Jeremiah 19:10-11

19:10 The Lord continued, ¹  “Now break the jar in front of those who have come here with you. 19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ²  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ³  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁴  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ⁵ 

Jeremiah 18:2-4

18:2 “Go down at once ⁶  to the potter’s house. I will speak to you further there.” ⁷  18:3 So I went down to the potter’s house and found him working ⁸  at his wheel. ⁹  18:4 Now and then ¹⁰  there would be something wrong ¹¹  with the pot he was molding from the clay ¹²  with his hands. So he would rework ¹³  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 32:14

32:14 ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁵  says, “Take these documents, both the sealed copy of the deed of purchase and the unsealed copy. Put them in a clay jar so that they may be preserved for a long time to come.”’ ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 30:14

30:14 It shatters in pieces like a clay jar,

so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹⁷ 

Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ¹⁸ 

to scoop a hot coal from a fire ¹⁹ 

or to skim off water from a cistern.” ²⁰ 

Lamentations 4:2

ב (Bet)

4:2 The precious sons of Zion

were worth their weight in gold –

Alas! – but now they are treated like ²¹  broken clay pots,

made by a potter. ²² 

Lamentations 4:2

ב (Bet)

4:2 The precious sons of Zion

were worth their weight in gold –

Alas! – but now they are treated like ²³  broken clay pots,

made by a potter. ²⁴ 

Colossians 4:7

Personal Greetings and Instructions

4:7 Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave ²⁵  in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. ²⁶ 

¹ tn The words “And the Lord continued” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to take us clearly back to the flow of the narrative begun in vv. 1-2 and interrupted by the long speech in vv. 3-9.

² tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

³ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

⁴ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

⁵ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

⁶ tn Heb “Get up and go down.” The first verb is not literal but is idiomatic for the initiation of an action. See 13:4, 6 for other occurrences of this idiom.

⁷ tn Heb “And I will cause you to hear my word there.”

⁸ tn Heb “And behold he was working.”

⁹ sn At his wheel (Heb “at the two stones”). The Hebrew expression is very descriptive of the construction of a potter’s wheel which consisted of two stones joined by a horizontal shaft. The potter rotated the wheel with his feet on the lower wheel and worked the clay with his hands on the upper. For a picture of a potter working at his wheel see I. Ben-Dor, “Potter’s Wheel,” IDB 3:846. See also the discussion regarding the making of pottery in J. L. Kelso, “Pottery,” IDB 3:846-53.

¹⁰ tn The verbs here denote repeated action. They are the Hebrew perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive. The text then reads somewhat literally, “Whenever the vessel he was molding…was ruined, he would remold…” For this construction see Joüon 2:393-94 §118.n and 2:628-29 §167.b, and compare the usage in Amos 4:7-8.

¹¹ sn Something was wrong with the clay – either there was a lump in it, or it was too moist or not moist enough, or it had some other imperfection. In any case the vessel was “ruined” or “spoiled” or defective in the eyes of the potter. This same verb has been used of the linen shorts that were “ruined” and hence were “good for nothing” in Jer 13:7. The nature of the clay and how it responded to the potter’s hand determined the kind of vessel that he made of it. He did not throw the clay away. This is the basis for the application in vv. 7-10 to any nation and to the nation of Israel in particular vv. 10-17.

¹² tn The usage of the preposition בְּ (bet) to introduce the material from which something is made in Exod 38:8 and 1 Kgs 15:22 should lay to rest the rather forced construction that some (like J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 121) put on the variant כַּחֹמֶר (kakhomer) found in a few Hebrew mss. Bright renders that phrase as an elliptical “as clay sometimes will.” The phrase is missing from the Greek version.

¹³ tn Heb “he would turn and work.” This is an example of hendiadys where one of the two verbs joined by “and” becomes the adverbial modifier of the other. The verb “turn” is very common in this construction (see BDB 998 s.v. שׁוּב Qal.8 for references).

¹⁴ tn Heb “as it was right in his eyes to do [or work it].” For this idiom see Judg 14:3, 7; 1 Sam 18:20, 26; 2 Sam 17:4.

¹⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study notes on 2:19.

¹⁶ tn Heb “many days.” See BDB s.v. יוֹם 5.b for this usage.

¹⁷ tn Heb “Its shattering is like the shattering of a jug of [i.e., “made by”] potters, [so] shattered one cannot save [any of it].”

¹⁸ tn The words “large enough” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹⁹ tn Heb “to remove fire from the place of kindling.”

²⁰ tn On the meaning of גֶבֶא (geveh, “cistern”) see HALOT 170 s.v.

²¹ tn Heb “they are regarded as.”

²² tn Heb “the work of the hands of a potter.”

²³ tn Heb “they are regarded as.”

²⁴ tn Heb “the work of the hands of a potter.”

²⁵ tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.

²⁶ tn Grk “all things according to me.”