This is an excellent chapter for preaching. This is the parable of the potter and the clay, and that marvellous hymn, ‘Have Thine Own Way Lord’, is based on this text. And the language of Hebrew here is very interesting, but we can probably identify with the picture that we see here.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This discourse is supposed to have been delivered sometime in the reign of Jehoiakim, probably within the first three years.’
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘In this chapter, mercy is still offered Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which, of course, they rejected but it came early in the reign of Jehoiachim while there was still hope of their repentance but in Jeremiah 19, the parable of the broken vessel depicts the final and utter overthrow of the kingdom and this would have been about the fourth year of Jehoiachim.’
God tells Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house, and there He will give him His message, Jeremiah 18:1-2.
Scribner, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This was located in a clay-field to the South of Jerusalem, just beyond the valley of Hinnom.’
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This potter’s field was made eternally famous by Zechariah 11:13, who named this field as the place for which the blood-money for the Christ would be used as a purchase price, a prophecy remarkably fulfilled when the thirty pieces of silver which Judas received for betraying Christ were actually used to buy a plot therein for the burial of strangers, Matthew 27:9-10.’
Ash, in his commentary, says the following concerning the potter’s wheel, Jeremiah 18:3.
‘There were two round flat stones, called wheels, set at right angles to a vertical shaft, one placed low under the table where it was propelled by the worker’s foot, and the other extending above the table where the worker could use it to fashion the vessels out of clay. The lower stone was heavier to provide momentum.’
When Jeremiah arrives at the potter’s house, there is moulding going on. The potter isn’t simply working at the wheel, messing around, Jeremiah 18:3; he is working with a definite aim in mind, he has a shape in mind, Jeremiah 18:4.
He is using his skill with the clay to produce its shape. To the onlooker, what it will be is not immediately obvious. Then a spoiling happens, the clay has been marred by his hands, Jeremiah 18:4.
What Jeremiah sees is not unusual. We see the pot, in the hands of the potter, being marred, referring to the spiritual and moral decay of God’s people. We find a similar story in the next chapter, where Jeremiah is told to go to the potter and buy a clay jar, which he must break before various witnesses.
Suddenly, the clay starts to flop and in his hands is the opposite of his planned shape. The clay spoiling could be caused by many reasons, such as human error, the wheel being off-centre, or there is a fault in the clay itself.
Whatever the reason, the potter is going to have to remake it. In starting again, he has a new shape in mind and so, carefully, he works out the flops and bumps to make sure that the same mess doesn’t happen again, Jeremiah 18:4.
What is the spiritual significance here? The potter is God. So, what has happened to the clay is no error on His part. What is the wheel? Whatever God is using, it could be other nations, but whatever it is, God is manipulating. What is the clay? Judah. The problem lies with the clay because Judah has not been shaping up because of her own unfaithfulness. So, they are to be reshaped.
Many scriptures refer to the potter, to the potter’s house, to the clay, vessels or jars, and other features of the potter’s work, 1 Chronicles 4:23 / Isaiah 12:25 / Isaiah 64:8 / Jeremiah 19 / Daniel 2:41 / Zechariah 11:13 / Matthew 27:7-10 / Romans 9:21.
It should be noted that it is God who likens the potter’s clay to wicked Judah; it is not Jeremiah’s deductions. This is one of the most important sections in the whole Bible.
Erroneous teachings such as ‘saved by faith only’, and ‘once saved, always saved’ are refuted and cancelled by what is said in this section. God says can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Jeremiah 18:5-6. Judah is in God’s hands, Jeremiah 18:6.
As I have said, we find another analogy of the potter’s house in Romans 9:21, where Paul says that if the potter cannot make the jar he intended to out of the clay, he has the power to make another jar, a jar of dishonour rather than a jar of honour.
And that is exactly what God is doing here, Jeremiah 18:7-10. God had intended great honours for His people, and they were intended to be a nation of God’s priests, devoted, faithful, obedient people.
People who would lead the world to a knowledge of the true God. People who, in due time, would deliver the Messiah to the world. People who would challenge the world to accept the Messiah.
What a jar of honour they could have been! Instead, because of their preference for sexual pleasures and their shameful worship of idols, God couldn’t fashion them into a jar of honour; He had to make them into a jar of dishonour, Jeremiah 18:7-10. They would never serve the nobler purpose that God had intended for them, Jonah 3:10.
Jeremiah is to tell the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, that God is preparing a disaster for them and devising a plan against them, Jeremiah 18:11. God says, turn from your evil ways and reform your ways and your actions, Jeremiah 18:11.
