1 Thus said Yahweh, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and (take) of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests; 2 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; 3 and say, Hear the word of Yahweh, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears shall tingle. 4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods, that they didn't know, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, 5 and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal; which I didn't command, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind: 6 therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter. 7 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 hand of those who seek their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. 8 I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. 9 I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them. 10 Then you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you, 11 and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that can't be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury. 12 Thus will I do to this place, says Yahweh, and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth: 13 and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky, and have poured out drink offerings to other gods. 14 Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of Yahweh's house, and said to all the people: 15 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, 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.
The present prophecy Jeremiah. 19-20 is to be taken in close connection with the preceding. Jeremiah chooses a vessel baked in the fire, and therefore incapable of being re-shaped (compare Jeremiah 18:1, note; Jeremiah 18:6, note). It is the symbol of the obdurate, of those who have taken their final form Revelation 22:11. In solemn procession he must bear the vessel out to the place of doom, the valley of Gehenna. There he was to break the vessel; and just as all the art of the potter would be of no avail to restore the broken fragments, so did God proclaim the final destruction of Jerusalem such as it then was, and of that generation which inhabited it.
By the significant type of breaking a potter's vessel, Jeremiah is directed to predict the utter desolation of Judah and Jerusalem, Jeremiah 19:1-15. The prophets taught frequently by symbolic actions as well as by words.
INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 19
In this chapter is foreshadowed, represented, and confirmed, the destruction of Jerusalem, by the breaking of a potter's vessel the prophet had in his hand; and by the place where he was bid to do this, and did it. The order for it, and the witnesses of it, and the place where it was done, are declared in Jeremiah 19:1; the proclamation there of Jerusalem's ruin is made, Jeremiah 19:3; the cause of it, their apostasy, idolatry, and shedding of innocent blood, Jeremiah 19:4; the great slaughter of them by the sword and famine, Jeremiah 19:6; and how easy, and irresistible, and irrecoverable, their destruction would be, are signified by the breaking of the bottle, Jeremiah 19:10, when Jerusalem for its idolatry would become as defiled a place as Tophet, where the prophet was, Jeremiah 19:12; from whence he came to the temple, and there repeated the proclamation of the evil that should come upon that city, and all the towns around it, Jeremiah 19:14.
By the type of breaking an earthen vessel, Jeremiah is to predict the destruction of Judah.
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