Jeremiah 19:7 Komentář

The same melancholy theme is the subject of this chapter that was of those foregoing - the approaching ruin of Judah and Jerusalem for their sins. This Jeremiah had often foretold; here he has particularly full orders to foretel it again. I. He must set their sins in order before them, as he had often done, especially their idolatry (Jer 19:4, Jer 19:5). II. He must describe the particular judgments which were now coming apace upon them for these sins (Jer 19:6-9). III. He must do this in the valley of Tophet, with great solemnity, and for some particular reasons (Jer 19:2, Jer 19:3). IV. He must summon a company of the elders together to be witnesses of this (Jer 19:1). V. He must confirm this, and endeavour to affect his hearers with it, by a sign, which was the breaking of an earthen bottle, signifying that they should be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel (Jer 19:10-13). VI. When he had done this in the valley of Tophet he ratified it in the court of the temple (Jer 19:14, Jer 19:15). Thus were all likely means tried to awaken this stupid senseless people to repentance, that their ruin might be prevented; but all in vain.

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 19 In this chapter is foreshadowed, represented, and confirmed, the destruction of Jerusalem, by the breaking of a potter's vessel the prophet had in his hand; and by the place where he was bid to do this, and did it. The order for it, and the witnesses of it, and the place where it was done, are declared in Jer 19:1; the proclamation there of Jerusalem's ruin is made, Jer 19:3; the cause of it, their apostasy, idolatry, and shedding of innocent blood, Jer 19:4; the great slaughter of them by the sword and famine, Jer 19:6; and how easy, and irresistible, and irrecoverable, their destruction would be, are signified by the breaking of the bottle, Jer 19:10, when Jerusalem for its idolatry would become as defiled a place as Tophet, where the prophet was, Jer 19:12; from whence he came to the temple, and there repeated the proclamation of the evil that should come upon that city, and all the towns around it, Jer 19:14.

And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place,.... The counsel which they took in this place and agreed to, in offering their sons and daughters to idols; and which they took with these idols and their priests, from whom they expected assistance and relief; and all their schemes and projects for their deliverance; these were all made to spear to be mere empty things, as empty as the earthen bottle he had in his hand, to which there is an allusion; there being an elegant paronomasia between the word (p) here used and that: and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies: such as sallied out from the city, or attempted to make their escape: and by the hands of them that seek their lives; and so would not spare them, when they fell into them: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth: signifying that they should have no burial, but their slain bodies should lie upon the earth, and be fed upon by fowls and beasts. (p) &

(Verse 7 and following) And I will scatter the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will overthrow them with the sword in the presence of their enemies and those who seek their lives, and I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city a horror, a hissing, and everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its wounds. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall distress them. Although we know that these things also happened to the people in the Babylonian captivity, they are more fully related to the times of the Savior, when they were besieged by Vespasian and Titus, and their city, in the times of Hadrian, collapsed into eternal ashes, so that those who had offered their children to idols were themselves later compelled by the necessity of famine to turn them to the use of food, and the flesh of all creatures of the sky and of the earth was given to them, so that those who had abused the gifts of the Lord into impiety and had sacrificed their own entrails to idols, would make graves of their own children's bellies.

THE DESOLATION OF THE JEWS FOR THEIR SINS FORETOLD IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM; THE SYMBOL OF BREAKING A BOTTLE. (Jer 19:1-15) bottle--Hebrew, bakuk, so called from the gurgling sound which it makes when being emptied. ancients--elders. As witnesses of the symbolic action (Jer 19:10; Isa 8:1-2), that the Jews might not afterwards plead ignorance of the prophecy. The seventy-two elders, composing the Sanhedrim, or Great Council, were taken partly from "the priests," partly from the other tribes, that is, "the people," the former presiding over spiritual matters, the latter over civil; the seventy-two represented the whole people.

make void the counsel--defeat their plans for repelling the enemy (Ch2 32:1-4; Isa 19:3; Isa 22:9, Isa 22:11). Or their schemes of getting help by having recourse to idols [CALVIN]. in this place--The valley of Hinnom was to be the place of the Chaldean encampment; the very place where they looked for help from idols was to be the scene of their own slaughter.