Jeremiah 19:2-6

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.

Jeremiah 19:2-6 Meaning and Commentary

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 19:1,2; 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 19:4,5; the great slaughter of them by the sword and famine, Jer 19:6-9; and how easy, and irresistible, and irrecoverable, their destruction would be, are signified by the breaking of the bottle, Jer 19:10,11, when Jerusalem for its idolatry would become as defiled a place as Tophet, where the prophet was, Jer 19:12,13; 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 19:14,15.

Cross References 13

  • 1. S Joshua 15:8
  • 2. Jeremiah 17:20
  • 3. S Jeremiah 6:19
  • 4. S 1 Samuel 3:11
  • 5. S Deuteronomy 31:16; Deuteronomy 28:20; S Isaiah 65:11
  • 6. S Exodus 20:3; S Jeremiah 1:16
  • 7. S Leviticus 18:21
  • 8. S 2 Kings 21:16; Jeremiah 2:34
  • 9. S Leviticus 18:21; S 2 Kings 3:27; Psalms 106:37-38
  • 10. S Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 32:35; Ezekiel 16:36
  • 11. S 2 Kings 23:10
  • 12. S Joshua 15:8
  • 13. Jeremiah 7:32
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