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Jeremiah 18-22   Listen Podcast

The ol' potter and clay metaphor (Jeremiah 18)

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.”
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel.
4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
5 ¶ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!
7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it,
8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.
9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it,
10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
11 ¶ “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.” ’ ”
12 ¶ And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”
13 ¶ Therefore thus says the LORD:
“Ask now among the Gentiles,
Who has heard such things?
The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.
14 Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon,
Which comes from the rock of the field?
Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters?
15 “Because My people have forgotten Me,
They have burned incense to worthless idols.
And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways,
From the ancient paths,
To walk in pathways and not on a highway,
16 To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing;
Everyone who passes by it will be astonished
And shake his head.
17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy;
I will show them the back and not the face
In the day of their calamity.”
18 ¶ Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”
19 Give heed to me, O LORD,
And listen to the voice of those who contend with me!
20 Shall evil be repaid for good?
For they have dug a pit for my life.
Remember that I stood before You
To speak good for them,
To turn away Your wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,
And pour out their blood
By the force of the sword;
Let their wives become widows
And bereaved of their children.
Let their men be put to death,
Their young men be slain
By the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses,
When You bring a troop suddenly upon them;
For they have dug a pit to take me,
And hidden snares for my feet.
23 Yet, LORD, You know all their counsel
Which is against me, to slay me.
Provide no atonement for their iniquity,
Nor blot out their sin from Your sight;
But let them be overthrown before You.
Deal thus with them
In the time of Your anger.

Here's yet another prophetic appeal from God through Jeremiah to the people of Judah to turn from their God-rejecting wickedness and be rewarded rather than destroyed. It begins with God's command that Jeremiah should go watch the potter work his clay; he goes. The potter takes his clay and makes something. Before it sets, he can change it completely and make something else with the same clay.

Then comes the prophecy from God to Jeremiah based upon this trip to the potter's house beginning in verse 5. Judah should change their ways and let God reform their future away from destruction. Of course, Isaiah had already prophesied 100 years before that they would not turn from their wickedness - that they would, indeed, fall into Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 39, see notes).

How do you suppose the leaders react to Jeremiah's metaphor? They made plans to slander him before the people and to kill him (verse 18). That's a tough congregation; wouldn't you agree? So, how does Jeremiah feel about these people who are planning his demise? The answer is found in verses 19-23; pay close attention to verse 23, "Yet, LORD, You know all their counsel Which is against me, to slay me. Provide no atonement for their iniquity, Nor blot out their sin from Your sight; But let them be overthrown before You. Deal thus with them In the time of Your anger." That's right; you read correctly - don't forgive their iniquity! As far as Jeremiah is concerned, their actions are worthy of punishment, not forgiveness. Jeremiah simply asks God to give them their just due for their corrupt actions. How about a secondary lesson from this passage: When we see Believers rebelling against God today, isn't it our responsibility to shame them rather than excuse them according to Ephesians 5:1-21 (see notes)?

Another pottery metaphor (Jeremiah 19)

1 Thus says the LORD: “Go and get a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.
2 And go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the Potsherd Gate; and proclaim there the words that I will tell you,
3 and say, “Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle.
4 ¶ “Because they have forsaken Me and made this an alien place, because they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with the blood of the innocents
5 (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind),
6 therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives; their corpses I will give as meat for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.
8 I will make this city desolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair.” ’
10 ¶ “Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you,
11 and say to them, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet till there is no place to bury.
12 Thus I will do to this place,” says the LORD, “and to its inhabitants, and make this city like Tophet.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Tophet, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”
14 ¶ Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people,
15 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words.’ ”

God commands Jeremiah to do yet another object lesson before the wicked people of Jerusalem/Judah. Jeremiah is to buy a bottle/jar from the potter and then take the people outside the city of Jerusalem to the Valley of Hinnom where they've been doing a lot of pagan sacrificing - even human. Rebuke them for their practice and throw that finished piece of pottery down; tell them God is going to break them just like Jeremiah broke this piece of pottery. How bad will God's wrath be? Baaaad! So bad that we see in verse 3, "Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle."

It is most interesting that God instructed this to be done in the Valley of Hinnom. (Click here to see the summary on Jeremiah 7:29-8:3 regarding the significance of this location.) Incidentally, Tophet is a particular location within this valley. Jeremiah prophesies here that the morals of the people of Judah will be so corrupt by the time the Babylonians arrive, they will have resorted even to the heathen practice of cannibalism (verse 9). We see a similar prophecy Ezekiel 5:10 (see notes). Jeremiah reported that this actually happened in Lamentations 4:10 (see notes). There's the capper to this day of prophesying in verse 15, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words.'"

