NOTES for Jer 19:1-15
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.