The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah
Jeremiah 19
Chapter XIX · Vol. III, pp. 1254–1255
Under the type of breaking a potter's vessel is foreshowed the desolation of the Jews for their sins.
1 Thus saith the LORD, Go, and get aa potter's earthen bottle,1 and take of bthe ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests,
2 And go forth unto cthe valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the 2east gate,3 and dproclaim there the words that I shall tell thee;
c 2 Ki.23.10. ch.7.31,32; 32.35. Is.30.33. Jos.15.8.
2 Heb. the sun-gate.
3 'East gate' is a wrong translation. It is wrong etymologically; for even taking the root to be cheres, 'the sun,' the proper rendering would be 'sun-gate.' It is also wrong topographically; for the valley of Hinnom lies south of the city, and could not therefore be said to be 'by the entry of the east gate.' The word however seems to me to be from another root, and its proper rendering is, 'the pottery gate.' The potter's field lay on the bank of the valley of Hinnom, south of the city.—P.
d Pr.1.20-22. ch.7.2. Eze.3.17. Mat.28.20.
3 And say, eHear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, gBehold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.
e Re.2.29. Ps.49.1,2. ch.11.2; 13.15,18; 17.20.
g Le.26.25-33. De.28.25-61; 29.22,23,28; 31.71; 32.22-25. 1 Sa.3.11. 2 Ki.21.12.
4 Becauseh they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place,4 and have burned incense in it unto other gods, iwhom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings5 of Judah, jand have filled this place with the blood of innocents;
h De.28.20. ch.2.13,17,19,20,28,34; 4.18; 5.25; 6.10-20; 3.1,2,9; 7.17-20,26,30-32; 8.19; 9.13,14; 15.6; 17.13,11,10; 16.11. 2 Ki.21.2-9,21; 23.3,4. Is.65.11. ch.32.29-35.
4 Put it to an idolatrous use.
i De.32.17.
5 None of those in whose memory, as kings, the people gloried—as David, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah.—C.
j 2 Ki.21.16; 24.4.
5 They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal, kwhich I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:
6 Therefore,l behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor, The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of slaughter.
7 And nI will make void the counsel6 of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and oI will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives; and their pcarcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
n Job 5.12,13. Ps.33.10. Is.30.1-3; 31.1-3.
6 Care to avoid the judgments.
o Le.26.17. De.28.25. ch.6.21; 9.21; 15.2,3; 18.21.
A.M. cir. 3399. B.C. cir. 605.
p Ps.79.2. ch.7.33; 16.4; 8.22; 9.22; 34.20; 22.19. De.28.26. Re.19.18,21.
8 Andq I will make this city desolate, and an hissing: every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss, because of all the plagues thereof.
q Le.26.31,32. De.32.22-25; 28.46,63. ch.18.16; 9.9-11,21; 49.13; 50.13; 24.9; 25.9,18. 1 Ki.9.8.
9 And I will cause them to eat the rflesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and straitness wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
r Le.26.29. De.28.53-57. La.4.10; 2.20. Eze.5.10. 2 Ki.6.26-29. Is.9.20.
11 And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, tEven so will I break this people, and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole7 again; and they shall ubury them in Tophet, till vthere be no place to bury.8
12 Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as 9Tophet:1
9 A place of slaughter and burial, ch.9.1; 15.2,3—in every sense unclean.—C.
1 The meaning of the word Tophet is disputed. It may be derived from a Hebrew root which signifies 'to spit,' and would thus mean 'a loathsome place;' but it is more probably derived from topheth, the 'oven' or 'fire-place,' in which children offered in sacrifice to Molech were burned, and would then signify 'place of burning.' In this latter sense the analogy between it and Jerusalem would be very striking, Jerusalem was burned by the Babylonians and by the Romans.—P.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled2 as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses xupon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods.
2 By dead corpses, ch.7.32.
x ch.32.29; 8.2. 2 Ki.23.10,12. Zep.1.5. ch.7.18, with De.22.8. Is.65.3.
14 Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood yin the court of the LORD's house, and said to all the people,
15 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, zI will bring upon this city, and upon all her towns, all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have hardened their 3necks, athat they might not hear my words.
z Le.26.25-33. De.4.26,27; 28.15-68; 29.21-28; 31.16,17; 32.15-26. 2 Ki.21.10-15; 22.16,17. Is.1.6-9,24,28-31; 2.6-21; 3.1-26; 5.5-30, 6.11,12; 9.13-21; 22.1-14; xxiv.; 26.21; 27.9-11; 28.14-22; 29.1-14; 30.12-14; 33.14; 42.22-25; 59.1-18; 63.18; 64.10-12; 65.2-15; 66.4,15,16,24,&c. Mi.i.-iii. vi. vii. Zep.i.&c. Hab.i. ch.ii.-xxix. Eze.iv.-xxiv. Da.9.11-14. La.i.-v.
3 Hardened their necks by harnessing themselves in the grievous yoke of sin, and so rendered themselves averse to the easy yoke of truth.—C.
a Ps.58.2-5.
Notes
Ver. 2. Valley of Hinnom, . . . east gate. The valley of Hinnom lay to the south, Jos. 15. 8. How then could the east gate be found there? This circumstance has given rise to many conjectures, new translations, and proposed emendations of the text. May not the difficulty be solved by attending to the following facts? (1) The ancient Hebrews and modern Orientals call every wind that blows between north and south from the eastward 'an east wind,'? not attending to the subdivisions of the compass, as maritime nations must. (2) The valley of Hinnom lying towards the south, Jerusalem might consequently contain the 'east gate' within any of its eastern points. C.
Ver. 5. To burn their sons, &c. From this it appears that 'causing their children to pass through the fire,' in honour of their idols, was not, as some have supposed, merely passing through so as to escape death, but an actual sacrifice of them as burnt-offerings to their horrid deities. The engravings on the ancient Etruscan tombs of Camparini exhibit the victims as exceedingly reluctant, and dragged by force to the altars. Lord! what is man, when he forsakes thee, and begins to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! C.
Ver. 9. This awful prediction was begun to be fulfilled at the Babylonish captivity, La. 4. 10; it reappeared at the siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus; and similar instances occurred in the time of Hadrian. See Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vi. 3, 4. C.
Ver. 13. Upon whose roofs. The roofs of the Jewish houses were flat and surrounded by a battlement. The inhabitants ascended to them to walk, sometimes to sleep, at other times, as places of retirement, to pray; and idolaters chose them as places for burning incense to the sun, moon, and stars, which they worshipped as gods. C.
Reflections.—By methods unnumbered the Lord tries to awaken ignorant, stupified, and self-hardened sinners to repentance, that their ruin may be prevented, or at least appear wholly owing to themselves. And it is proper that rulers in church and state should be warned with peculiar faithfulness and solemnity: and warnings had need to be again and again repeated. Dreadful are the effects of sin upon nations and churches: and often those who have been noted for sinning are made no less noted for suffering: and all attempts to avoid God's ruinous strokes prove fruitless or worse.