Commentary on Jeremiah (In Jeremiam)

1 Here he threatens the punishment brought to completion: and first he designates the place of preaching: "to the valley of the sons of Annon, which is next to the entrance of the potter's gate, where the potters dwelt; and you shall preach there the words which I speak to you." Ezek. 3: "you shall hear the word from my mouth, and you shall announce it to them from me." Second, he sets down the word of preaching: and first in the place appointed beforehand by God; second in the temple, at the words, "Now Jeremiah came from Tophet." About the first, two things. First he predicts it in word; second he prefigures it in deed, at the words, "and you shall break the flask." About the first, first he threatens the punishment in general, seeking a hearing: "you shall say, Hear." Ps. 2: "and now, kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth." Foretelling the punishment: "thus says the Lord (...) shall tingle," as though from a disturbance of the heart out of stupor, just as from the disturbance of a great sound. 1 Kings 3: "behold, I will do a thing in Israel, which whoever shall hear, both his ears shall tingle." 4 Kings 21: "behold, I will bring evils upon Jerusalem and Judah, so that whoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle." And assigning the cause, the fault of the people: "because they have forsaken me." Isa. 1: "they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backward." And the fault of the king as to simple homicide: "and the kings of Judah." 4 Kings 21: "Manasses shed innocent blood exceedingly much, until Jerusalem was filled up to the mouth." And as to homicide joined with sacrilege: "and they have built the high places of Baalim." Ps. 105: "they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Chanaan." Second, he sets down the punishment in particular: and first as to the evils which they suffered in the capture of the city, setting down the slaying of men: "therefore behold, the days shall come"; where he designates the multitude of the slain, "and this place shall no more be called Tophet." Above, chapter 7, the same. The scattering of counsel: "and I will scatter the counsel of Judah," which had planned to vanquish Nebuchadnezzar by war, in this place, because there they were slain: Job 5: "he catches the wise in their own craftiness, and scatters the counsel of the wicked." And the manner of the slaying: "and I will overthrow them with the sword." Ezek. 21: "this is the sword of the great slaughter, which has made them astonished, and to pine away at heart, and multiplies ruins." And setting down the casting away of the corpses: "and I will give their carcasses to be meat for the fowls of the air." Ps. 78: "they have given the dead bodies of your servants to be meat for the fowls of the air, the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth." And setting down the destruction of cities: "and I will make this city an astonishment." Above, chapter 18, the same. Second, the punishment which they suffered in the siege: "and I will feed them with the flesh of their sons." Deut. 28: "you shall eat the fruit of your womb, and the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, which the Lord your God shall give you, in the distress and extremity with which your enemy shall oppress you." Lam. 4: "the hands of the merciful women have cooked their own children: they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people."

Here he sets forth the aforesaid punishment by a deed: and first he sets down the deed: "you shall break the little flask." Isa. 10: behold, the ruler, the Lord of hosts, will shatter the little flask in terror, and the tall in stature shall be cut down, and the lofty shall be humbled. Second, the meaning of the deed: "and you shall say to them." First, as to the slaying of the people: "thus will I break." Isa. 30: it shall be crushed small as a potter's jar is crushed, with a most thorough crushing. Second, as to the place of burial: "and they shall be buried in Tophet, because of the multitude of the slain." Above, 7, the same. Third, as to the destruction of the city: "thus will I make it, like Tophet, unclean, and without houses." On the roofs of which — that is, on the tops of the houses, which were flat, and on them they used to worship idols. Isa. 22: you too have gone up wholly onto the roofs, full of clamor, a crowded city, an exulting city.

After he had said the foregoing things in the valley of Tophet to the people, he returns to the temple, that he might announce them to the people who refused to follow him. And this is plain. Acts 7: Stiffnecked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you have always resisted the Holy Spirit; as also your fathers, so also you.