Jeremiah 20

The clay is not attractive in itself, but when the hands of the potter touch it, and the thought of the potter is brought to bear upon it, and the plan of the potter is worked out in it and through it, then there is a real transformation. J. Wilbur Chapman

The prophet, of course, was Jeremiah. We don’t know who the potter was, although he played an important part in the drama. The policeman was Pashur, the priest in charge of temple security, whose job it was to keep peace in the temple and punish troublemakers. Since Pashur considered Jeremiah to be a troublemaker, he punished him by making him spend a night in the stocks. Jeremiah is the chief actor in this three-act drama.

The theme of the potter continues with another action sermon from Jeremiah, a sermon that cost him a beating and a night in the stocks.

Jeremiah preaches the sermon (19:1–9). At the command of the Lord, Jeremiah made a second trip to the potter’s house, this time as a customer and not a spectator, and he took with him some of the Jewish elders. Knowing their evil plots against him, it’s an evidence of his faith that he was willing to walk with them and then do so daring a thing as declare in their very presence that disaster was coming to the land because of their sins. Obviously his prayer to the Lord had brought him peace and courage.

The east gate was the Potsherd Gate, where the potters worked and the broken pottery was thrown. It overlooked the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, the Jerusalem garbage dump (Gehenna). But Jeremiah turned the gate into a pulpit and declared impending disaster because of what the kings of Judah had done: forsaken God, worshipped idols, desecrated the temple, murdered the innocent, and offered their children in altar fires dedicated to Baal.

This valley had been a center for idol worship, but Josiah had desecrated it by making it a garbage dump. Topheth means a “fire pit, a hearth,” because the little children had been put through the fires there. After the Babylonian invasion, however, the new name would be “The Valley of Slaughter.” The siege would be so bad that the Jews would have to eat their own children to stay alive!

Jeremiah announces judgment (19:10–15). “I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place” (19:7). To demonstrate this, Jeremiah broke a clay jar and said, “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’” (v. 11 niv). The nation was beyond discipline (2:23), beyond prayer (7:16), and now, beyond repair! They had so hardened themselves against the Lord that all hope was gone.

In the Near East in that day, kings and generals often smashed clay jars in a special ceremony before they went out to battle, symbolic of their total defeat of their enemies. This image is also used of the Messiah in Psalm 2:9: “You shall break them [the enemy nations] with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (nkjv). But here it was God smashing His own people!

We can only imagine how angry the elders were who had accompanied Jeremiah to the Potsherd Gate. After all, they and the priests (and Jeremiah was a priest) had endorsed the “peace messages” of the false prophets as well as the political schemes of the civil leaders who hoped to get help from Judah’s ungodly allies. But what Jeremiah did next made them even more angry, because he went to the temple and preached the sermon again! For a man who was broken before God, he certainly had courage before his enemies, but he was trusting God’s promise of help (Jer. 1:7–10, 17–19), and the Lord was sustaining him.

Can nations and individuals sin so greatly that even God can’t restore them? Yes, they can. As long as the clay is pliable in the hands of the potter, he can make it again if it’s marred (18:4), but when the clay becomes hard, it’s too late to re-form it. Judgment is the only response to willful apostasy. The northern kingdom of Israel refused to repent, and the Assyrians took it captive. Now the southern kingdom of Judah was resisting God’s truth, and Babylon would destroy the land and deport the people. The Jewish people rejected their King when they asked Pilate to crucify Jesus; forty years later, the Romans did to Jerusalem what the Babylonians had done six centuries before. “There is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16).

Jeremiah experiences pain (20:1–6). What before had been threats now became a reality. Pashur, son of Immer, assistant to the high priest and chief security officer for the temple, didn’t like what Jeremiah was saying. Therefore, he had Jeremiah arrested, beaten, and put into the stocks until the next day. The stocks were located at a prominent place in the temple area, in order to add shame to pain. Spending all night with your body bent and twisted wouldn’t be at all comfortable, and when you add the pain of the beating, you can imagine how Jeremiah felt.

Being beaten and put into the stocks was the first of several acts of persecution the leaders inflicted on Jeremiah. They threatened to kill him (Jer. 26), they accused him falsely and imprisoned him (37:11–21), and they put him into a pit (38:1–13). He was an official prisoner until Nebuchadnezzar set him free (39:11–18).

God, however, met with Jeremiah that night (see Acts 18:9–11; 23:11; 27:23–24) and gave him a special message and a new name for Pashur: Magor-Missabib, which means “terror on every side” (niv). Jeremiah had used this phrase before (Jer. 6:25) and would use it again (46:5; 49:5, 29). It described what would happen to Jerusalem when the Babylonian army finally moved in.

For the first time, Jeremiah named the king of Babylon as the invader (20:4). Previously, Jeremiah had announced an invasion from the north (see 1:13–15; 3:12, 18; 4:5–9; 6:1, 22–26; 10:22), but he hadn’t named the invading nation. Now the tool of God’s discipline was identified as Babylon, and Jeremiah would mention Babylon in one way or another about two hundred times in his book.

Pashur’s treatment of Jeremiah would receive just recompense, for he and his family would be taken captive to Babylon, and there they would die. For a Jew to be buried outside his own land was considered a judgment, for the Gentile lands were considered unclean. For Pashur and his friends, however, what difference would that make? They’d been preaching lies in the name of the God of truth and had been encouraging idolatry in the temple of the holy God. So why not live in a land of lies and idols and eventually be buried there? They’d be right at home!

