Jeremiah 19 KJV
The Broken Jar
The Broken Jar
The Tophet setting in the valley of Hinnom connects the sign-act to Molech worship, later becoming the root of Gehenna imagery that shaped Jewish and Christian concepts of postmortem fiery judgment.
1hus saith the LORD, Go and get a potterโs earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;
2 And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,
3 And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.
4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;
5 They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:
6 Therefore, 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 I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
8 And 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.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh 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.
10 Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
11 And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potterโs vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.
12 Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:
13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
14 Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORDโs house; and said to all the people,
15 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
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Did You Know?
The Tophet setting in the valley of Hinnom connects the sign-act to Molech worship, later becoming the root of Gehenna imagery that shaped Jewish and Christian concepts of postmortem fiery judgment.
Breaking the purchased bottle functions as an ancient Near Eastern legal gesture of covenant annulment, rendering Judah's relationship with Yahweh permanently void rather than merely suspended.
Jeremiah must assemble the elders and senior priests as formal witnesses, transforming the act into a public juridical proceeding that binds the entire leadership to the coming verdict.
The prophecy's insistence that the vessel 'cannot be made whole again' signals an irreversible escalation from the conditional warnings of Jeremiah 18's potter imagery to an unalterable sentence of destruction.
By declaring the valley will henceforth be called 'the valley of slaughter' and left unburied, the chapter invokes the ultimate ancient Near Eastern curse of denied afterlife, equating the nation's fate with its own sacrificed children.
Jeremiahโs scribe Baruch received his own personal oracle of protection from God, promising that his life would be spared wherever he went, an unusual divine assurance given to a non-prophet.
Although offered safe passage to Babylon by the Chaldean commander Nebuzaradan after Jerusalem's fall, Baruch instead accompanied Jeremiah into forced exile in Egypt around 582 BC.
After his seven-year period of madness described in Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar issued a public proclamation across the empire acknowledging the sovereignty of the Most High God, an unprecedented royal confession in the biblical text.
The aftermath of Gedaliah's murder prompted the remaining Judeans, including the prophet Jeremiah, to flee to Egypt despite divine warnings, marking the effective end of any organized Jewish presence in the land until the return from exile.
Three major world religions consider Jerusalem a holy city.
Babylon's walls were reportedly wide enough for two chariots to pass side by side.
Egypt is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain bottle โ Hebrew, bakuk, so called from the gurgling sound which it makes when being emptied. ancients โ elders. As witnesses of the symbolic action (Jer 19:10; Isa 8:1, 2), that thโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Jeremiah 19 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: The desolation of the jews for their sins foretold in the valley of hinnom; The symbol of breaking a bottle.
- 1
- bottle โ Hebrew, bakuk, so called from the gurgling sound which it makes when being emptied. ancients โ elders. As witnesses of the symbolic action (Jer 19:10; Isa 8:1, 2), that the Jews might not afterwards plead ignorance of the prophecy. The seventy-two elders, composing the Sanhedrim, or Great Council, were taken partly from "the priests," partly from the other tribes, that is, "the people," the former presiding over spiritual matters, the latter over civil; the seventy-two represented the whole people.
- 2
- valley of the son of Hinnom โ or Tophet, south of Jerusalem, where human victims were offered, and children made to pass through the fire, in honor of Molech. east gate โ Margin, "sun gate," sunrise being in the east. MAURER translates, the "potter's gate." Through it lay the road to the valley of Hinnom (Jos 15:8). The potters there formed vessels for the use of the temple, which was close by (compare Jer 19:10, 14; Jer 18:2; Zec 11:13). The same as "the water gate toward the east" (Ne 3:26; 12:37); so called from the brook Kedron. CALVIN translates, as English Version and Margin. "It was monstrous perversity to tread the law under foot in so conspicuous a place, over which the sun daily rising reminded them of the light of God's law."
Read all 15 notes on Jeremiah 19 โ