Jeremiah 19
The Broken Jar
Jeremiah His Calling and Message1
Thus said The LORD, "Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;
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and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you.
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Say, 'Hear The LORD's word, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says, "Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.
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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 speak, which didn't even enter into my mind:
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therefore, behold, the days come," says The LORD, "that this place will no more be called 'Topheth', nor 'The Valley of the son of Hinnom', but 'The valley of Slaughter'.
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I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.
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I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them."'
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"Then you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you,
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and shall tell them, 'The LORD of Armies says: "Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that can't be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.
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Thus will I do to this place," says The LORD, "and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth.
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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 army of the sky, and have poured out drink offerings to other gods."'"
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"The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, '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.'"
Jer 19:1-15. THE DESOLATION OF THE JEWS FOR THEIR SINS FORETOLD IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM; THE SYMBOL OF BREAKING A BOTTLE.
Referred by MAURER, &c., to the beginning of Zedekiah's reign.
1. bottle--Hebrew, bakuk, so called from the gurgling sound which it makes when being emptied.
ancients--elders. As witnesses of the symbolic action (Jer 19:10; Isa 8:1, 2), that the Jews might not afterwards plead ignorance of the prophecy. The seventy-two elders, composing the Sanhedrim, or Great Council, were taken partly from "the priests," partly from the other tribes, that is, "the people," the former presiding over spiritual matters, the latter over civil; the seventy-two represented the whole people.