they had alienated from those purposes, and (as some render the word) they had strangely abused. They had so polluted both with their wickedness that God had disowned both, and abandoned them to ruin. He charges them with an affection for and the adoration of false gods, such as neither they nor their fathers have known, such as never had recommended themselves to their belief and esteem by any acts of power or goodness done for them or their ancestors, as that God had abundantly done whom they forsook; yet they took them at a venture for their gods; nay, being fond of change and novelty, they liked them the better for their being upstarts, and new fashions in religion were as grateful to their fancies as in other things. They also stand charged with murder, wilful murder, from malice prepense: They have filled this place with the blood of innocents. It was Manasseh's sin (2 Kings 24:4), which the Lord would not pardon. Nay, as if idolatry and murder, committed separately, were not bad enough and affront enough to God and man, they have put them together, have consolidated them into one complicated crime, that of burning their children in the fire to Baal (Jeremiah 19:5; Jeremiah 19:5), which was the most insolent defiance to all the laws both of natural and revealed religion that ever mankind was guilty of; and by it they openly declared that they loved their new gods better than ever they loved the true God, though they were such cruel task-masters that they required human sacrifices (inhuman I should call them), which the Lord Jehovah, whose all lives and souls are, never demanded from his worshippers; he never spoke of such a thing, nor came it into his mind. See Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 7:31.

      V. He must endeavour to affect them with the greatness of the desolation that was coming upon them. He must tell them (as he had done before, Jeremiah 7:32; Jeremiah 7:32) that this valley of the son of Hinnom shall acquire a new name, the valley of slaughter (Jeremiah 19:6; Jeremiah 19:6), for (Jeremiah 19:7; Jeremiah 19:7) multitudes shall fall there by the sword, when either they sally out upon the besiegers and are repulsed or attempt to make their escape and are seized: They shall fall before their enemies, who not only endeavour to make themselves masters of their houses and estates, but have such an implacable enmity to them that they seek their lives; they thirst after their blood, and, when they are dead, will not allow a cartel for the burying of the slain, but their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven and beasts of the earth. What a dismal place will the valley of Tophet be then! And as for those that remain within the city, and will not capitulate with the besiegers, they shall perish for want of food, when first they have eaten the flesh of their sons and daughters, and dearest friends, through the straitness wherewith their enemies shall straiten them,Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 19:9. This was threatened in the law as an instance of the extremity to which the judgments of God should reduce them (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53) and was accomplished, Lamentations 4:10. And, lastly, the whole city shall be desolate, the houses laid in ashes, the inhabitants slain or taken prisoners; there shall be no resort to it, nor any thing in it but what looks rueful and horrid; so that every one that passes by shall be astonished (Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 19:8), as he had said before, Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 18:16. That place which holiness had made the joy of the whole earth sin had made the reproach and shame of the whole earth.

      VI. He must assure them that all their attempts to prevent and avoid this ruin, so long as they continued impenitent and unreformed, would be fruitless and vain (Jeremiah 19:7; Jeremiah 19:7): I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem (of the princes and senators of Judah and Jerusalem) in this place, in the royal palace, which lay on the south side of the city, not far from the place where the prophet now stood. Note, There is no fleeing from God's justice but by fleeing to his mercy. Those that will not make good God's counsel, by humbling themselves under his mighty hand, shall find that God will make void their counsel and blast their projects, which they think ever so well concerted for their own preservation. There is no counsel or strength against the Lord.