Jeremiah 19:13

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. SHALL BE DEFILED - with dead bodies (; ). BECAUSE OF ALL THE HOUSES - rather (explanatory of the previous "the houses ... and ... houses"), 'even all the houses,' etc. (Calvin). ROOFS - being flat, they were used as high places for sacrifices to the sun and planets (; 2 Kings 23:11;...

He describes, as I have said, more at large what he had briefly expressed, for he had spoken of the city; but as the belief of that was difficult, he now enumerates particulars, as though he had said, that Jerusalem was a wide city and splendidly built, for there were there many large and elegant houses, and the royal palaces, yet he says, that all these things would not prevent God to demolish the whole city. And this deserves particular notice, for we know that Satan dazzles our eyes whenever he suggests anything that gives a hope of defense, but what God threatens we think is vain, and as it were fabulous, or at least produces no effect on us. Since then so gross an hypocrisy prevailed in the hearts of the people, the Prophet rightly tried to shake off from them whatever might deceive them. Hence he says, _The houses of Jerusalem_, etc. — these were many and splendid — _and the houses...

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....

BECAUSE OF ALL - literally, “with reference to all,” limiting the denunciation to those houses whose roofs had been defiled with altars. UPON WHOSE ROOFS THEY HAVE BURNED INCENSE - See 2 Kings 23:12, note....

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

AND THE HOUSES OF JERUSALEM,.... Where the common people dwelt: AND THE HOUSES OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH; the palaces of the king, princes, and nobles of Judah, one as well as another: SHALL BE DEFILED OS TOPHET; as that was defiled with the bodies and bones of the slain, and with the faith of the city brought unto it; so the houses of great and small, high and low, should be defiled with the carcasses of the slain that should lie unburied there; their houses should be their graves, and they buried in the ruins of them: or, "the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled" s, with the idolatries after mentioned, shall be as Tophet, places of slaughter: BECAUSE OF ALL THE HOUSES UPON WHOSE ROOFS THEY HAVE BURNT INCENSE TO ALL THE HOST OF HEAVEN; the roofs of houses with the Jews were built flat; and, as they sometimes used them for prayer to the God of heav...

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

UPON WHOSE ROOFS. Compare Jeremiah 32:29....

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....