Jeremiah19chapter 19

Jeremiah 19:1

“Get (i. e., purchase) a potter’s earthen bottle - The “bottle” was a flask with a long neck, and took its name from the noise made by liquids in running out. The ancients - These “elders” were the regularly constituted representatives of the people (see Jer 29:1; Num 11:16), and the organization lasted down to our Saviour’s time Mat 26:47. Similarly the priests had also their representatives 2Ki 19:2. Accompanied thus by the representatives of Church and State, the prophet was to carry the earthen bottle, the symbol of their mean origin and frail existence, outside the walls of Jerusalem.”

Jeremiah 19:1

“He must confirm this, and endeavour to affect his hearers with it, by a sign, which was the breaking of an earthen bottle, signifying that they should be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel,”

Jeremiah 19:2

“The valley ... - See Jer 7:31 note. The east gate - Others render “the pottery gate.” Two gates led into the valley of Hinnom, the Fountain-gate at the southeast corner, and the Dung-gate on the southwest side of Zion; some think that “the east gate” was neither of these, but a small or postern gate, used for throwing out rubbish, the valley having been put to this degrading use from the time that Josiah defiled it 2Ki 23:”

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

“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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Jeremiah 19:10

“In the explication of this sign he must inculcate what he had before said, with a further reference to the place where this was done, in the valley of Tophet. As the bottle was easily, irresistibly, and irrecoverably broken by the Chaldean army,”

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.”

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.”

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

“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.”

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.”

Jeremiah 19:14-15

“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.”

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.”