Jer. 19 Under the type of breaking a potter’s vessel is foreshown the desolation of the Jews for their sins committed in the valley of Hinnom and elsewhere.

Critics dispute the figure and fashion of this bottle; ( see the English Annotations, and Mr. Pool’s Latin Synopsis;) but that is not much material, for God’s design was only to show the fragility of this people, how easily he could break them, and how certainly he would break them in pieces.

Go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom: we shall hereafter hear why God commanded Jeremiah to go thither, rather than to another place, to break this earthen pot. This valley was a place very near unto Jerusalem, of which one Hinnom was owner in Joshua’s time, Josh. 15:8, Josh. 18:16.

That is, a very great evil; it is a Hebrew way of expression, which we also find 1 Sam. 3:11, 2 Kings 21:12. As a very great glaring light affects our eyes, and blindeth them, so a very great sound affecteth the ear, and makes it tingle, and for some time deaf.

Because they have forsaken me; the laws, statutes, and ordinances which God had given them, to direct them both in their religious behaviour towards him, and in their civil conversations.

This and the following verse contain another great sin of this people, with the punishment which God proportioneth to it. The sin in the general was idolatry, but a most barbarous species of it, mentioned also Jer. 7:31, Jer.

For this God, by his prophet, threateneth that this place, anciently, in Joshua’s time, called The valley of the son of Hinnom, and more lately Tophet, from the noise of drums and tabrets there, whilst children were burning, should have a new name, and be called The valley of slaughter, from the…

In this place, amongst 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; I will frustrate all their little arts and designs to avoid the dint of my judgments; I will cause them to fall by the sword before…

This is no more than we met with before, Jer. 18:16, and shall again meet with. Men’s honour and reputation is ordinarily very dear to them, it was especially to the Jews, who valued themselves much upon the reputation their city and their temple had, and the security they promised themselves from…

These were the miserable effects or consequents of the famine with which God had often before threatened them, the just fulfilling of God’s word threatened Lev. 26:29, Deut. 28:53, and the accomplishment of which our prophet hath recorded, Lam. 4:10.

The earthen bottle, which, Jer. 19:1, he was commanded to carry with him into the valley of the son of Hinnom, (where he now was,) in the sight of the ancients of the priests, and of the people, the men who there were appointed to go with the prophet.

The Lord of hosts; a name ordinarily given to God, here very properly, to let them know that he said nothing with his lips but what he had power by his hand to accomplish, being the Captain-general of all the armies of his creatures.

That is, a place of slaughter and burials, or a base, ignominious place, or where the noise of drums, and trumpets, and cryings, and yellings shall be heard, as used to be in Tophet

Under the Judaic law, persons and places were defiled by touching dead bodies, or any unclean, filthy thing: God threateneth in this sense to defile Tophet, as it was said before it should be filled with dead bodies which should be buried or lie unburied there.

Jeremiah had now despatched 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.

He assureth the people from God that he would most certainly justify all his words, and bring to pass all his threats against that city. and that they must thank themselves for it, for hardening their heart, so as all that he had said made no impression upon them, nor found any place with them.