Chapter 19

Under the type of breaking a potter’s vessel is foreshewed the desolation of the Jews for their sins.

1. Thus saith the Lord. 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).

Go and get. Literally, “Go and buy.”

Ancients. Literally, “elders,” that is, the senior representatives of both civil and ecclesiastical leaders.

2. The valley. The Valley of Hinnom was located south of Jerusalem (see maps, Jerusalem in Israelite Times, Jerusalem Region; see on ch. 7:31). The RSV “Benhinnom” is an English transliteration of the Heb. benРhinnom, “the son of Hinnom.” The valley may have derived its name from its first owner, or from someone who camped there. See further on 2 Kings 23:10; Matt. 5:22.

East gate. Rather, “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.

3. O kings of Judah. It may be that the plural is employed to include both Jehoiakim, who was then reigning, and his successor, Jehoiachin.

His ears shall 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).

4. Estranged this place. Literally, “made this place unrecognizable,” or “made this place strange”; that is, they had turned it from the Lord to a strange god (see 2 Kings 21:1–5, 10–12; 2 Chron. 33:1–7).

Blood of innocents. Evidently a reference to the cruel sacrifices of children to the god Molech (see on ch. 7:31).

5. The high places of Baal. See ch. 2:23.

Burn their sons with fire. See on ch. 7:31.

I commanded not. A figure of speech where emphasis is made by an understatement of the true situation. Not only had God not commanded these practices; 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).

6. 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).

The valley of slaughter. 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).

7. I will make void. Literally, “I will lay waste.”

Meat for the fowls. See Jer. 7:33; 16:4; 34:20; Rev. 19:17, 18.

8. Desolate, and an hissing. See on ch. 18:16.

Plagues. Literally, “smittings,” that is, the wounds and the slaughter that the invading Babylonians would bring upon the land.

9. Cause them to eat. See Deut. 28:49–57; Lam. 2:20. 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).

11. That cannot be made whole. 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). On the relationship of the present return of the Jews to ancient prophecy see p. 33.

Bury them in Tophet. See on on v. 6. Their burial in Tophet expresses, as it were, the fiery judgment on God that would come upon the apostates because of their iniquity.

There be no place. See on ch. 7:32.

12. Make this city as Tophet. A graphic comparison of the ruin and destruction of the city with the Valley of Hinnom (see on v. 2). The contempt suggested by the name Tophet would be cast upon the whole city of Jerusalem (see on ch. 7:31).

13. Upon whose roofs. The flat roofs of ancient houses were convenient places for the worship of the heavenly bodies (see Jer. 32:29; Zeph. 1:5).

Host of heaven. The sun, moon, and stars (see ch. 8:2).

14. Lord’s house. From the Valley of Hinnom, where he had acted out his message to the leaders of the people (see vs. 1, 2), the prophet now proceeded to the Temple to announce to the people as a whole the coming divine judgment.

15. Thus saith the Lord. Evidently Jeremiah’s discourse to the people repeated what he had given to the leaders in the Valley of Hinnom, so this verse contains only a brief summary of the message.

Ellen G. White comments

1, 2, 10, 11, 14         PK 431

15        PK 432