Jeremiah 19

Thus says the Lord: Go and take a potter's earthen flask, and some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entrance of the earthen gate — or Charsith —, and you shall preach — or you shall cry or you shall read — there the words which I shall speak to you, and you shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! For 'potter's flask', which in Hebrew is called 'bocboc', the Seventy translated 'little jar', and for 'earthen gate' Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion put the Hebrew word itself, 'Harsith', for which the Seventy, according to their custom, added the Greek 'chi' for the aspiration of the letter 'heth', so as to say 'Charsith' for 'Harsith', just as there is 'Chebron' for 'Hebron', and 'Hiericho' for 'Hieriho'. Now divine Scripture wishes the people to be taught not only by the ears but also by the eyes; for, as we have already said, what reaches the mind by sight is retained in the mind more than what reaches it by hearing. Take, he says, a flask — or an earthen little jar — and some of the elders of the people and of the priests, and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, of which we spoke above, where there was the shrine of Baal and the grove and wood watered by the springs of Siloam. 'And this valley,' he says, 'is by the gate' which in the Hebrew tongue is called 'Harsith', that is, 'earthen'. 'And you shall preach — or you shall read — there the words which I shall speak with you, so that what I am about to say may be heard there.' And the reason why, as we have already said, 'you shall preach' and 'you shall cry' and 'you shall read' are all set down, is that the Hebrew word 'carath' signifies three things. And he wishes both the kings of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that is, both the royal stock and the whole people, to hear what he is about to say, so that those who refuse to hear may be without excuse.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring affliction — or evils — upon this place, so that the ears of everyone who hears of it — or of them — shall tingle, because they have forsaken me and have made this place strange and have poured libations in it to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah knew; and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of the Baals to burn their sons with fire as a burnt offering to the Baals, which I did not command — or think of — nor speak, nor did they come up into my heart. And some foolishly refer this place to the heavenly Jerusalem. So that I need not always give warning of this, let it suffice to have said this once: that an explanation of this kind, nay rather heresy, is to be avoided, which overturns what is plain and tries to bring certain conjuring tricks into the churches of Christ. But no one doubts that they set up the idol of Baal in the temple of God, or else in the shrine which was in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where there were both the grove of Baal and his altar, upon which they sacrificed and burned their sons. These things the Lord neither thought of nor spoke, nor did they come up into his heart; not that God was ignorant of things to come, but that he says he does not know what is unworthy of his knowledge, according to that word of the Gospel: Depart from me, workers of iniquity, I do not know you! For the Lord knows those who are his, and he who does not know shall not be known. Or certainly these things too, like others, are to be taken of God anthrōpopathōs [in human terms]. Now every heretic forsakes God and makes the place strange to God's habitation, the place which he has polluted by his deceit, and pours libations to strange gods, whom neither he himself nor his fathers knew, namely the apostles and apostolic men; and the kings of Judah, that is, the patriarchs of the heretics, fill the place that was once God's with the blood of the deceived and the innocent — for unless a man is foolish and simple, he is not quickly overturned — and they build the high places of the Baals when they claim to be disputing about sublime things, and they burn to the idol their sons, whom they have begotten in heresy. All of which the Lord says he does not know, and that it never came up into his thought.

