Jeremiah 19

God sends Jeremiah with a clay jar and a group of city leaders to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, where children had been sacrificed to Baal. There he announces coming judgment and smashes the jar as a picture of Jerusalem’s fall. Then he repeats the warning in the temple courtyard, because the people had stiffened their necks against God.

Jeremiah 19:1-2

God tells Jeremiah to buy a potter’s clay jar and take senior leaders with him. They go to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, near the Potsherd Gate, a place of broken pottery. The leaders are to be witnesses, so no one can later say they were not warned.

BSA: elders (“old or elderly, respected leaders”): The men chosen were people of standing, so the warning reaches those responsible for the nation. Potsherd Gate (“gate of broken pottery, a gate in Jerusalem”): The very name of the gate foreshadows the broken jar.

See also: Jeremiah 18:1-6.

Jeremiah 19:3

Jeremiah is to address kings and residents alike with a call to hear. God announces a disaster so shocking that the ears of all who hear of it will ring. The message begins with God’s full titles, reminding them who is speaking.

BSA: Hear (“listen and obey”): Hearing in the Bible means more than catching words; it means responding with obedience. ring (“tingle, quiver”): The news will hit so hard that it makes the body shudder.

See also: 1 Samuel 3:11.

Jeremiah 19:4

God names the reasons for judgment. His people turned away from Him, filled the place with worship of gods they had never known, and shed innocent blood. Idolatry and violence against the helpless go together.

BSA: abandoned (“forsaken, turned away from”): This is a deliberate leaving of a relationship, not an accident. foreign (“strange, alien”): They turned God’s own land into a place that felt alien to Him.

Jeremiah 19:5

They built shrines to Baal and burned their own children in the fire. God says He never commanded it, never spoke of it, and it never even entered His mind. This cruelty is the opposite of His heart.

BSA: commanded (“ordered, appointed”): God had given no such order, so no one could claim His authority for it. mind (“heart, thoughts, intellect”): The act is so far from God that it never arose in His thinking at all.

Hebrew: בָּמוֹת (bāmôt, H1116) — “high places.” These were raised platforms or shrines. Israel often set them up for worship that God had not authorized.

See also: Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 23:10.

Jeremiah 19:6

The place’s name will change. Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom will be called the Valley of Slaughter. The site of their sin will become the site of their judgment.

BSA: Slaughter (“killing, bloodshed”): The new name states plainly what will fill the valley.

Jeremiah 19:7

God will make the plans of Judah and Jerusalem fall apart. Their strategies and alliances will fail, enemies will kill them, and their bodies will lie unburied for the birds and animals. Unburied bodies were a shameful sign of a curse.

BSA: ruin (“make void, bring to nothing”): Their clever counsel will be emptied of all result. plans (“counsel, advice, purpose”): This includes their political schemes and the advice they trusted instead of God.

Hebrew: וּבַקֹּתִי (ūvaqqōtî, H1238) — “and I will empty.” The verb sounds like the word for a jar (baqbuq) in the next verses. It is a play on words: God will pour out their plans as one empties a jar.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:25-26.

Jeremiah 19:8

Jerusalem will become a ruin that makes passersby gasp and hiss in shock. People will look at her wounds and be appalled. The city once admired will become a warning.

BSA: scorn (“a hissing, a cause of surprise”): The Hebrew pictures people whistling or hissing in amazement at such a fall.

See also: 1 Kings 9:8.

Jeremiah 19:9

The siege will be so severe that starving people will eat their own children and one another. This is the dreadful fulfillment of a covenant warning. They shed their children’s blood for idols; now their children’s flesh will feed them in desperation.

See also: Leviticus 26:29; Lamentations 4:10.

Jeremiah 19:10-11

Jeremiah now smashes the jar before the witnesses. The act says what words alone might not: Jerusalem will be broken beyond mending. Earlier, the potter could reshape marred clay; here the clay is hard and fired, and cannot be remade. The valley will become a graveyard.

BSA: shatter (“break, smash”): The act is sudden and violent, a picture of the coming destruction. repaired (“healed or mended”): The same word is used for healing, showing how final and hopeless this breaking will be.

See also: Jeremiah 18:4; Psalm 2:9.

Jeremiah 19:12-13

God says He will make Jerusalem like Topheth. Houses, including the palaces of kings, will be defiled because on their rooftops people worshiped the stars and poured out offerings to other gods. Idolatry had spread from the valley into everyday homes.

BSA: defiled (“made unclean, spiritually polluted”): The city itself will carry the uncleanness of the worship practiced in it. host (“army, celestial beings”): This means the sun, moon and stars, which people worshiped instead of their Maker.

See also: Zephaniah 1:5; Jeremiah 32:29.

Jeremiah 19:14-15

Jeremiah returns from the valley to the temple courtyard and repeats the warning to everyone. The cause is stated: they have stiffened their necks and refused to heed God’s words. Judgment comes after long, patient warning.

BSA: stiffened (“hardened, made stubborn”): The picture is of an ox that will not bend to the yoke. heed (“listen, obey”): Their fault was not failing to hear but refusing to obey.

See also: Proverbs 29:1; Deuteronomy 10:16.