Jeremiahchapter 19
15 verses · Jeremiah, written by Baruch · 7th to 6th century BC · The Prophets
This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests,
Introduction
Jeremiah, written by Baruch, The Prophets, Jeremiah Overview.
Jeremiah performed this sign before the elders and senior priests of Jerusalem in the kingdom's last decades. It follows the visit to the potter's house and uses the same trade in a different way. The place he chose was the valley south of the city where children had been burned in sacrifice. Every witness knew what had been done there. Listen for the names of the place and the gate, and for what becomes of clay once it has been fired. The witnesses went with him so that no one could later deny what they saw.
Context
- Who
- Senior elders and priests brought out as witnesses to a deliberate public act
- What
- A sign act in which Jeremiah breaks a clay jar in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, with the judgment it announces on Jerusalem.
- Where
- The Valley of Ben-hinnom near the Potsherd Gate, south of Jerusalem, and then the court of the temple.
- When
- The last decades of the kingdom of Judah, about 609 to 597 BC.
- Why
- To show Judah that its judgment was now fixed, as a fired jar once broken cannot be mended.
Historical context
This is the workshop lesson turned around. In chapter 18 the clay is wet and can be reworked. Here the prophet buys a finished, fired jug, a narrow-necked water flask named in Hebrew for the gurgling sound it made when poured, and smashes it. Fired pottery cannot be recycled. That is the message.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The location was chosen. The valley of Hinnom runs along the south side of Jerusalem, and the Potsherd Gate at its head appears to have been the gate where broken pottery from the nearby workshops was dumped, the city's rubbish exit. He walks the leaders out through the rubbish gate and breaks the jug on the tip.
Topheth, in that valley, was the site where children had been burned in sacrifice to Baal and Molech. The chapter calls it what it was: they built high places to burn their sons in the fire. The Law had condemned the practice absolutely; the archaeology of Phoenician colonies elsewhere in the Mediterranean shows the same rite was practised in that wider culture.
He takes elders and senior priests with him as witnesses. That was legal procedure. A public act done before named witnesses of standing could not later be denied.
Significance
For those witnesses, the geography was the argument. The valley where they had burned their children would become the valley of slaughter and the graveyard where the city buried its dead until there was no room.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the broken jug removed the option they had been counting on. There had always been time to reform. A fired jar in pieces cannot be mended, and the chapter says the city will be made like it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
No part of this chapter is read in the synagogue. Probed for this lane, the site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Jeremiah 19, and no festival reading for the book. Across chapters 1 to 26 of Jeremiah the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 16 and 17.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY.
Rashi reads the Harsith Gate as the Dung Gate, "where broken pottery is cast" (Rashi on Jeremiah 19:2:1). The word for making void he reads as chosen for the sound of the jug the prophet holds (Rashi on Jeremiah 19:7:1). On the vessel that cannot be mended he reads a limit on the judgment. It falls on the people, while God will purify the city in the future (Rashi on Jeremiah 19:11:1).
The corpus carries fifteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Jeremiah 19:2:1, 19:3:1, 19:4:1, 19:5:1, 19:7:1, 19:8:1, 19:11:1, 19:13:1 and 19:15:1. The same holds for Metzudat David on Jeremiah 19:5:1, 19:6:1, 19:8:1, 19:9:1 and 19:14:1. The same holds for Malbim on Jeremiah 19:10:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 15 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 3 in the Talmud and 12 in the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 2 it holds Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 5:1:15 and Tractate Soferim 7:4. On verse 5 it holds Bereshit Rabbah 56:8, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Taanit 1:7, Ein Yaakov, Taanit 1:9, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 27:2:3, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 17:3:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 7:1. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayera 40:2, Midrash Tanchuma, Bechukotai 5:1, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 17:3:7, Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Chuppat Eliyahu Rabbah 81 and Sifrei Devarim 148:10 there. It also holds Sifrei Devarim 148:9 and Taanit 4a:9 there.
