Jeremiah 19

This is what the LORD says: Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take with you some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests.

1Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;

NoteThe Hebrew word for the jar, *baqbuq*, is thought to imitate the gurgling sound of liquid poured from a narrow-necked flask. The detail that matters is that it is fired pottery: unlike wet clay on the wheel, a baked jar cannot be reworked, and once broken it cannot be mended (verse 11). The "elders of the people" were the heads of leading families who settled community affairs, and the "leading priests" were senior temple officials, between them, the men whose word would be believed. They are brought along as witnesses.

2Go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate, and announce there the words I tell you.

2And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

NoteThe Valley of the Son of Hinnom (Hebrew *ge ben-hinnom*) is the ravine running along the south and west sides of Jerusalem, just outside the walls. Its name, shortened to *ge-hinnom*, later passed into Greek as "Gehenna." The gate name is uncertain in the Hebrew: the word *harsith* resembles both the word for a broken piece of pottery (a potsherd) and the word for the sun, which is why the King James translators rendered it "the east gate" while modern translations read "Potsherd Gate", probably a rubbish gate near where the potters worked and dumped their broken ware.

3Say: Listen to the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and you people who live in Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to bring such a disaster on this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will ring.

3And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.

Note"The LORD of Armies" (King James "LORD of hosts") translates a title meaning the LORD who commands vast forces (armies on earth, and the sun, moon and stars, spoken of in verse 13 as "the host of heaven." "Kings of Judah" in the plural, addressed as though present, most likely means the royal house as an institution) the reigning king together with his court and dynasty. Ears ringing is an idiom for news so shocking that a person is left stunned, as after a blow to the head.

4This is because they have abandoned me and made this place foreign to me. They have burned incense here to other gods that they never knew, gods their fathers and the kings of Judah never knew. They have filled this place with the blood of people who had done nothing wrong.

4Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

NoteBurning incense was not decoration or atmosphere; it was an act of worship, the offering of a costly aromatic gum on a small altar. The Hebrew behind "made this place foreign to me" is difficult and has been read two ways: that they made the place alien or unrecognizable to the LORD, or that they handed it over to foreign gods.

5They have also built high places for Baal, where they burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. I never commanded that. I never spoke of it. It never even entered my mind.

5They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:

Note"High places" were open-air worship sites, often on a hilltop or a raised stone platform, with an altar and a sacred pillar (the ordinary form of local worship in the region, used for the LORD and for other gods alike. Baal was the Canaanite storm and fertility god, worshiped for rain and harvest; the word itself simply means "lord" or "owner." A "burnt offering" was a sacrifice burned whole on the altar, with no portion kept back for the worshiper to eat) which is what makes the phrase so appalling here.

6So look, the days are coming, says the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. It will be called the Valley of Slaughter.

6Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.

NoteTophet was the specific site in this valley where children were burned. The name may derive from a word for a hearth or fire-pit; in the Hebrew text as it has come down to us it carries the vowels of the word for "shame," a way scribes marked a name they refused to pronounce respectfully. Renaming a place announced what had happened there. "Valley of Slaughter" plays on the sound of the old name and replaces a name meaning nothing much with one that states plainly what the place will become.

7In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword in front of their enemies, killed by those who want their lives. I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth.

7And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

Note"I will ruin the plans" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to empty out or pour out (the same consonants as *baqbuq*, the jar in Jeremiah's hand. The sign and the sentence are a pun on each other: he empties the flask, and their plans are emptied. To be left unburied and eaten by scavengers was, in that world, the worst fate imaginable for the dead, worse than death itself) hence the repeated threat, and hence the force of "no room left to bury" in verse 11.

8I will make this city an empty ruin, a thing people scoff at. Everyone who passes by will be shocked and will scoff at all the wounds it has suffered.

8And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

NoteThe scoffing is a specific gesture: passers-by would whistle or hiss through the teeth at the sight of a ruined city, a sound of shock and derision that ancient writers mention often. "Wounds" translates a word used for blows or plague-strokes, the injuries the city has been dealt.

9I will make them eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters. Each one will eat the flesh of his friend, during the siege and the desperate hardship that their enemies, the ones who want their lives, will press on them.

9And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

NoteParents eating their children under siege is stock language in ancient curses and treaty threats, and appears in the older law collections as one of the punishments for breaking faith. It is also literal: siege warfare worked by starving a walled city out, and ancient accounts record it happening.

10Then you are to smash the jar in front of the men who went with you,

10Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,

NoteProphets regularly acted their message out, wearing a yoke, burying a belt, lying on one side for months. Such an act was not a visual aid tacked onto the words; performing it was understood to be part of putting the thing in motion. Smashing the jar before witnesses is the sentence being pronounced, not merely pictured.

11and you are to say to them: This is what the LORD of Armies says: In the same way I will break this people and this city, the way someone smashes a potter's jar so that it can never be mended. And they will bury the dead in Tophet until there is no room left to bury anyone.

11And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

NoteBurying the dead in Tophet compounds the disaster: it was a place already regarded as polluted, and corpses made it more so. The point is not the choice of a cemetery but that there will be so many dead that the most defiled ground in the region gets used and still fills up.

12This is what I will do to this place and to the people who live here, says the LORD. I will make this city like Tophet.

12Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:

13The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be made unclean, like the place called Tophet. That is because on the roofs of all those houses they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.

13And 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.

NoteHouses had flat roofs used as extra living space, for sleeping, drying produce, and, as here, setting up altars in the open air facing the sky. "The host of heaven" means the sun, moon, planets and stars, worshiped as deities; the same word for a marshalled army stands behind the title "LORD of Armies." A "drink offering" was wine poured out on or beside an altar, a standard accompaniment to sacrifice throughout the region. "Made unclean" is a ritual term, not a comment on dirt: it means rendered unfit for any sacred use until cleansed.

14Then Jeremiah came back from Tophet, where the LORD had sent him to speak as a prophet. He stood in the courtyard of the LORD's house and said to all the people:

14Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD’s house; and said to all the people,

NoteThe "LORD's house" is the temple, and its courtyard was the open area where ordinary people gathered, a public space, and the one place in Jerusalem where a prophet could address the largest possible crowd at once.

15This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Look, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have announced against it, because they have stiffened their necks so that they will not listen to my words.

15Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

Note"Stiffened their necks" is drawn from plowing: an ox that braces its neck against the yoke and refuses to be steered. The image is of deliberate resistance to direction, not of stupidity.