Having enacted his part in this striking scene, Jeremiah returns to the court of the temple, and there repeats the same terrible message in briefer terms before all the people; adding expressly that it is the reward of their stubborn obstinacy and deafness to the Divine voice.
The prophet's imprecations of evil thus appear to have been ratified at the time of their conception by the Divine voice, which spoke in the stillness of his after reflexion.
[XII.]
THE BROKEN VESSEL—A SYMBOL OF JUDGMENT.
Jeremiah xix.
The result of his former address, founded upon the procedure of the potter, had only been to bring out into clearer distinctness the appalling extent of the national corruption. It was evident that Judah was incorrigible, and the Potter's vessel must be broken in pieces by its Maker.
Thus said Iahvah: Go and buy a bottle (baqbûq, as if "a pour-pour"; the meaning is alluded to in the first word of ver. 7: ubaqqothi, "and I will pour out") of a moulder of pottery (so the accents; but perhaps the Vulgate is right: "lagunculam figuli testeam," "a potter's earthen vessel," A.V.; lit. a potter's bottle, viz., earthenware), and (take: LXX. rightly adds) some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, and go out into the valley of ben Hinnom at the entry of the Pottery Gate (a postern, where broken earthenware and rubbish were shot forth into the valley: the term is connected with that for "pottery," ver. 1, which is the same as that in Job ii. 8), and cry there the words that I shall speak unto thee,—Jeremiah does not pause here, to relate how he followed the Divine impulse, but goes on at once to communicate the tenor of the Divine "words"; a circumstance which points to the fact that this narrative was only written some time after the symbolical action which it records;—and say thou, Hear ye Iahvah's word, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Lo, I am about to bring an evil upon this place, such that, whoever heareth it, his ears shall tingle! If we suppose, as seems likely, that this series of oracles (xviii.-xx.) belongs to the reign of Jehoiachin, the expression "kings of Judah" may denote that king and the queen-mother. Another view is that the kings of Judah in general are addressed "as an indefinite class of persons," here and elsewhere (xvii. 20, xxii. 4), because the prophet did not write the main portion of his book until after the siege of Jerusalem (Ewald). The announcement of this verse is quoted by the compiler of Kings in relation to the crimes of king Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 12).
Because that they forsook Me, and made this place strange—alienated it from Iahvah by consecrating it to "strange gods"; or as the Targum and Syriac, "polluted" it—and burnt incense therein to other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew (xvi. 13); and the kings of Judah did fill this place with blood of innocents (so the LXX. "Nor the kings of Judah" gives a poor sense; they are included in the preceding phrase), and built the bamoth Baal (High-places of Baal; a proper name, Josh. xiii. 17), to burn their sons in the fire, [as burnt-offerings to the Baal: LXX. omits, and it is wanting, vii. 31, xxxii. 35. It may be a gloss, but is probably genuine, as there are slight variations in each passage], which I commanded not, [nor spake: LXX. omits], neither came it into My mind: therefore, behold days are coming, saith Iahvah, when this place will no more be called the Tophet and valley of ben Hinnom but the Valley of Slaughter! [and in Tophet shall they bury, so that there be—remain—no room to bury! This clause, preserved at the end of ver. 11, but omitted there by the LXX., probably belongs here: see vii. 42]. And I will pour out (ver. 1; Isa. xix. 3) the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place—that is, I will empty the land of all wisdom and resourcefulness, as one empties a bottle of its water, so that the heads of the state shall be powerless to devise any effectual scheme of defence in the face of calamity (cf. xiii. 13)—and I will cause them to fall by the sword "before their enemies" (Deut. xxviii. 25), and by the hand of them that seek their life; and I will make "their carcases food unto the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth" (Deut. xxviii. 26; chap. vii. 33, xvi. 4). And I will set this city "for an astonishment" (Deut. xxviii. 37) and a hissing (xviii. 16); every one that passeth by her shall be astonished and hiss at all her "strokes" (xlix. 17, l. 13) or "plagues" (Deut. xxviii. 59). And I will cause them to "eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters," and each the flesh of his fellow shall they eat—"in the stress and the straitness wherewith their enemies" and they that seek their life "shall straiten them." It will be seen from the references that the Deuteronomic colouring of these closing threats (vv. 7-9) is very strong, the last verse being practically a quotation (Deut. xxviii. 53). The effect of the whole oracle would thus be to suggest that the terrible sanctions of the sacred Law would not remain inoperative; but that the shameless violation of the solemn covenant under Josiah, by which the nation undertook to observe the code of Deuteronomy, would soon be visited with the retributive calamities so vividly foreshadowed in that book.