Sometimes Holy Scripture may, by an improper use of terms, employ the term "evils" in place of "affliction"—not that these are properly and in their nature evils, but because they are imagined to be evils by those on whom they are brought for their good. For when divine judgment is reasoning with human beings, it must speak with human language and feelings. For when a doctor for the sake of health with good reason either cuts or cauterizes those who are suffering from the inflammation of ulcers, it is considered an evil by those who have to bear it. Nor are the spur and the whip pleasant to a restive horse. Moreover, all chastisement seems at the moment to be a bitter thing to those who are chastised, as the apostle says: "Now all chastisement for the present indeed seems not to bring with it joy but sorrow; but afterwards it will yield the most peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised by it," and "whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives; for what son is there whom the father does not correct?" And so evils are sometimes used to stand for afflictions, as where we read, "And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do to them and did it not." And again: "For you, Lord, are gracious and merciful, patient and very merciful and ready to repent of the evil," that is, of the sufferings and losses that you are forced to bring on us as the reward of our sins.And another prophet, knowing that these are profitable to some, and certainly not through any jealousy for their safety but with an eye to their good, prays thus: "Add evils to them, O Lord, add evils to the proud of the earth"; and the Lord says, "See, I will bring evils on them," that is, sorrows and losses, with which they shall for the present be chastened for their soul's health, and so they shall at length be driven to return and hurry back to me whom in their prosperity they scorned. And so we cannot in any way assert that these afflictions were originally evil, for they are good for many and ultimately offer occasions for eternal bliss. Therefore (to return to the question raised), all those things that are thought to be brought on us as evils by our enemies or by any other people should not be counted as evils but as things indifferent. For in the end they will not be what he thinks who brought them on us in his rage and fury, but what he makes them who endures them. And so when death has been brought on a saint, we ought not to think that an evil has happened to him but something indifferent. It is an evil to a wicked person, while to the good it is rest and freedom from evils. "For death is rest to one whose way is hidden." And so a good person does not suffer any loss from these evils because he suffers nothing strange, but by the crime of an enemy he only receives (and not without the reward of eternal life) that which would have happened to him in the course of nature and pays the debt of human death, which must be paid by an inevitable law, with the interest of a most fruitful suffering and the recompense of a great reward.

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and this place shall no longer be called Topheth and the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. LXX: Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and this place shall no longer be called ruin and polyandrion of the son of Hinnom, but polyandrion of slaughter. What the valley of the son of Hinnom is, which in Hebrew is called 'gehennom', whence they think 'gehennam' [Gehenna] too was named, we have said above. But I wonder what the Seventy meant by putting diaptōsin, that is, 'ruin', for 'Topheth', and polyandrion, which signifies 'a multitude of men', for 'valley', unless perhaps because there the people fell and a multitude of men was slain, either spiritually in the error of idolatry or, according to the letter, by the Babylonian army, as is read more plainly in what follows.

And I will scatter the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will overthrow them by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their lives, and I will give their corpses as food to the birds of the heaven and to the beasts of the earth, and I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing; everyone who passes by it shall be astonished and shall hiss over all its wounds. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons and with the flesh of their daughters, and each one shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress in which their enemies, and those who seek their lives, shall shut them in. Although we know that these things also befell the people in the Babylonian captivity, yet they refer more fully to the times of the Savior, when they were besieged by Vespasian and Titus and their city in the times of Hadrian collapsed into everlasting ashes, so that those who had offered their sons to idols should themselves afterwards, driven by the necessity of famine, turn them into use as food, and the flesh of all should be given to the birds of the heaven and to the beasts of the earth, so that those who had abused God's gifts for impiety and had sacrificed their own offspring to idols should make their bellies the tombs of their children.

And you shall break the flask before the eyes of the men who will go — or will go out — with you, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as a potter's vessel is broken, which cannot be restored any more. This is plainly said not of the Babylonian but of the Roman captivity; for after the Babylonians both the city was restored and the people was brought back into Judea and restored to its former abundance. But after the captivity which happened under Vespasian and Titus, and afterwards under Hadrian, the ruins of Jerusalem will remain until the consummation of the age, although the Jews think that a golden and jeweled Jerusalem is to be restored to them, and again victims and sacrifices and the marriages of the saints and the kingdom of the Lord the Savior on earth. Although we do not follow these things, yet we cannot condemn them, because many churchmen and martyrs have said them, so that each one may abound in his own sense and all things may be reserved to the judgment of the Lord. And just as an earthen vessel of clay, once it has been broken, cannot be re-formed into its old appearance, so too the people of the Jews and Jerusalem, overthrown, will not have their former state. Indeed, the very name of the city today is void, and it is called Aelia after Aelius Hadrian, and together with its former habitation it has also lost its former name, to strike down the pride of its inhabitants. And the names of the holy Cross and of the Resurrection signify not a city but a place, and not the greatness of the riches of old, through which the people of the Jews perished, but the glory of holiness, which our poor little Bethlehem possesses, having not gold and jewels, but the bread which was born in it.

"Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity." See there "the rod of direction" described. "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity." Draw near to that "rod;" let Christ be thy King: let Him "rule" thee with that rod, not crush thee with it. For that rod is "a rod of iron;" an inflexible rod. "Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron: and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Some He rules; others He "breaks in pieces:" He "rules" them that are spiritual: He "breaks in pieces" them that are carnal. ...Would He so loudly declare that He was about to smite thee, if He wished to smite thee? He is then holding back His Hand from the punishment of thine offences; but do not thou hold back. Turn thou thyself to the punishment of thine offences: for unpunished offences cannot be: punishment therefore must be executed either by thyself, or by Him: do thou then plead guilty, that He may reprieve thee. Consider an instance in that penitential Psalm: "Hide Thy face from my sins." Did he mean "from me"? No: for in another passage he says plainly, "Hide not Thy face from me." ..."Turn Thou Thy face from my sins." But thou thyself, if thou wouldest have God turn "His face" from them, turn not thine own face from them. Observe how he proposes this to God in that very Psalm: "I acknowledge," he says, "my transgression, and my sin is ever before me." He would fain have that which he wishes to be ever before his own eyes, not be before God's eyes. Let no one flatter himself with fond hopes of God's mercy. His sceptre is "a sceptre of righteousness." Do we say that God is not merciful? What can exceed His mercy, who shows such forbearance to sinners; who takes no account of the past in all that turn unto Him? So love thou Him for His mercy, as still to wish that He should be truthful. For mercy cannot strip Him of His attribute of justice: nor justice of that of mercy. Meanwhile during the time that He postpones thy punishment, do not thou postpone it.

And they shall be buried — or they shall bury — in Topheth, because there is no other place for burying. So will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, that I will make this city like Topheth — or like ruin —. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be like the place Topheth or of ruin. But what is added in the Seventy: all the houses of the kings of Judah like the place Topheth, is not found in the Hebrew. And there follows:

Unclean are all the houses on whose housetops — or roofs — they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven and have poured out libations to strange gods. What he had said above: this place shall no longer be called Topheth and the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter, he now sets out more plainly: that so great a slaughter will take place in that very place that the people will be buried there in heaps and the place once of religion will become a tomb of the dead; that the city itself too, which overhangs this place, will become like Topheth — for which the Seventy translated 'ruin' —; and that the houses of Jerusalem also and the palaces of the kings will be turned into similar ruins. And the reason is given: because they were unclean and polluted by the crime of idolatry, in that on their housetops and roofs they sacrificed to the sun and the moon and the stars of heaven and burned incense, and were not content with this error, but sacrificed to demons and poured out libations to strange gods.

The apostle also knows vessels of wrath "made for destruction so that he might make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy." God has divided all people into these two vessels, those of wrath, those of mercy, those like Pharaoh and the Egyptians, those like Paul and those who have believed. But what is the treasury of the Lord in which are the vessels of wrath? Perhaps it is the church, in which such often go unnoticed. But there will be a time when he opens the church. For now they have been shut up, and the vessels of wrath share space with the vessels of mercy, and the chaff are with the wheat. In one net are the worthless and the chosen fish. The Lord opens up his treasury in the time of the judgment, when the vessels of wrath are thrown out. He who is a vessel of mercy may reasonably say, "They have gone out from us, for they were not from us." Outside the treasury the vessels who sin are not yet the vessels of wrath, but inferior. For they are servants who did not know the will of their Lord and did not do it. So they are vessels who are simply kept for other purposes.

Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord and said to all the people: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all its towns all the evils which I have spoken against it, because they have hardened their neck so as not to hear my words. After Jeremiah, in Topheth, in the presence of the elders of the people whom he had brought with him, broke the flask, or jar, and prophesied with the words of the Lord the breaking of the people and of the city of Jerusalem, he returns and stands in the court of the house of the Lord and speaks to the whole multitude, which had refused to go to the place Topheth, that the Lord is about to bring upon the city of Jerusalem and upon all its towns the evils which he has spoken against it. And lest we think the sentence cruel, he gives the reasons why he is about to bring evils: 'because,' he says, 'they have hardened their neck so as not to hear my words, not willing to repent even after many impieties.'