UNROLL
Dawn on a low stone wall below the city: one hard-fired clay jar with a narrow neck stands alone on the wall top, the city wall far behind on the ridge.

Covenant and complaint

Jeremiah 19

The book doesn’t date this oracle. Is there something you treat as harmless that God calls deadly?

15 verses≈ 4 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
  2. 2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
  3. 7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
  4. 11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessionsChapter 19
  5. 21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letter
  6. 30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
  7. 34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
  8. 40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
  9. 46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
  10. 52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Broken Jar

God
Morning in a potter’s shop: a finished, fired red clay jar with a narrow neck on a wooden shelf among others, hard and dry.

This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God
A small gate in the city’s southern wall, heaps of broken pottery outside it; far off, a few elders and priests walk out with the prophet onto the path going down.

Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate.

God

Proclaim there the words I speak to you,

saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.

God

Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 19:3

God

This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring, because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place.

God

They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known.

God

They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

God

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.

God

So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

God

And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

God

I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

God

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

Question

Quick question

The LORD names the worst of Judah’s sins plainly in 19:5. Look at what He says about it.

What did the LORD say about the burning of children to Baal?

God
The narrow-necked jar broken in many pieces on pale stones beside a heap of old shards, dust still settling.

Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you, and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired.

God

They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.

God

This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.

God
Dusk over the flat roofs of the city: on roof after roof a small plastered incense altar sends a thin thread of smoke toward the first stars.

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”

Jeremiah
Morning in the temple’s outer court: the prophet, seen from behind on a step, speaks to people who turn toward him; the plain temple porch and its two bronze pillars beyond.

Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people, “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

0:24

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Pray

Pray

LORD of Hosts, You never willed the evil done at Topheth. Break what is hard in me while it can still be mended, and make me listen to Your words. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 19

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A verse to carry with you

Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 19:3

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