Jeremiah 19:10
in Jeremiah 19Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you,
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
KJV
Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
⋯
This verse in Jeremiah 19
Commentary
3 notes on this verseon Jeremiah 19:10-11
(Verse 10, 11.) And you shall break the jar in the eyes of the men who go or come with you. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: So shall I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, which cannot be restored any longer. Clearly it is spoken not of the Babylonian, but of the Roman captivity. For after the Babylonians, the city was rebuilt, the people brought back to Judah, and the former abundance restored.
This site's exposition
break the bottle in the sight of the men
on Jeremiah 19:10-13
The bottle is smashed in front of the witnesses as the sign's final act, and the word given with it, that cannot be made whole again, sets this chapter against chapter 18's wet clay on the wheel: soft clay can be reworked, but a fired vessel once broken stays broken, the same material shown at two different stages of Jeremiah's own preaching. The dead are to be buried in Tophet itself until there is no more room, and the houses of Jerusalem and of Judah's kings are declared defiled like Tophet because incense was burned on their very rooftops to the host of heaven. That astral worship on the housetops is the same practice the book returns to at 8:2 and again in Egypt at 44:17-25, a habit that outlasted every warning given against it.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
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,
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
( which can no longer be repaired This refers to the people, but the city I will make like the Topheth and purify it in the future.)
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 6 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְשָׁבַרְתָּ֖ | veshavarta | and you will break | H7665 → | 147 times |
| הַבַּקְבֻּ֑ק | habakbuk | the bottle | H1228 → | |
| לְעֵינֵי֙ | leeinei | to [the] eyes of | H5869 → | 887 times |
| הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔ים | haanashim | the men | H582 → | 566 times |
| הַהֹלְכִ֖ים | haholekhim | who go | H1980 → | 1546 times |
| אוֹתָֽךְ׃ | ʾotakh | with you | H854 → | 929 times |
וְשָׁבַרְתָּ֖and you will break
veshavartaH7665 →147 times
הַבַּקְבֻּ֑קthe bottle
habakbukH1228 →
לְעֵינֵי֙to [the] eyes of
leeineiH5869 →887 times
הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔יםthe men
haanashimH582 →566 times
הַהֹלְכִ֖יםwho go
haholekhimH1980 →1546 times
אוֹתָֽךְ׃with you
ʾotakhH854 →929 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 19:1This 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,
it leads to
- Isaiah 30:14
It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Ezekiel 8:11–12
Before them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.
- Numbers 11:16
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Bring Me seventy of the elders of Israel known to you as leaders and officers of the people. Bring them to the Tent of Meeting and have them…
- Jeremiah 18:2–4
“Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal My message to you.”
- Lamentations 4:2
How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!
- Isaiah 30:14
Through
Jeremiah 48:12Therefore behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will send to him wanderers, who will pour him out. They will empty his vessels and shatter his jars.
it leads to
- Nahum 2:2
For the LORD will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and ruined the branches of their vine.
- Jeremiah 48:38
On all the rooftops of Moab and in the public squares, everyone is mourning; for I have shattered Moab like an unwanted jar,” declares the LORD.
- Ezekiel 25:9–10
therefore I will indeed expose the flank of Moab beginning with its frontier cities—Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim—the glory of the land.
- Nahum 2:2
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Jeremiah
This page draws on Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.