Having instructed Jeremiah to buy the potter’s earthenware and to take it to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom with a group of leaders from Jerusalem, the Lord now instructs Jeremiah to shatter the jar in front of them.
The Lord then tells Jeremiah to immediately explain what this means. ’Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel so that it can never be mended.’
There can be no doubt as to the meaning of Jeremiah’s action. The shattering of the jar symbolizes the Lord’s destruction of Judah. This is a crucial part of the Lord’s message to Judah. The terrifying part is that a shattered jar cannot be repaired. What the Lord is about to do to Judah cannot be fixed. The warning that Israel will face judgment from the Lord which cannot be mended
is also mentioned as part of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:27, Deuteronomy 28:35.1
This symbolic act takes the image of the potter to a new level. In Jeremiah 18:1–23 the jar was still soft and could be remolded in the potter’s hands; now it is already hard and can only be shattered. The time of repentance for Judah has come and gone. Now all that awaits them is judgment and destruction.2
10 “Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you,