God’s message at the potter’s house
18
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 saw that he was doing a work on the wheel. 4 📚And the pot that he was making of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he remade it into another pot, as seemed good to the potter to make it.God the potter
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 📚“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you like this potter? says the LORD. See, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 📚At any moment I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck it up, and to pull it down, and to destroy it. 8 📚If that nation, against whom I have proclaimed this, turns from their evil, I will relent concerning the disaster that I thought to do to them. 9 📚And at any moment I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build it and to plant it. 10 📚If it does evil in my sight, not obeying my voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would bless them.
18:1-10 Another object lesson – Jer 1:11-14; 13:1-11. If a clay vessel is marred in a potter’s hands the fault may be either in the clay or in the potter. If nations or individuals are marred in God’s hands the fault can only be in them (Jer 7:13, 26; 17:23; Matt 23:37). But though individuals or nations have wills and can resist God’s work, yet He retains control over them and can continue His work either to bring blessing or disaster on them. But here is good hope for anyone who has marred his (or her) life and cannot make it as he thinks it should be. Let us put our poor clay in the hands of the master Potter and let Him make a good vessel for His use.⚜
18:7-10 In some measure God’s working will be according to the obedience or disobedience of individuals or nations to His word (Jer 26:13; 36:3; Ex 32:1, 14; Ezek 18:30; Jonah 3:1-10). Observe that God as the sovereign of the universe is active in the world uprooting or planting kingdoms, destroying them or building them up.⚜
11 📚“Now therefore go, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: See, I am preparing disaster against you, and devising a plan against you. Each one of you now turn from his evil way, and make your ways and your deeds good.’ ”
18:11 The Lord orders that Judah and its capital city apply the above truth to themselves. They should not blame the Potter for what is about to happen to them. But He knew what the people would say and tells Jeremiah in the next verse.⚜
12 📚And they said, “There is no hope; but we will follow our own plans, and each one of us will act according to the imagination of his evil heart”.
18:12 This is one of the most terrible things a people or an individual could say. Here is complete, willful, conscious abandonment of themselves to their evil natures, contrary to light, reason and the pleadings of God Himself. Here is human depravity approaching the utmost limits of unbelief, disobedience and despair. It is not a rare thing. Satan would, if he could, gladly bring us all to such a condition. And everyone of us has the tendency in us to go that way and that far. God’s grace alone can preserve us from it.⚜
13 📚Therefore thus says the LORD:
“Ask now among the nations,
who has heard such things?
The virgin of Israel has done a very
horrible thing.
18:13 Jer 5:30-31. What could be more horrible than the actions and words of God’s own nation (here called “virgin”)? Even the wicked city Nineveh did not behave so (Jonah 3:6-9).⚜
14 📚Will the snow of Lebanon leave
the rocky fields?
Or will the cold flowing waters
that come from another place be forsaken?
15 📚Because my people have forgotten me,
they have burned incense to empty idols,
and have made themselves stumble
in their ways from the ancient paths 📖,
to walk in pathways 📖,
not on a way built up,
18:14-15 Snow and cool waters always remain in the high mountains, but thoughts of God and the water of life He gives did not remain in the people’s minds.⚜
16 📚making their land desolate,
and an object of
perpetual hissing.
Everyone who passes by it will be
astonished and shake his head.
17 📚I will scatter them before the enemy
as with an east wind.
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 will not perish from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or the word from the prophet. Come, and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words”.
18:18 Jeremiah’s enemies thought nothing would be lost if Jeremiah were to be silenced. They did not realize that for those particular days Jeremiah was God’s true spokesman in Jerusalem.⚜
19 📚Listen to me, O LORD, and hear
the voice of those who contend
with me.
20 📚Will evil be repaid for good?
For they have dug a pit for my soul.
Remember that I stood before you
to speak good for them,
and to turn away your wrath
from them.
21 📚Therefore deliver their children to the famine,
and pour out their blood by the power
of the sword,
and let their wives be bereaved
of their children, and become widows,
and let their men be put to death,
and let 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 on them.
For they have dug a pit to capture me,
and hidden snares for my feet.
23 📚Yet, LORD, you know their whole plot
against me to kill me.
Do not forgive their iniquity,
or blot out their sin from your sight,
but let them be overthrown before you.
Deal thus with them in the time
of your anger.