Jeremiah 18 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Jeremiah 18

The Potter and the Clay

18:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear¹ my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. 11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’

12 “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

13   “Therefore thus says the LORD:
  Ask among the nations,
    Who has heard the like of this?
  The virgin Israel
    has done a very horrible thing.
14   Does the snow of Lebanon leave
    the crags of Sirion?²
  Do the mountain waters run dry,³
    the cold flowing streams?
15   But my people have forgotten me;
    they make offerings to false gods;
  they made them stumble in their ways,
    in the ancient roads,
  and to walk into side roads,
    not the highway,
16   making their land a horror,
    a thing to be hissed at forever.
  Everyone who passes by it is horrified
    and shakes his head.
17   Like the east wind I will scatter them
    before the enemy.
  I will show them my back, not my face,
    in the day of their calamity.”

18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.”

19   Hear me, O LORD,
    and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
20   Should good be repaid with evil?
    Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
  Remember how I stood before you
    to speak good for them,
    to turn away your wrath from them.
21   Therefore deliver up their children to famine;
    give them over to the power of the sword;
  let their wives become childless and widowed.
    May their men meet death by pestilence,
    their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
22   May a cry be heard from their houses,
    when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!
  For they have dug a pit to take me
    and laid snares for my feet.
23   Yet you, O LORD, know
    all their plotting to kill me.
  Forgive not their iniquity,
    nor blot out their sin from your sight.
  Let them be overthrown before you;
    deal with them in the time of your anger.

Footnotes

[1] 18:2 Or will cause you to hear
[2] 18:14 Hebrew of the field
[3] 18:14 Hebrew Are foreign waters plucked up

Commentary

v1-4: As in 1.11,13, Jeremiah had to observe and learn, as well as listen and learn. The events he observed at the potter's house are ordinary, an everyday occurrence.

The lessons here echo Jeremiah’s own call; to uproot, tear down, and destroy; and to build up and to plant.

v5-6: God has the absolute right to do with Israel as He pleases. This is the basic meaning of the potter and the clay.

v7-10: The Lord will response according to genuine repentance.

The Lord announces His intention to uproot, to tear down, to destroy, to build, to plant (as in 1.10). Jeremiah was intimately involved in these things, as God's prophet. But where the people repented, then God would not deliver the disaster. When some disobeyed, then God would not deliver the promised good.

The message is clear; each nation was accountable to God.

v11: Specific application to Judah; disaster is planned, therefore repent. The potter's house illustration was no clever parable, but powerful truth. The words translated ‘preparing’ and ‘devising’ and words related to the work of a potter.

v12: The people's response, as Jeremiah delivered the word of the Lord; they rejected the message, and deliberately chose sin. Jeremiah had to endure this rejection, see Ezek 2.7-8, and he had to continue to declare God's words.

v13-14: See 2 .10-13 and 1 Cor 5.1; even unbelievers recognised Israel's folly and hypocrisy.

v15-17: As we frequently read, the people of God had turned from Him, and had chosen idols. The result was to be disaster.

v18: The leaders gathered together against Jeremiah, compare Ps 2.2, showing Jeremiah's life to be a picture of Christ's. See 11.9, the conspiracy among the people, the deliberate plan to reject God, and to persecute His messengers.

v19-23: Jeremiah's prayer; in line with God's word, see 7.16-20; 16.5-9. He was praying what God had said would happen. Note too (v20) that he had prayed for them, that God's wrath be averted.