Jeremiah 19:11

11 Then say, 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They'll bury bodies here in Topheth until there's no more room.

Jeremiah 19:11 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 19:11

And shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord of hosts
Of armies above and below; and so able to execute what he here threatens: even so will I break this people and this city:
the people, the inhabitants of this city, and that itself, by the sword, famine, burning, and captivity: as [one] breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again;
or "healed" ^F18; a potter's vessel, upon the wheel, such an one as the prophet had seen, and to which the Jews are compared, ( Jeremiah 18:3 Jeremiah 18:4 ) ; being marred, may be restored and put into another form and shape; but one that is dried and hardened, when broke, can never be put together again; so a vessel, of gold, silver, and brass, when broke, may be made whole again; but an earthen vessel never can; a fit emblem therefore this to represent utter and irrecoverable ruin; see ( Isaiah 30:14 ) . Jerom here again observes, that this is clearly spoken, not of the Babylonish, but of the Roman captivity; after the former the city was rebuilt, and the people returned to Judea, and restored to former plenty; but since the latter, under Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian, the ruins of Jerusalem remain, and will till the conversion of the Jews: and they shall bury [them] in Tophet, till [there be] no place to
bury:
where there should be such great numbers slain; or whither such multitudes of the slain should be brought out of the city to be buried there, that at length there would not be room enough to receive the dead into it; or, as the Syriac version renders it, "and in Tophet they shall bury, for want of a place to bury" in; in such a filthy, abominable, and accursed place shall their carcasses lie, where they were guilty of idolatry, and sacrificed their innocent babes, there being no other place to inter them in: an emblem this of their souls suffering in hell the vengeance of eternal fire.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 (hprxl) "sanari", Montanus; "curari", Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius.

Jeremiah 19:11 In-Context

9 The people will turn into cannibals. Dehumanized by the pressure of the enemy siege, they'll eat their own children! Yes, they'll eat one another, family and friends alike.'

10 "Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you.

11 Then say, 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They'll bury bodies here in Topheth until there's no more room.

12 And the whole city will become a Topheth.

13 The city will be turned by people and kings alike into a center for worshiping the star gods and goddesses, turned into an open grave, the whole city an open grave, stinking like a sewer, like Topheth.'"