Jeremiah 19
19
The Allegory of the Broken Jar
1Yahweh said to me, “Go to the pottery shop and buy a clay jar. # 19:1 Or “flask.” The Hebrew word baqbuq refers to a narrow-necked bottle and comes from the verb meaning “to make a gurgling sound,” describing what the water did when it came out of the bottle. Archaeological finds indicate that these bottles were from four to ten inches (ten to twenty-five centimeters) in height. Then take along some of the city officials and leading priests 2and go to the Hinnom Valley, # 19:2 Or “the Valley of Ben Hinnom”; see footnote on 7:31. just outside the Potsherd Gate. # 19:2 Or “Harsith Gate.” It is, perhaps, the gate leading into the Hinnom Valley, where broken pottery was dumped. Some scholars, the Targum, and Rashi have identified it with the Dung Gate mentioned in Neh. 2:13; 3:13–14; 12:31. Speak to the people the words I give you. 3Say to them, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies, the God of Israel, says to you: I am going to bring such a great disaster upon this place that the ears of all who hear about it will tingle with astonishment. 4For they, their ancestors, and the kings of Judah have defiled this place and forsaken me. They have sacrificed here to strange gods, whom they never knew, and have filled this place with the blood of innocent people. 5They have built altars to Baal and sacrificed their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. This is not something I commanded them to do, nor did it ever enter my mind. 6Because they have done all this, behold, the time is coming when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Hinnom Valley, but people will call it Slaughter Valley, declares Yahweh.
7“ ‘And I will also frustrate the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will cause their bloodthirsty enemies to triumph over them, and I will give their dead bodies as food to the beasts of the field and birds of the sky. 8I will make this once revered city an object of horror and astonishment; # 19:8 Or “something to hiss at.” See footnote on 18:16. everyone who passes by it will be appalled and will make insulting remarks because of all its wounds! 9I will cause their bloodthirsty enemies to lay siege to their city and cause them great suffering. They will become so desperate that they will become cannibals, eating their neighbors and even their own children.’ # 19:9 See Deut. 28:53; Lam. 4:10.
10“Then, smash the clay jar in the sight of the men who go with you 11and say to them: ‘Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies, says to you: See this smashed clay jar? That is what I will do to you. I will smash these people and this city as one smashes a potter’s vessel, never to be repaired. You will bury your dead here in Topheth, # 19:11 According to Rashi, Topheth was filled with the bones of the victims of human sacrifice. See 2 Kings 23:10. this unclean place; so many of you will die that there won’t be enough room to bury them. 12That is what I will do to this city and its inhabitants, declares Yahweh. I will make this sanctuary city into a cemetery like Topheth. 13Both the houses of the kings of Judah and the houses of Jerusalem will be defiled like the place of Topheth—all the houses upon whose roofs offerings have been made to the whole host of heaven and drink offerings # 19:13 The Hebrew word for “drink offering” is nesek and comes from a verb that means “to pour.” It is not something that one drinks, but is an offering poured out to honor a god. have been poured out to false gods.’ ”
14When Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy, he stood in the court of Yahweh’s temple and said to all the people: 15“Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies, the God of Israel, says to you: ‘I am going to bring upon this city and all its nearby villages every disaster that I have decreed against them because they have stubbornly hardened their hearts and refused to listen to my words.’ ”
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Jeremiah 19: TPT
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