The people say more or less reply by saying, 1e will continue with our own plans, Jeremiah 18:12. Unfortunately, it is too late. They had gone so far with their evil hearts that they couldn’t turn back, and so, instead, they would follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts, Jeremiah 18:12.
Why is it that men deliberately turn their backs on God? They did so in Jeremiah’s day; they do so today. They reject God’s call for repentance. I suppose it is because they like freedom in their lives, freedom to do what they want to do. But how free are they?
Henry, in his commentary, says the following.
‘They call it liberty, but the man who is a slave to his lusts and appetites is held in the worst of slaveries.’
Jeremiah was to take this message to the people, and unless they change, they will become a mess, a worse mess. What is the relevant lesson here? God will always be a potter, and it is up to you and me to show how manageable we are.
There are no known examples in history of people who turned their backs on their own gods. So why did God’s people have to be the first? Why did they deny the very God who took them from slavery and made them a mighty nation, took them to be His own people?
But the people wouldn’t listen and obey God’s Word, and so, God says, go and ask this question, among the nations on earth, who has heard of a people who forsook their God for another one? Jeremiah 18:13.
None of them had. Babylon or Persia employed a policy that would embrace somebody else’s religion, that is, those of captured nations, but they did so for their own benefit. It was only Judah who had forsaken their God to take on somebody else’s.
The virgin had forsaken her status and accepted the sensuous fertility gods of the neighbouring nations, Jeremiah 18:13 / Jeremiah 2:9-13 / Jeremiah 5:20-25 / Jeremiah 8:7.
Wasn’t it because these nations were worshipping idols that God replaced them, these people of Canaan, with the Israelites in the first place? Wasn’t that why God gave the land to the Israelites?
How incredible that they, God’s people, should take on the worship of the very idols that God had tried to destroy. The two questions asked in Jeremiah 18:14 are rhetorical questions.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Lebanon was the highest mountain in Judea. Would any man in his senses abandon a farm that was always watered by the melted snows of Lebanon, and take a barren rock in its place? How stupid, therefore and absurd are my people, who abandon the everlasting God for the worship of idols!’
The false prophets, the false priests, the false rulers, the false gods, had ruined the nation, Jeremiah 18:15.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following concerning the ancient paths.
‘These were the way of loyalty to God’s covenant, the ‘good way’ mentioned in Jeremiah 6:16.’
As a result of their sinful idolatrous behaviour, their land would be deserted and destroyed, Jeremiah 18:16. God would scatter them, like a wind from the east, and He will scatter them before their enemies and show them my back and not my face, Jeremiah 18:17.
In other words, God will withdraw His favour from His people at a time when their need was at its greatest. They had turned their backs on God, and now He would turn His back on them.
Deep down the people understood all that Jeremiah was saying, Jeremiah 18:18. They knew that his words would put them out of business and so, their plan was, that every time he goes to speak God’s word, they will shut him down, Jeremiah 18:18.
Not only that but we will also tell the people the direct opposite of what he says, ‘Let’s attack him with our tongues,’ that is, let’s verbally abuse him, Jeremiah 18:18 / John 19:7.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘In this first part of Jeremiah’s fourth lament, we see the plot against him. So, Jeremiah pleads with God not to allow the good that he is doing for the people by preaching God’s Word to be repaid with evil, Jeremiah 18:19-20.’
He asks God to remember that he stood before him and spoke on their behalf to turn His wrath away from them, Jeremiah 18:20.
Because of all of this, Jeremiah pleads to God to punish them, Jeremiah 18:21-22. God knew what His people were up to in terms of plotting to kill Jeremiah, and so, Jeremiah asks God not to forgive them but deliver their families to their enemies, Jeremiah 18:23. Psalm 109:6-20 is like this and is worth reading.
Many people say that this is an un-Christian attitude of Jeremiah towards his enemies. They say that Jesus Himself prayed for His enemies whilst hanging on the cross, and that’s true, Luke 23:34. But Jesus said that these people didn’t know what they were doing.
God’s people in Jeremiah’s day knew exactly what they were doing. These people were not only Jeremiah’s enemies, but they were also God’s enemies; they were enemies of the truth, and God had promised to punish them in this way, Jeremiah 18:23. In other words, Jeremiah wanted God to kill Jeremiah’s enemies before they kill him, Luke 19:27.
Thompson, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Despite the fact that God had given a response to the first three of these laments in Jeremiah 11:20 / Jeremiah 12:1-4 / Jeremiah 15:14-18. There was no response to the fourth in Jeremiah 17:14-18, nor in the lament before us, Jeremiah 18:18-23. Once God responded with a word of encouragement, Jeremiah 11:21-23, and twice with words of rebuke and instruction, Jeremiah 12:5-6 / Jeremiah 15:19.’