The corpus also files Sifrei Devarim 321:9 under Jeremiah 19:18, a verse this chapter does not have. It is left out of the list above rather than cited on a verse that is not there.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Jeremiah 19:1:1 to 19:12:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Jeremiah 19:10:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Jeremiah 19:5:1, 19:6:1, 19:8:1, 19:9:1 and 19:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Jeremiah 19:2:1, 19:3:1, 19:4:1, 19:5:1, 19:7:1, 19:8:1, 19:11:1, 19:13:1 and 19:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/jeremiah/19.json, the 15 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Jeremiah 19: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, and no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Buy a Potter's Earthen Bottle; the Valley of Slaughter
Jeremiah 19:1-3
This is what the LORD says: The LORD tells Jeremiah to “buy a clay jar from a potter”. He proclaims it in “the Valley of Ben-hinnom” to the kings of Judah. The warning that “the ears of all who hear of it will ring” repeats the words of 1 Samuel 3:11 and 2 Kings 21:12.
go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom: The Valley of Ben-hinnom lay near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Albert Barnes records the view that this was a small gate for rubbish, and Matthew Henry calls the valley the city's common sink. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that potters worked nearby.
Albert Barnes notes that “kings of Judah” is plural, taking in the whole royal house together with the “residents of Jerusalem.” The sentence is spoken in the valley where the guilt was committed, so the place of the sin becomes the place of the judgment.
Jeremiah 19:3
“Kings - Plural because the message Jer 19:3-9, related not especially to the reigning king, but to the whole royal house.”
Jeremiah 19:4-5
because they have abandoned Me and: They “have abandoned Me,” and “filled this place with the blood of the innocent.” Verse 5 names the worst, children burned, of which the LORD says, “I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.” The threefold denial leaves the rite wholly of Judah’s own making.
Jeremiah 19:4
“Have estranged this place - They have not recognized the sanctity of this place, but have treated it as a strange place, by worshipping in it strange gods. Innocents - i. e., guiltless persons.”
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 19:4
“Because they have forsaken me,.... My worship, as the Targum; they had apostatized from God, relinquished his service, neglected and despised his word and ordinances, and left the religion they had been brought up in, and was agreeable to the will of God.”
They have built high places to Baal: Adam Clarke takes Baal here as a general name for the popular idols, Molech and Ashtaroth among them. John Wesley ties the burning of children in the fire as offerings to Molech at 7:31 and 32:35. Matthew Henry calls it willful murder of the innocent.
Jeremiah 19:5
“The sin in the general was idolatry, but a most barbarous species of it, mentioned also chap. vii, 31; xxxii, 35, where it is said, they made their sons and their daughters pass thro' the fire to Molech; the place where they did it is called Tophet, ver. xix, 6, of which also mention is made, Isaiah xxx, 33.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 19:6-9
So behold, the days are coming: The place “will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter,” and judgment renames the ground. The siege famine in which “they will eat one another’s flesh” is the extremity Deuteronomy 28:53 warns of and Lamentations 4:10 records as having happened.
Jeremiah 19:6
“Thus the name indicated the joy of the people at the fancied propitiation of the god by this sacrifice; in antithesis to its joyless name subsequently. valley of slaughter--It should be the scene of slaughter, no longer of children, but of men; not of "innocents" (Jer 19:4), but of those who richly deserved their fate.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
And in this place I will ruin: Albert Barnes notes that the verb for ruin shares its root with the word for the clay jar, a word for the sound of pouring. He suggests Jeremiah emptied the jar before the elders here. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Chaldeans would camp in this valley.
Jeremiah 19:7
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 19:7
“Make void - The verb used here is that from which “bottle” Jer 19:1 is derived, and as it represents the sound made by the water running out, it would be better translated, “pour out.” Jeremiah perhaps carried the bottle to Tophet full of water, the symbol in the East of life Isa 35:6; Isa 41:18, and at these words emptied it before the assembled elders.”
