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The Potter and the Clay

The word that came to Jeremiah from the L ord: ²“Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

⁵ Then the word of the L ord came to me: ⁶Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the L ord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the L ord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Israel’s Stubborn Idolatry

¹² But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”

Therefore thus says the L ord:

Ask among the nations:

Who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel has done

a most horrible thing.

Does the snow of Lebanon leave

the crags of Sirion?

Do the mountain waters run dry,

the cold flowing streams?

But my people have forgotten me,

they burn offerings to a delusion;

they have stumbled in their ways,

in the ancient roads,

and have gone into bypaths,

not the highway,

making their land a horror,

a thing to be hissed at forever.

All who pass by it are horrified

and shake their heads.

Like the wind from the east,

I will scatter them before the enemy.

I will show them my back, not my face,

in the day of their calamity.

A Plot against Jeremiah

¹⁸ Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah—for instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us bring charges against him, and let us not heed any of his words.”

Give heed to me, O L ord,

and listen to what my adversaries say!

Is evil a recompense for good?

Yet they have dug a pit for my life.

Remember how I stood before you

to speak good for them,

to turn away your wrath from them.

Therefore give their children over to famine;

hurl them out to the power of the sword,

let their wives become childless and widowed.

May their men meet death by pestilence,

their youths be slain by the sword in battle.

May a cry be heard from their houses,

when you bring the marauder suddenly upon them!

For they have dug a pit to catch me,

and laid snares for my feet.

Yet you, O L ord, know

all their plotting to kill me.

Do not forgive their iniquity,

do not blot out their sin from your sight.

Let them be tripped up before you;

deal with them while you are angry.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

God shews here that the Jews were become wholly irreclaimable, for they arrived at the highest pitch of impiety, when they were so daring as to reject the salvation offered to them; for what had the Prophet in view but, to extricate them from ruin? God himself by his Prophet wished to secure their safety. How great then was their ingratitude to reject God’s paternal care, and not to give ear to the Prophet who was to be a minister of salvation to them? Now as they were extremely deaf and stupid: God turns to the Gentiles.

Enquire, or ask, he says, among the Gentiles, Has any one heard such a thing? as though he had said, “I will no more contend with those brute animals, for there is no reason in them; but the Gentiles, destitute of the light of knowledge, can be made witnesses of so gross an impiety.” And he says the same thing in Jeremiah 2:10,

“Go, pass through the isles and survey the whole world, has any nation forsaken its own gods, and yet they are no gods?”

As though he had said, “Religion so much prevails among wretched idolaters, that they continue steadfast in their superstitions; as they consider it a dreadful thing to change their god, they therefore shun it as a monstrous thing. Hence it is, that they are devoted to their superstitions, for the god whom they have once received, they think it the highest impiety to forsake, while yet they are no gods; but my people have forsaken me, who am the fountain of living water.” Jeremiah repeats now the same thing in other words, that such an example could not be found among heathens.

He then adds, A base thing has the virgin of Israel done. Some indeed render שעררת, shorret, “a monstrous thing,” and it may be thus taken metaphorically, for the verb שער shor, means to count, to think; and this meaning may be adopted here; but as in many places it signifies baseness, I will not depart from that common meaning. ¹⁹⁸¹⁹⁸     It is rendered in the Septuagint and Vulgate as a noun in the plural number, and more suitably in this place, —
   13. Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Enquire I pray among the nations, Who hath heard such things as these — The horrible things which she hath fully done, The virgin of Israel.
   The particle מאד, much, very much, etc., must from its position be construed with the verb, and not with “horrible.” It may be rendered, “which she hath done excessively.” — Ed He says then, that it was an extremely base thing for the people to forsake him. He does not call the people the virgin of Israel by way of honor, but to augment their reproach. For God, as we have before seen, had espoused the people to himself; and so it was their duty to observe conjugal fidelity, as a virgin espoused by a husband, who ought not to regard any other, for she is not to look for any other after she has pledged her faith. But the people of Israel, who ought to have been as it were the bride of God, sinned most basely, yea, most disgracefully and infamously, when they prostituted themselves to wicked counsels as well as to superstitions. He now adds comparisons, by whichlte more fully exposes their wickedness, —

¹⁹⁸ It is rendered in the Septuagint and Vulgate as a noun in the plural number, and more suitably in this place, — 13. Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Enquire I pray among the nations, Who hath heard such things as these — The horrible things which she hath fully done, The virgin of Israel. The particle מאד, much, very much, etc., must from its position be construed with the verb, and not with “horrible.” It may be rendered, “which she hath done excessively.” — Ed