Yeremia 19:1-2

An Object Lesson from a Broken Clay Jar

19:1 The Lord told Jeremiah, ¹  “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. ²  Take with you ³  some of the leaders of the people and some of the leaders ⁴  of the priests. 19:2 Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. ⁵  Announce there what I tell you. ⁶ 

Yeremia 19:10-11

19:10 The Lord continued, ⁷  “Now break the jar in front of those who have come here with you. 19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ⁸  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ⁹  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ¹⁰  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ¹¹ 

Yeremia 19:14-15

19:14 Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord’s temple and stood ¹²  in its courtyard and called out to all the people. 19:15 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹³  says, ‘I will soon bring on this city and all the towns surrounding it ¹⁴  all the disaster I threatened to do to it. I will do so because they have stubbornly refused ¹⁵  to pay any attention to what I have said!’”

[19:1]  ¹ tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. Some Hebrew mss and some of the versions have “to me.” This section, 19:1–20:6 appears to be one of the biographical sections of the book of Jeremiah where incidents in his life are reported in third person. See clearly 9:14 and 20:1-3. The mss and versions do not represent a more original text but are translational or interpretive attempts to fill in a text which had no referent. They are like the translational addition that has been supplied on the basis of contextual indicators.

[19:1]  ² tn Heb “an earthenware jar of the potter.”

[19:1]  sn The word translated “clay” here refers to a clay which has been baked or fired in a kiln. In Jer 18 the clay was still soft and pliable, capable of being formed into different kinds of vessels. Here the clay is set, just as Israel is set in its ways. The word for jar refers probably to a water jug or decanter and is onomatopoeic, baqbuq, referring to the gurgling sound made by pouring out the water.

[19:1]  ³ tc The words “Take with you” follow the reading of the Syriac version and to a certain extent the reading of the Greek version (the latter does not have “with you”). The Hebrew text does not have these words but they are undoubtedly implicit.

[19:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “elders” both here and before “of the people.”

[19:1]  sn The civil and religious leaders are referred to here. They were to be witnesses of the symbolic act and of the message that Jeremiah proclaimed to the leaders of Jerusalem and its citizens (see v. 3).

[19:2]  ⁵ sn The exact location of the Potsherd Gate is unknown since it is nowhere else mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It is sometimes identified with the Dung Gate mentioned in Neh 2:13; 3:13-14; 12:31 on the basis of the Jerusalem Targum. It is probably called “Potsherd Gate” because that is where the potter threw out the broken pieces of pottery which were no longer of use to him. The Valley of Ben Hinnom has already been mentioned in 7:31-32 in connection with the illicit religious practices, including child sacrifice, which took place there. The Valley of Ben Hinnom (or sometimes Valley of Hinnom) runs along the west and south sides of Jerusalem.

[19:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the words that I will speak to you.”

[19:10]  ⁷ tn The words “And the Lord continued” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to take us clearly back to the flow of the narrative begun in vv. 1-2 and interrupted by the long speech in vv. 3-9.

[19:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

[19:11]  ⁹ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

[19:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

[19:11]  ¹¹ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

[19:14]  ¹² tn Heb “And Jeremiah entered from Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy and he stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.”

[19:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[19:15]  sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for explanation of this title.

[19:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all its towns.”

[19:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “They hardened [or made stiff] their neck so as not to.”