I will make this city a desolation: Matthew Henry notes that the city holiness once made the joy of the whole earth, sin has made its shame. Jerome renders the scorn as hissing. The words spoken over the land at 18:16 now fall on Jerusalem itself.
I will make them eat the flesh: Matthew Henry notes the warning in Leviticus 26. John Gill holds that Jeremiah lived to see parents eat sons and daughters in the siege he foretold. Adam Clarke sees it come true again when the Romans besieged Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 19:9
“I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons - This was literally fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans. This also the prophet might have had in view.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 19:9
“This was threatened in the law as an instance of the extremity to which the judgments of God should reduce them ( Lev. xxvi. 53 ) and was accomplished, Lam. iv.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Break the Bottle: So Will I Break This People
Jeremiah 19:10-13
Then you are to shatter the: The jar is shattered before the witnesses. The LORD will “shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired.” Chapter 18’s soft clay could be reformed on the wheel, but a fired jar once broken stays broken.
and you are to proclaim to them: Jerome and Adam Clarke read the jar that can never be repaired as the Roman ruin, for the city rose again after the exile. Matthew Henry notes that the people trusted their hardness as if they were brass. Hardened clay breaks sooner.
Jeremiah 19:11
“The apostle also knows vessels of wrath "made for destruction so that he might make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy." God has divided all people into these two vessels, those of wrath, those of mercy, those like Pharaoh and the Egyptians, those like Paul and those who have believed. But what is the treasury of the Lord in which are the vessels of wrath? Perhaps it is the church, in which such often go unnoticed.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · Fragments on Jeremiah 31patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 19:11
“Made whole again - literally, “healed.” In this lies the distinction between this symbol and that of Jer 18:4. The plastic clay can be shaped and re-shaped until the potter forms with it the vessel he had predetermined: the broken bottle is of no further use, but its fragments are cast away forever upon the heaps of rubbish deposited in Tophet.”
Jeremiah 19:11
“They depended much upon the firmness of their constitution, and the fixedness of their courage, which they thought hardened them like a vessel of brass; but the prophet shows that all that did but harden them like a vessel of earth, which, though hard, is brittle and sooner broken than that which is not so hard.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This is what I will do: Matthew Henry notes the fit of the sentence: the valley they filled with slain children becomes the pattern for a city filled with the slain. Adam Clarke reads Topheth here as a place of slaughter and ruin. Jerome notes the Greek renders it as ruins.
Jeremiah 19:12
“And even make this city as Tophet - A place of slaughter and destruction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The houses of Jerusalem and the houses: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the houses were to be defiled with dead bodies, as Topheth was. Albert Barnes limits it to houses with rooftop altars. Matthew Henry notes that flat roofs also served the devout as places of prayer, as in Acts 10.
Jeremiah 19:13
“Because of all - literally, “with reference to all,” limiting the denunciation to those houses whose roofs had been defiled with altars. Upon whose roofs they have burned incense - See 2Ki 23:12, note.”
Jeremiah 19:14-15
Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where: Jeremiah “returned from Topheth” and “stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD,” repeating the sentence before “all the people.” The reason given, “they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words,” is the language Moses used of the wilderness generation.
Jeremiah 19:14
“Then - Jeremiah had now dispatched the errand upon which God had sent him to Tophet, coming back by God's direction, he stands in the court, which was common to all people, where the most might hear.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 19:14
“Then came Jeremiah from Tophet - He had probably gone to the valley of Hinnom, and there repeated the discourse which he had a little before delivered to the chief priests and elders.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 19:14
“It is certain that the greatest of men is less than the least of the ordinances of God. 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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Adam Clarke takes the stiffened neck from oxen that fight the yoke, break the harness and run. Judah had thrown off the yoke of the law in the same way. Disaster comes on the city and its villages.
Jeremiah 19:15
“Because they have hardened their necks - A metaphor taken from unruly and unbroken oxen, who resist the yoke, break and run away with their gears. So this people had broken and destroyed the yoke of the law.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah; John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.