Pashur tears into Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20)

1 Now Pashhur the son of Immer, the priest who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
2 Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.
3 ¶ And it happened on the next day that Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD has not called your name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.
4 For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it. I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon and slay them with the sword.
5 Moreover I will deliver all the wealth of this city, all its produce, and all its precious things; all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies, who will plunder them, seize them, and carry them to Babylon.
6 And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. You shall go to Babylon, and there you shall die, and be buried there, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied lies.’ ”
7 O LORD, You induced me, and I was persuaded;
You are stronger than I, and have prevailed.
I am in derision daily;
Everyone mocks me.
8 For when I spoke, I cried out;
I shouted, “Violence and plunder!”
Because the word of the LORD was made to me
A reproach and a derision daily.
9 Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name.”
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not.
10 For I heard many mocking:
“Fear on every side!”
“Report,” they say, “and we will report it!”
All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling, saying,
“Perhaps he can be induced;
Then we will prevail against him,
And we will take our revenge on him.”
11 But the LORD is with me as a mighty, awesome One.
Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and will not prevail.
They will be greatly ashamed, for they will not prosper.
Their everlasting confusion will never be forgotten.
12 But, O LORD of hosts,
You who test the righteous,
And see the mind and heart,
Let me see Your vengeance on them;
For I have pleaded my cause before You.
13 Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD!
For He has delivered the life of the poor
From the hand of evildoers.
14 Cursed be the day in which I was born!
Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!
15 Let the man be cursed
Who brought news to my father, saying,
“A male child has been born to you!”
Making him very glad.
16 And let that man be like the cities
Which the LORD overthrew, and did not relent;
Let him hear the cry in the morning
And the shouting at noon,
17 Because he did not kill me from the womb,
That my mother might have been my grave,
And her womb always enlarged with me.
18 Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow,
That my days should be consumed with shame?

This is Pashur, the head priest and son of Immer. We'll see a different guy named Pashur in chapter 21 (see below). This was a rather common name back then. Anyway, Pashur's had just about enough of Jeremiah's doom-and-gloom prophecies and decides to teach him a lesson; he beats Jeremiah and locks him up for the night. The next day when Jeremiah is released, he goes to Pashur and gives him a new name, Magormissabib which means in Hebrew, "fear on every side." He goes on to prophesy that Pashur (easier to say and spell than Magormissabib) will be taken captive by the Babylonians along with all his friends and relatives and die there. A little persecution didn't slow Jeremiah down, did it?

Then we have a tremendous insight into the life of Jeremiah when we read his prayer to God in verses 7-18. Here is a distraught man - a man who has just been beaten and imprisoned. He is not very happy - even indicating in verse 7 that he didn't completely understand the job description for a prophet when God called him. Who knew it would be this hard? He gets no respect. People ridicule and persecute him. He wishes he had never been born in verses 14 and 15 (kinda like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life"). Look at these two verses: Jeremiah 20:14-15, " Cursed be the day in which I was born! Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me! Let the man be cursed Who brought news to my father, saying, 'A male child has been born to you!' Making him very glad." He even expresses this thought with the same basic words as Job in Job 3:3 (see notes), "May the day perish on which I was born, And the night in which it was said, 'A male child is conceived.'" Here we see a human side of Jeremiah - a regular guy with a huge calling from God.

No wonder they didn't like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 21)

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,
2 “Please inquire of the LORD for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that the king may go away from us.”
3 ¶ Then Jeremiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to Zedekiah,
4 “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls; and I will assemble them in the midst of this city.
5 I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger and fury and great wrath.
6 I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence.
7 And afterward,” says the LORD, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not spare them, or have pity or mercy.” ’
8 ¶ “Now you shall say to this people, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
9 He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him.
10 For I have set My face against this city for adversity and not for good,” says the LORD. “It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” ’
11 ¶ “And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD,
12 O house of David! Thus says the LORD:
“Execute judgment in the morning;
And deliver him who is plundered
Out of the hand of the oppressor,
Lest My fury go forth like fire
And burn so that no one can quench it,
Because of the evil of your doings.
13 “Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,
And rock of the plain,” says the LORD,
“Who say, ‘Who shall come down against us?
Or who shall enter our dwellings?’
14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,” says the LORD;
“I will kindle a fire in its forest,
And it shall devour all things around it.” ’ ”

The very last king of Judah, Zedekiah, sends another guy named Pashur (son of Melchiah) along with Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, to visit Jeremiah and pick up a prophecy. He is not the same Pashur as seen in chapter 20 (see above). Suddenly they're interested in what Jeremiah has to say since they see the Babylonians about to come attack Jerusalem. Jeremiah's been talking about this eventuality for decades. Well, the prophetic news from Jeremiah isn't good; Jerusalem is going to fall. He gives Pashur a tough-love message to take back to the king. Isn't it interesting that before the crisis, the people rejected Jeremiah's true message and preferred to listen to the false prophets with their optimistic messages instead. Now that the crisis is here, they're looking for real answers and solutions. Hey! What can you say? Sometimes sinful people pass the point of no return...and thus did the people of Jerusalem. In this prophetic message to be recited by Pashur back to King Zedekiah, Jeremiah makes it clear that the Lord himself is the one who will be orchestrating the demise of Jerusalem/Judah; Babylon is just God's tool.