If the events described in Jeremiah 18—20 took place during the reign of Jehoiakim (607–597 BC), then it didn’t take long for Jeremiah’s prophecy to be fulfilled. In 605, Nebuchadnezzar plundered the temple and took Jehoiakim and the nobles to Babylon. In 597, he carried off over ten thousand people, and eleven years later, he burned the temple and the city and left it in ruins. Five years later, he deported another group of exiles.

This is the last of Jeremiah’s recorded laments; it’s a human blending of grief and joy, prayer and despair, praise and perplexity. When you call to mind the sensitive nature of this man, you aren’t surprised that he’s on the mountaintop one minute and in the deepest valley the next. Jeremiah, however, lived above his moods and did the will of God regardless of how he felt. In this honest expression of his deepest emotions, the prophet dealt with three important concerns: God’s call (vv. 7–9), his daily peril (vv. 10–13), and his inner despair (vv. 14–18).

His “deceptive” call (vv. 7–9). When the servants of God find themselves in trouble because they’ve been faithful in ministry, they’re often tempted to question their call and reconsider their vocation. Then what do they do? One of the first things they ought to do is talk to the Lord about it and tell Him the truth.

The word translated “deceived” carries with it the idea of being enticed or seduced. Of course, God doesn’t lie (Titus 1:2), but Jeremiah felt that the Lord had taken advantage of him and lured him into the ministry. “You overpowered me and prevailed” (Jer. 20: niv). Jeremiah felt like a helpless maiden who had been seduced then taken advantage of by a deceptive “lover.” This is strong language, but at least Jeremiah said it privately to God and not publicly to others.

When you review the account of Jeremiah’s call (Jer. 1), you find no evidence that God had enticed him. The Lord had told him plainly that he would have a difficult time. If he trusted the Lord, however, He would make him a fortified city and a bronze wall before his enemies. God had warned His servant that the demands of ministry would increase and he’d have to grow in order to keep going (12:5). What Jeremiah’s ministry was doing for the nation was important, but even more important was what Jeremiah’s ministry was doing for Jeremiah. As we serve the Lord, our capacity for ministry should increase and enable us to do much more than we ever thought we could do.

After you’ve told God how you feel, what do you do next? Jeremiah resolved to quit being a prophet! He decided to keep his mouth shut and not even mention the Lord to anybody. But that didn’t work, because the message of God was like a burning in his heart and a fire in his bones (see Luke 24:32). Jeremiah didn’t preach because he had to say something but because he had something to say, and not saying it would have destroyed him. Paul had the same attitude: “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9: niv).

His daily peril (vv. 10–13). Having settled the matter of his call, Jeremiah then looked away from himself to the enemies around him. Faith doesn’t ignore problems; it faces them honestly and seeks God’s help in solving them. No matter how much he was constrained to preach God’s Word, Jeremiah had to deal with the fact that many people wanted him to keep quiet and would take the necessary steps to silence him.

Borrowing the new name God gave Pashur (Jer. 20:3), it’s possible that Jeremiah’s enemies used “Terror on every side” as a nickname for the prophet. It was another way to ridicule his prophecies before the people. They watched him and took note of what he did and said so they could find something criminal to report to the authorities. David had a similar experience (Ps. 31:13), and this is the way our Lord’s enemies treated Him (Matt. 22:15ff.).

Jeremiah’s mood swings from expressing courage to seeking revenge and then to rejoicing in worship (Jer. 20:11–13). Remembering the promises God gave him at his call, Jeremiah was confident that the Lord was with him and would deal effectively with his enemies. Instead of dishonoring him, his enemies would themselves be dishonored. Since his words in verse 12 are almost identical to his prayer in 11:20, perhaps it’s one he prayed often.

His deep despair (vv. 14–18). Having committed his cause to the Lord, Jeremiah had every reason to sing, for now the Lord would have to bear his burdens and help fight his battles. “Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him, God is a refuge for us” (Ps. 62: nkjv).

Jeremiah’s euphoria didn’t last long, however, because in the next breath he was cursing his birthday (Jer. 15:10; see Job 3). Jewish parents would rejoice at the birth of a son who could wear the family name and be able to sustain his parents in their old age. A priestly family like Jeremiah’s would be especially grateful for a son who could carry on the ministry to the Lord.

But Jeremiah’s ideas were different. The messenger who announced that a son had been born would bring joy to the family and expect a reward for bringing such good news, but Jeremiah asked that the messenger be treated like Sodom and Gomorrah! He wanted that man to awaken to weeping in the morning and to hear battle cries every noon! “Why didn’t my mother’s womb become my tomb?” asked the prophet. “My life is nothing but trouble and sorrow and shame! Better that I had never lived!”

“Why came I forth out of the womb?” is an easy question to answer: because God had a special purpose for your life and designed you to fulfill it (Jer. 1:4–5; Ps. 139:13–16). God makes no mistakes when He calls His servants, and we should take care not to question His wisdom. All of us have had times of discouragement when we’ve felt like quitting, but that’s when we must look beyond our feelings and circumstances and see the greatness and wisdom of God. As V. Raymond Edman, former president of Wheaton College (IL), often said to the students, “It’s always too soon to quit.”

And it is!