Chapter 19
Analogy of the broken pot
Lecture 1
Warnings at the clay gate
19:1 Thus says the Lord : go and take a potter’s earthen vessel from the elders of the people and from the elders of the priests,
19:2 And go out to the valley of the sons of Hinnom, which is near the entrance of the clay gate: and you shall preach there the words which I shall speak to you.
19:3 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 will bring an affliction against this place, such that the ears of all who hear of it may tingle.
19:4 Because they have abandoned me, and profaned this place, and sacrificed in it to strange gods, whom they did not know, they or their fathers, or the kings of Judah; and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
19:5 They have built the high places of the Baalim, to burn their sons with fire as a holocaust to the Baalim, which thing I have not commanded, nor spoken, nor has it come up in my heart.
19:6 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord , when this place shall no longer be called Tophet, and the valley of the sons of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.
19:7 And I will destroy the counsel of Judah and of Jerusalem in this place, and I shall overthrow them with the sword in the sight of their enemies, and in the hand of those that seek their lives; and I will give their bodies as food to the birds of the sky.
19:8 And I shall make this city an astonishment and a hissing; all who pass by her will be astonished and will hiss because of all her plagues.
19:9 And I shall feed them with the flesh of their sons and with the flesh of their daughters; and each one will eat the flesh of his friend in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their lives, shall shut them up.
107 . Here, the full punishment is threatened.
First, he gives the place of the preaching: to the valley of the sons of Hinnom, which is near the entrance of the clay gate , where the potters lived, and you shall preach there the words which I shall speak to you . And you shall hear a word from my mouth, and you shall announce it to them from me (Ezek 3:17).
Second, he notes the content of the preaching:
first, in the place appointed by God beforehand;
second, in the temple, at now Jeremiah came from Tophet (Jer 19:14).
Concerning the first, there are two points.
First, he foretells the punishment with a word;
second, he presignifies it with a deed, at and you shall break the jar (Jer 19:10).
Concerning the first:
he first threatens punishment in general, when he seeks an audience: and you shall say, hear . And now, understand, O kings of the earth, be instructed, you who judge the land (Ps 2:10). When he foretells the punishment: thus says the Lord . . . that the ears of all who hear of it may tingle , as though from an agitation of the heart arising from astonishment, as from the agitation of a great sound. Behold, I will make a word in Israel, that whoever shall hear of it, both his ears will tingle (2 Kgs 21:12).
And when he gives the reason, the guilt of the people: because they have abandoned me . They have abandoned the Lord, blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have gone away backwards (Isa 1:4). And the guilt of the king with regard to simple homicide: or the kings of Judah . Manasseh spilled very much innocent blood, until Jerusalem was filled up to the mouth (2 Kgs 21:16).
And with regard to homicide joined to sacrilege: and they have built the high places of the Baalim . They spilled innocent blood, the blood of their sons, and of their daughters, which they sacrificed to the graven images of Canaan (Ps 105:38).
Second, he speaks of the punishment in particular:
first, with regard to the evils which they suffered while the city was being taken, when he discusses the slaughter of men: therefore, behold, the days are coming ; here he designates the multitude of the slain: when this place shall no longer be called Tophet . The same thing is said above (Jer 7:32).
The destruction of counsel: and I will destroy the counsel of Judah , which had thought to conquer Nebuchadnezzar, in this place , because they were slain there: he takes the wise in their subtlety, and destroys the counsel of the wicked (Job 5:13). And the type of slaughter: and I shall overthrow them with the sword . This is the sword of great slaughter, which makes them to stand amazed, and to languish in heart, and that multiplies ruins (Ezek 21:14). And he speaks of the rejection of their bodies: and I will give their bodies as food to the birds of the sky . They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth (Ps 78:2).
And the destruction of their cities: and I shall make this city an astonishment . The same thing is said above (Jer 18:16).
Second, the punishment which they suffered in the siege: and I shall feed them with the flesh of their sons . You shall eat the fruit of your womb, and the flesh of your sons, and of your daughters, which the Lord your God shall give to you, in the want and ruin with which your enemy shall oppress you (Deut 28:53). The hands of pitiful women cooked their sons; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people (Lam 4:10).
Lecture 2
The broken vessel
19:10 And you shall break the jar in the sight of the men who will go with you.
19:11 And you will say to them: thus says the Lord of hosts: thus shall I destroy this people, and this city, as an earthen vessel is destroyed, which cannot be fit together again, and they shall be buried in Tophet, because there shall be no other place for burying.
19:12 Thus shall I do to this place, says the Lord , and to her inhabitants, and I shall make this city like Tophet.
19:13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be like the place Tophet, unclean, and all the houses upon whose roofs they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to strange gods.
108 . Here, he signifies the aforementioned punishment by deed.
First, he gives the deed: you shall break the jar . Behold, the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall break the earthen vessel with terror, and the tall of stature shall be cut down, and the high places brought low (Isa 10:33).
Second, the meaning of the act: and you will say to them .
First, with regard to the slaughter of the people: thus shall I destroy . He shall be broken small, as a clay jar is broken with a mighty destruction (Isa 30:14).
Second, with regard to the place of burial: and they shall be buried in Tophet , because of the multitude of the slain. The same thing is said above (Jer 7:32).
Third, with regard to the destruction of the city: thus I shall make it like Tophet: unclean and without houses.
Upon whose roofs , that is, on the tops of their houses, which were flat, on which they would worship idols. You also are gone up wholly on the housetops, full of clamor, a populous city, a joyous city (Isa 22:23).
Lecture 3
Warning in the temple
19:14 Now Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the Lord had sent him to prophecy, and he stood in the atrium of the house of the Lord , and said to all the people:
19:15 thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: behold, I will bring upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof, all the evils which I have spoken against her, for they have stiffened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
109 . After he had said what had been said before in the valley of Tophet to the people, he returned to the temple, that he might announce those things to the people who did not wish to follow him. And it is clear. O stiff necked, and uncircumcised of heart, and ear, you have always resisted the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you also (Acts 7:51).