Back to Jehoiakim in this chapter (Jeremiah 22)

1 Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak this word,
2 and say, “Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates!
3 Thus says the LORD: “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you indeed do this thing, then shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David.
5 But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,” says the LORD, “that this house shall become a desolation.” ’ ”
6 ¶ For thus says the LORD to the house of the king of Judah:
“You are Gilead to Me,
The head of Lebanon;
Yet I surely will make you a wilderness,
Cities which are not inhabited.
7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
Everyone with his weapons;
They shall cut down your choice cedars
And cast them into the fire.
8 And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, “Why has the LORD done so to this great city?’
9 Then they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.’ ”
10 Weep not for the dead, nor bemoan him;
Weep bitterly for him who goes away,
For he shall return no more,
Nor see his native country.
11 ¶ For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went from this place: “He shall not return here anymore,
12 but he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.
13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness
And his chambers by injustice,
Who uses his neighbor’s service without wages
And gives him nothing for his work,
14 Who says, “I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers,
And cut out windows for it,
Paneling it with cedar
And painting it with vermilion.’
15 “Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink,
And do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
Then it was well.
Was not this knowing Me?” says the LORD.
17 “Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness,
For shedding innocent blood,
And practicing oppression and violence.”
18 ¶ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
“They shall not lament for him,
Saying, “Alas, my brother!’ or “Alas, my sister!’
They shall not lament for him,
Saying, “Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, his glory!’
19 He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey,
Dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
And lift up your voice in Bashan;
Cry from Abarim,
For all your lovers are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity,
But you said, “I will not hear.’
This has been your manner from your youth,
That you did not obey My voice.
22 The wind shall eat up all your rulers,
And your lovers shall go into captivity;
Surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated
For all your wickedness.
23 O inhabitant of Lebanon,
Making your nest in the cedars,
How gracious will you be when pangs come upon you,
Like the pain of a woman in labor?
24 ¶ “As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;
25 and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die.
27 But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return.
28 “Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol—
A vessel in which is no pleasure?
Why are they cast out, he and his descendants,
And cast into a land which they do not know?
29 O earth, earth, earth,
Hear the word of the LORD!
30 Thus says the LORD:
“Write this man down as childless,
A man who shall not prosper in his days;
For none of his descendants shall prosper,
Sitting on the throne of David,
And ruling anymore in Judah.’ ”

Zedekiah in chapter 21 (see above) was the last king of Judah. The setting for chapter 22 is two kings back to the reign of Jehoiakim. Jehoiachin followed him, then Zedekiah. So, this prophecy is given earlier than the one in chapter 21. It's just as I said at the beginning of Jeremiah, the book is not presented chronologically.

Here's a listing of the last kings of Judah to give you a little perspective:

There's a good bit of name dropping by Jeremiah in this prophecy, but it all boils down to the fact that it's over for Jerusalem. The Babylonian captivity is imminent and Nebuchadnezzar is the king who will lead them. One can't help but notice, however, the longsuffering of God here when Jeremiah once again calls upon Jerusalem to repent to God and be delivered. Look at Jeremiah 22:4-5, "'For if you indeed do this thing, then shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David. But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,' says the LORD, 'that this house shall become a desolation.'" The invitation for repentance and restoration is still there. However, in this very same chapter God proclaims (just as Isaiah had 100 years earlier) that Jerusalem/Judah would reject this invitation and subsequently "become a desolation" at the hands of the Babylonians.

Verses 18-19 indicate that Jehoiakim will meet a violent death. He came to a violent death, and his body was thrown over the wall of Jerusalem to convince the besieging army that he was dead (II Kings 24:1-7; II Chronicles 36:1-8 - see notes). Verse 19 goes on to say, "He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, Dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem." He should have listened to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah then addresses the fate of Jehoiakim's son and successor, Coniah (Jehoiachin's abbreviated name). In verses 24-27, he prophesies that Jehoiachin will be exiled to Babylon; that also happened in II Kings 24:8-17 (see notes) in 597 B.C. According to the Expositor's Bible Commentary, "He [Jehoiachin] is mentioned under the name of Yaukin in ration tablets between 595 and 570 B.C.; these were unearthed near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon and are known as the Weidner Tablets (so Harrison)." Then Jeremiah further prophesies in verse 30 that none of Jehoiachin's descendants will ever occupy the throne of David. As a matter of fact, Zedekiah (Jehoiachin's successor and the last king of Judah) was the son of Josiah, King of Judah from 640-609. Zedekiah was placed there as king by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. There are some Messianic implications in that prophecy. See the discussion on the genealogies of Jesus by clicking here.