Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 19

And get a potter’s earthen bottle. —The word for “get ” involves buying as the process. The symbolic action—one might better call it, the parable dramatized—represents the darker side of the imagery of Jeremiah 18:3-4. There the vessel was still on the potter’s wheel, capable of being reshaped. Now we have the vessel which has been baked and hardened. No change is possible. If it is unfit for the uses for which it was designed, there is nothing left but to break it.

As such it became now the fit symbol of the obdurate people of Israel. Their political structure, their nationality, their religious system, had to be broken up. The word for “vessel” indicates a large earthen jar with a narrow neck, the “cruse” used for honey in 1 Kings 14:3. Its form, bakbuk, clearly intended to represent the gurgling sound of the water as it was poured out, is interesting as an example of onomatopoeia in the history of language.

Take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests. —The elders, and therefore the representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical rulers, were to be the witnesses of this acted prophecy of the destruction of all that they held most precious. The word “take” is not in the Hebrew, but either some such verb has to be supplied, or the verb “go” has to be carried on, “Let the ancients ... go with you.”

To the valley of the son of Hinnom. —The site was chosen as having been the scene of the most hateful form of idolatry to which the people had addicted themselves, perhaps also as connected locally with the potter’s field. (See Note on Jeremiah 7:31; and Matthew 27:7.)

By the entry of the east gate. —The Hebrew word is obscure. The Authorised Version adopts a doubtful etymology, connecting the word with the sun (so “sun gate” in the margin) and therefore with the East. Luther, with the Vulgate and most modern scholars, renders it as “the potter’s gate,” or more literally, the gate of pottery. The Septuagint treats it as a proper name, and gives “the gate Kharsith.” No such gate appears in the topographical descriptions of Nehemiah 2:3; and the two gates which led into the valley of Hinnom were the Fountain and the Dung gate (Nehemiah 3:13–15).

Hence it has been inferred that this was a small postern gate leading into the valley just at the point where it was filled with rubbish, possibly with broken fragments like those which were now to be added to it. On this supposition the connection both of the name of the gate and its use with the symbolism of the prophet’s act may have determined the command which was thus given him.

O kings of Judah. —The plural seems used to include both the reigning king, Jehoiakim, and his heir-apparent or presumptive.

His ears shall tingle. —The phrase, occurring as it does in 1 Samuel 3:11, in the prophecy of the doom of the earlier sanctuary, seems intentionally used to remind those who heard it of the fate that had fallen on Shiloh. The destruction of the first sanctuary of Israel was to be the type of that of the second (Psalms 78:60; Jeremiah 7:14). The phrase had, however, been used more recently (2 Kings 21:12).

Have estranged this place. — i.e., have alienated it from Jehovah its true Lord, and given it to a strange god. The words refer specially to the guilt of Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:4).

The blood of innocents. — The words seem at first to refer to the Molech sacrifices, which had made the valley of Hinnom infamous. These, however, are mentioned separately in the next verse, and the prophet probably spoke rather here, as in Jeremiah 2:34; Jeremiah 7:6, of the innocent blood with which Manasseh had filled Jerusalem (2 Kings 21:16; 2 Kings 24:4, where the same word is used).

The high places of Baal. —Baal, as in Jeremiah 2:23, is identified with Molech, and the terms in which the guilt of the people and its punishment are described are all but identical with those of Jeremiah 7:31-32. The fact that such sacrifices were offered is indicated in Psalm 106:37-38.