and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.
The Prophet again confirms what he had shewn by the external symbol, and he does this by a new coremtrod from God. We know that signs are wholly useless when the word of God does not shine forth, as we see that superstitious men always practice many ceremonies, but they are only histrionic acts. But God never commanded his prophets to shew any sign without adding doctrine to it.
The message of wrath delivered in the foregoing verses is here enforced, that it might gain credit, two ways: - I. By a visible sign. The prophet was to take along with him an earthen bottle (Jer 19:1), and, when he had delivered his message, he was to break the bottle to pieces (Jer 19:10), and the same that were auditors of the sermon must be spectators of the sign.
Commenting on Jeremiah 19:10-15
Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof,.... To the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, as was done to the earthen bottle, and as before threatened: and even, or also, make this city as Tophet; as full of slaughtered men and women as that had been of the blood of innocent children; and as filthy, abominable, and...