Jeremiah 19:1-15--The Broken Flask

Jeremiah 19
English Standard Version

The Broken Flask
19 Thus says the LORD “Go, buy a potter's earthenware flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests, 2 and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. 3 You shall say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. 4 Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, 5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind— 6 therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. 7 And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds. 9 And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’

10 “Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you, 11 and shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. 12 Thus will I do to this place, declares the LORD, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. 13 The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been offered to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’”

14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the LORD's house and said to all the people: 15 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.”

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God tells Jeremiah to prepare a speech with a visual aid.  He is to buy an earthenware flask from the potter (maybe the very same potter he had been watching make something--maybe even the same vessel he saw the potter make), and take it with him to the gate called the Potsherd Gate (I assume a place where they threw away broken pottery that was of no value, especially that which had become unclean).  He was to gather the political, civil, and religious leaders (the elders of Judah and Benjamin and the elders of the priests who were over the tribe of Levi) and was to give them a message from the LORD that the very place where he stood to give them that speech was going to be a place that would be renamed the Valley of Slaughter because of all those that would die there.

He also told them that Jerusalem would be besieged and there would be no food to the point where people would turn to cannibalism (extremely detestable to the Jewish people) as the only thing left for men to eat would be the corpses of those who had died and their family and neighbors.  This is how far the judgment of the LORD would go.  He would take them to the place where they would see how depraved they really were.  Jerusalem would become a place that people would "hiss at" when they saw it or spoke of it (it would be a vile place in people's minds and not a beautiful place known for the LORD who lived there among His people in His holy Temple).

In the sight of all the leaders, Jeremiah was to break the flask so that it would be beyond human repair and say, "This is how the LORD is going to break you."  The judgment was coming and was sure.  Why?  Because the people had turned to other gods and worshiped them.  They made sacrifices to the Baals and the stars of the heavens.  They even convinced themselves that this is what the LORD wanted them to do, but the LORD said that such a thought had never even entered His mind.  Such thoughts were not from Him.  They had defiled the Land that the LORD had given to them.

Though this message was at first given to a small group of leaders, Jeremiah goes back to the Temple in front of the whole congregation and shares the same message with all of them so that no one can say that the LORD did not warn them.  We know that the leaders are going to fail in warning the people because they do not believe the message themselves, so the message was given directly to the people.  However, the people did not repent, just as their leaders did not repent.  They refused to hear the word of the LORD spoken through the prophet Jeremiah.