Bible reading & studying Jeremiah chapter 18-20 by Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce

 Bible reading & studying on Jeremiah chapter 18-20

by Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce

Christian Arts Ministries : Biblical precepts & Gospel Music

 

Chapter 18:1-11 this parable of the potter teaches the absolute sovereignty of God over nations, not capriciously, but with sensitivity to the possibility of their repenting (v.8).

 

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message, “So I went down to the potter’s house and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands, so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand. O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if the nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation of kingdom is to be built up and planted and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it… (vv1-10)…

Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols and in the ancient paths. They made them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up. (v.15)

I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster. (v.16)

In chapter 18: 18-23 shows another conspiracy against Jeremiah, with his reaction (11:18-23;12:1-6;15:10-12) so Jeremiah plead to the Lord, “ But you know, O Lord, all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.” (v23)

 

In chapter 19 the message indicates Judah as a broken jar. A clay jar, once hardened, it could not be remade but had to be broken if unacceptable. Judah had arrived at that stage.Topheth. Probably means “fireplace” Ben Hinnom. Gehenna, avalley on the SW. of Jerusalem. Judah was outdoing the heathen, who rarely made child sacrifices.    

This is what the Lord says, “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests… I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind…. “(vv.1-5)

 

Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, and say to them. “This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the Lord.  I will make this city like Topheth.

 

In Chapter 20 Jeremiah complained about his lot (vv.7-8, 14-18) yet was compelled to proclaim God’s message (v.9) Terror on every side (v.10). In Hebrew, Magor –Missabib a sarcastic nickname for Jeremiah, means “terror on every side”; Pashhur’s change of name became a symbol of what would happen then the Babylonians came (vv4-6).

 

“O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. (vv.7-8).

But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in His name; His word is in my heart life a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Report him! Let’s report him! All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” (vv.9-10)

“But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have committed my cause.  

Sing to the Lord! Give to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked…”(vv.11-13)

 

Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie Study Bible (NIV).Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986.