Jeremiah 19:12

Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: AND EVEN MAKE THIS CITY AS TOPHET - i:e., as defiled with dead bodies as Tophet....

As he had said before that the valley would be the place of slaughter, that thence it might take its name, so now he declares the same as to the city; “As then Tophet shall be the valley of slaughter, so shall Jerusalem be.” (221) They were no doubt kindled into rage (as we shall see in the next chapter) on hearing this prophecy; but yet God purposed, however irreclaimable and refractory they were, to let them know what was approaching, and though they did not believe the words of the Prophet, God touched and even deeply wounded their consciences, so that before the event came they were miserable. For the same purpose he adds — “Thus will I do to this place, saith Jehovah, and to its inhabitants, and _that _to make this city like Tophet.” The full sentence is, “and thus will I do to make,” etc. — _Ed_....

10-15 The potter's vessel, after it is hardened, can never be pieced again when it is broken. And as the bottle was broken, so shall Judah and Jerusalem be broken by the Chaldeans. No human hand can repair it; but if they return to the Lord he will heal. As they filled Tophet with the slain sacrificed to their idols, so will God fill the whole city with the slain that shall fall as sacrifices to his justice. Whatever men may think, God will appear as terrible against sin and sinners as the Scriptures state; nor shall the unbelief of men make his promise or his threatenings of no effect. The obstinacy of sinners in sinful ways, is their own fault; if they are deaf to the word of God, it is because they have stopped their ears. We have need to pray that God, by his grace, would deliver us from hardness of heart, and contempt of his word and commandments....

Verse Jeremiah 19:12. _AND EVEN MAKE THIS CITY AS TOPHET_] A place of slaughter and destruction....

EXPOSITION With this chapter, Jeremiah 19:1 of the next ought undoubtedly to be connected to complete the narrative. Jeremiah here comes before us performing another symbolical action. By breaking a potter's vessel he foreshows the ruin impending over Jerusalem for the idolatry practiced in the valley of Hinnom. Not (remarks Graf) as if the worship of Moloch had been restored after the death of Josiah; verse 13, in fact, sufficiently shows that the Tophet had, ever since Josiah's time, continued to be an unclean place, and the sins which are here rebuked are the unexpiated abominations of Manasseh's reign (described in Jeremiah 15:4, as the immediate causes of the Captivity). Jeremiah's prophecy on the Tophet is followed by one on the fate of a certain Pashur, a high officer in the temp

THUS WILL I DO UNTO THIS PLACE, SAITH THE LORD, AND TO THE INHABITANTS THEREOF,.... To the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, as was done to the earthen bottle, and as before threatened: AND [EVEN], or also, MAKE THIS CITY AS TOPHET; as full of slaughtered men and women as that had been of the blood of innocent children; and as filthy, abominable, and execrable a place as that; and to lose its name, as that is foretold it should, Jeremiah 19:6; and as Jerusalem did, after the desolation of it by Hadrian, as Jerom observes; for what was built upon the spot afterwards was by the emperor called Aelia, after his own name....

CHAPTER 19 The Broken Bottle _ 1. The broken bottle and the message (Jeremiah 19:1) _ 2. The fate announced in the court of the Lord's house (Jeremiah 19:14) Jeremiah 19:1. He was to get a potter's earthen bottle accompanied by elders and priests, and go to the valley of the son of Hinnom. There he should proclaim the words Jehovah would breathe into him. The message is another judgment message and needs no further comment. In Tophet, the valley of Hinnom, they had worked their abominations, burnt their sons with fire. Now it should become the valley of slaughter, so that their carcasses should be eaten by the fowls and wild beasts. He would cause them to eat the flesh of their

JEREMIAH 19:1 TO JEREMIAH 20:6. THE EARTHENWARE FLASK; JEREMIAH IN THE STOCKS. This section seems to be editorially grouped with the last because of the further reference to pottery; the original prophecy may have been expanded in Jeremiah 19:3 by a later writer. It seems more natural to date these incidents after the Temple-sermon (Jeremiah 19:7) rather than before it; in either case, in the early years of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah is to take representatives of Judah to the Valley of Hinnom (Jeremiah 7:31), by the gate of potsherds (_mg.; i.e._ wh

See introd. summary to section. Jeremiah 19:10 links on to Jeremiah 19:2. This and the next sub-section (Jeremiah 19:14 _to Jeremiah 20:6_) are thought to be taken from the memoirs of Jeremiah by Baruch (see Intr. pp. xli. f.), as in them the prophet is spoken of in the third person. "The people … have the same custom of breaking a jar, when they wish to express their utmost detestation of any one. They come behind or near him, and smash the jar to atoms, thus imprecating upon him and his a like hopeless ruin." Thomson, _The Land and the Book_, p. 641....

B. The Symbolic Act and Its Interpretation Jeremiah 19:10-13 TRANSLATION (10) Then you shall shatter the bottle in the presence of the men who are accompanying you (11) and you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts: Like this I will break this people and this city as the potter might break a vessel which can no longer be repaired; and they shall bury in Topheth because there will be no room for burial. (12) Thus will I do to this place (oracle of the LORD) and to its inhabitants even making this city as Topheth. (13) The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall become unclean like this place of Topheth, even all the houses where they offered incense upon their roofs to all the host of heaven and poured out libations to other gods. COMMENTS The smashing of the bottle here reminds one of the practice current in Egypt wh