Jeremiah 19
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7–9 In these verses the Lord (through Jeremiah) announces the punishment He has decreed for Judah and Jerusalem. During the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, people will be so hungry that they will eat each other—even their own children (verse 4); this desperate hunger was one of the punishments Moses said would be given to those who disobeyed God’s covenant commands (see Leviticus 26:29; Lamentations 2:20).
10–15 Jeremiah is instructed to break the clay jar in the Valley of Hinnom in order to reinforce his message of judgment (verses 10–11). The judgment is this: Jerusalem will be defiled just as Topheth had been defiled (verses 12–13); Topheth had been desecrated by King Josiah, who turned it into Jerusalem’s garbage dump (2 Kings 23:10). The breaking of the clay jar would be a sign to the people that God’s judgment was irrevocable. The major sin that brought on this judgment was idolatry, the worship of the starry hosts (sun, moon and stars) and of other gods (verse 13).
In verses 14–15, Jeremiah is told to announce this judgment in the temple court before all the people. After making this announcement, Jeremiah quickly en countered trouble himself, as we shall see in the next chapter.