The story of the broken jug is inseparably linked with the image of the potter remaking a defective vessel. But the master works the clay only when the vessel is not yet finished and fired, while it is still not too late to change it. Now...
The story of the broken jug is inseparably linked with the image of the potter remaking a defective vessel. But the master works the clay only when the vessel is not yet finished and fired, while it is still not too late to change it. Now before us is a finished jug whose properties have hardened completely, and it can no longer be improved. A useless or leaking jug has only one road: to the trash heap.
It is no accident that the jug symbolizing malicious sinners is broken in the very valley where pagan sacrifices were offered. The name of this valley itself, Gehenna, became a synonym for hell, the underworld, where lovers of pagan abominations are to go.
Abominations is exactly the word; it should not sound excessive. It is not an insult at all, but an objective assessment of what the pagans were doing. Their destruction, announced by the prophet, was called down by them themselves when they sacrificed their own children to idols in the place where they must now reap the fruits of the evil they sowed.
If it seems to someone that Israel's faith resembles the beliefs of the peoples around it in any way, and that there is no fundamental difference between religions, let him remember the Lord's words, where He testifies that He not only did not command the sacrifices the pagans performed, but never had such desires in His thoughts. Alas, even many of the faithful underestimate the fundamental differences between biblical revelation and other teachings, though understanding this is vitally necessary.
19 Under the type of breaking a potter's vessel is foreshewn the desolation of the Jews for their sins committed in the valley of Hinnom, and elsewhere, Jer 19:1-15.
19:4 This place - Either this city, or this valley, which they had turned to an use quite contrary to the end for which God gave it them.
19:5 To burn - This and the following verse, contain another great sin of this people, with the punishment which God proportions to it. The sin in the general was idolatry, but a most barbarous species of it, mentioned also chap.Jer 7:31 Jer 19, Jer 32:35, where it is said, they made their sons and their daughters pass thro' the fire to Molech; the place where they did it is called Tophet, ver.Jer 19:6, of which also mention is made, Isa 30:33.Baal and Molech, signify the same thing; Baal signifies a Lord, Molech a King. Both Baal and Molech seem common names to all idols.
19:7 In this place - In this place, among others, I will make void all the counsels that the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, have taken to escape my righteous judgments.
19:12 As Tophet - That is, a place of slaughter and burials.
19:14 Then - Jeremiah had now dispatched the errand upon which God had sent him to Tophet, coming back by God's direction, he stands in the court, which was common to all people, where the most might hear.