seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Jeremiah 19:1 This is what the Lord says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, 3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. 6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 “‘In this place I will ruin[a] the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. 8 I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. 9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’
10 “Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, 11 and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. 12 This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the Lord. I will make this city like Topheth. 13 The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.’”
14 Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the Lord’s temple and said to all the people, 15 “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.’”
a. Jeremiah 19:7 The Hebrew for ruin sounds like the Hebrew for jar (see verses 1 and 10)
All the way through the Bible... up until today.... when the Bible talks about the Temple being destroyed.... it seemed to me that God was kind of shooting Himself in the foot by having the Babylonian army destroy the Temple. It seemed to be a symbol but I just couldn't wrap my mind around why. Now I get it..... those morons were burning incense to the fake gods..... just like they were doing when the set up little altars on their rooftops. That's why the Temple and the homes were destroyed. Now that only leaves one question to be answered.... why send the people who are guilty of worshiping fake gods to a place where there are only fake gods? When the people return.... won't they want to bring the new fake idols they had grown use to?
This commentary is from Bible-studys.org.
Smashing the jar in front of the elders and priests symbolized the coming destruction of Judah. The opportunity to repent was past, and judgment was now unavoidable.
Before their armies went into battle, Egyptian priests would perform rites that involved inscribing the names of their enemies on pottery jars and then smashing them. The Tophet that had been used as a sacred burial site for children sacrificed to the gods would be filled with the corpses from battle; it was the same field where Judas hung himself because of his involvement in the plot so shed the “innocent blood” of Jesus the Messiah (Matt. 27:3-5; Acts 1:19).
They are too proud to repent and turn from the false gods, so God will surely do these terrible things mentioned in this chapter. He loves His people, but they have been unfaithful to Him. They do not want to hear God's Word.
This is from the easy English site.The Hebrew word for 'ruin' in verse 7 is very similar to the word for 'pot'. When the enemy attacked the city of Jerusalem, many people would die in battle. Their dead bodies would lie where the birds and wild animals would eat them. In the city, people would starve. The people could not obtain food because the enemy was waiting outside the walls. They became so desperate that they ate their own children. And they ate each another.
That terrible thing had happened before, when Samaria suffered (2 Kings 6:6). It happened again when the Babylonian army attacked Jerusalem in 587 BC (Lamentations 4:10). It also happened in 70 AD, when the Romans were waiting to destroy Jerusalem.
Jeremiah broke the pot into small pieces. That showed that the LORD would destroy Judah and Jerusalem. Soon the witnesses would tell other people what Jeremiah had said. And they would tell what he had done. Jerusalem would not be suitable for religious ceremonies for two reasons:
a) Dead bodies made a person or a place unclean. And there would be dead bodies everywhere in the city.
b) People worshipped pagan false gods. People burnt incense on the roofs of their houses when they worshipped the stars. And they poured out drink to give to other false gods.
Topheth was unclean already. It had become a place where people worshipped pagan false gods. Later, it became the place where people threw all their rubbish.
Jeremiah went to the Temple area. There he repeated his message. The LORD would destroy Jerusalem and all the villages near to it. The people could blame only themselves because of what would happen. They always refused to listen to the LORD’s message when Jeremiah warned them. And they continued to please only themselves.
If people would defile the church.... I know they would defile their own homes. So that's why the houses were destroyed when the Temple was destroyed. I am pretty sure.... some of the people heard about Jeremiah's message before being enslaved and force marched to Babylon. Those people had three or four months of horror to consider the validity of Jeremiah's mission. Jeremiah wasn't with them... he was taken [against his will] to Egypt.... so Jeremiah wasn't there to answer their questions. I would think that those are the people who would not take to the fake gods in Babylon.... those who heard Jeremiah's message and thought about it.... would know to hang on to God and avoid their little gods.... so that one day they could go back home and do it right.