Jeremiah 19: The Potter’s Flask
Friday, October 10, 2025
Written on February 3 and posted today as a Favorite . . .
It will make their ears tingle when they hear about the bloodshed of the innocent! The Valley of Ben-hinnom will become the Valley of Slaughter. The city will be an object of amazement and derision. Passers-by will catch their breath at the wounds they see. And a flask will be shattered like the lives of these people. There will be so much death that there will be no place for burial. This because they have stiffened their necks and have not obeyed my words.
Jeremiah has visited Topheth, a town whose name could be pronounced with the vowels of the Hebrew word for shame. “This was due to the practice of there of sacrificing children as burnt offerings to Baal and Molech in the times of Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isa. 30:33; Jer. 7:31, 32; 19:6, 11-14; cf. 32:35). Kings Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah are reported to have offered their sons in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; cf. 2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). King Josiah attempted to put a stop to the practice by defiling the altar of Topheth (2 Kings 23:10) but it was revived after his death.” (Achetemier 1162)
When Jeremiah returns to Jerusalem and denounces not only this practice but the corruption in Jerusalem as well, he is beaten and placed in stocks by orders of a temple priest and administrator, Pashhur. “The prophet’s response was to rename the priest ‘Terror on every side’ (v. 3; cf. 6:25, where this phrase describes the people’s response to an invasion from the north, and 20:10, where is describes Jeremiah’s response to his enemies’ actions). This name symbolizes the fact that Pashhur will be a ‘terror’ both to himself and to his friends: they and the whole land will suffer death, plundering and exile at the hands of the Babylonians (vv. 4-6). The assertion that Pashhur has misled his friends (v. 6b) is the key to his condemnation. His reaction to Jeremiah’s message was based on a partisan political position, supported, of course, by an appropriate religious ideology. From his own standpoint Jeremiah was convinced that this position would lead to disaster.” (HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY, 561)
This is grim reading and yet it is the kind of persecution that takes place constantly in our world. Sometimes is happens an ocean away. We call always find a war on foreign soil that easy for us to ignore. It also happens right under our noses. The daily news offers up myriad examples of corruption or persecution close to home. Also today I think about someone dear to me who is persecuted for speaking up. No matter when this kind of harassment takes place, the effect the bully wishes to create – silence – is void, and in time an opposite result occurs – the truth always comes out in the end.
My parents continually reminded all five of us that this is one of the surest things we can count on and we read it here in Jeremiah. This prophet was eventually taken away to Egypt by Jewish authorities who fled before the waves of invaders from the north. His prophecy unfolds before their eyes, and still they revile him. In the end, although there is no written evidence of this, Jeremiah is murdered in exile.
The sins in Topheth and the crimes of Pashhur continue today, but we must not allow this fact to sap us of our courage or energy. We must remind ourselves and one another that the truth always comes out in the end. So what are we called to do? We must learn to faithfully witness to these crimes, to humbly pray for ourselves and our enemies, and to joyfully participate in the redemptive love that sets all injustice right in God’s time and in God’s way, lest we too be shattered like the potter’s flask beyond repair.
A re-post from September 15, 2011.
Achetemeier, Paul J. HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE DICTIONARY. 2nd edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996. 1162. Print.
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