Jeremiah Chapters 18 and 19 J. Vernon McGee

Theme: Sign at potter’s house

Now we go with Jeremiah down to the potter’s house. For folk who are sophisticated and hardened in sin it is difficult to get them to listen to the Word of God; so God has a sign for the nation of Judah, and He has an object lesson for you and me.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel [Jer. 18:1–6].

One Sunday evening a potter, who also was one of our radio listeners, came to put on a demonstration for the congregation at an evening service. He brought in a potter’s wheel which was operated by a foot pedal, and on that wheel he put clay. While I was giving the message, he molded the clay into a vessel. It was a very simple experiment, but I never repeated it—the congregation that evening was so intent on watching the potter that I don’t think anyone heard my message!
Many years before this, when I was a seminary student, traveling from my home in Tennessee to the seminary at Dallas, Texas, I had to cross the state of Arkansas, and always passed by a large pottery plant near Arkadelphia. One day we took time out (several other fellows were traveling with me) to stop and see the pottery being made.
There were two very impressive and striking sights there that I have not forgotten. Behind this plant was as ugly a patch of mud as I’ve ever seen. It was shapeless and gooey. It looked hopeless to me. Out in front of the plant they had a display room, and in that room were some of the most exquisite vessels I have ever seen.
Then we went inside the plant, and there we saw many potters at work. There they stood, bent over many wheels which were power–driven. They didn’t even have to use foot pedals; so they could give their full attention to working with that helpless, hopeless, ugly, mushy, messy clay. They were intent on transforming it and translating it into objects of art. The difference between that mass of mud out back and those lovely vessels in the display room were these men, the potters, working over their wheels.
Now it was to such a place that God sent this man Jeremiah. He sent him down to see a sermon. Actually it is a very simple sermon. It is easy to make identification in this very wonderful living parable that Jeremiah gives us. We have no difficulty in identifying the potter, and we have no difficulty in identifying the clay. In fact, God does it for us. God is the Potter, and Israel is the clay in particular here. Also it is very easy to make application to mankind in general and to each individual personally. Each individual is the clay. If I may be personal, you are clay on the Potter’s wheel. Regardless of what else may be said about you, you are clay today on the Potter’s wheel—as is every man who has ever lived on this earth.
The figure of the potter and clay is carried over in the New Testament. We find Paul in his epistle to the Romans using the same simile: “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Rom. 9:21). Then Paul used the other side of this very wonderful figure of speech when he wrote to Timothy: “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). So we see that this figure is carried all the way through the Word of God.
Now notice what the potter did. He was fashioning a vessel, and it became marred in his hands. It wouldn’t yield. The clay has to be just the right texture. Maybe it was too hard or too soft. So he pitched it aside. Then later he picked it up and made it into another kind of vessel.
There are two things we want to see in this section: the power of the potter and the personality of the clay.

POWER OF THE POTTER

Like a giant Potter, God took clay and formed man, the physical part of man. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). God was the Potter.
Now let’s go down to the potter’s house and stand with Jeremiah as we watch the potter at work. The potter has a wheel, an old–fashioned one. He works the pedal with his foot to make the wheel turn. As he pedals, his hands are deftly, artistically working with the clay, and attempting to form out of it a work of art.
Note, now, the first principle: God is sovereign.
The potter is absolute. That is, he has power over the clay and that power is unlimited. No clay can stop the potter, nor can it question his right. No clay can resist his will, nor “say him nay,” nor alter his plans. The clay cannot speak back to him. You remember the delightful little story we heard in the nursery about the gingerbread boy that talked back. But the clay can’t talk back.
I recall a very whimsical story of a little boy who was playing in the mud down by a brook. He was attempting to make a man. He worked on him and had gotten pretty well along when his mother called him. They were going downtown and he must come along. He wanted to stay, but she insisted that he come. By this time he had finished his mud man except for one arm. But he had to leave. While he was in town with his mother and father, he saw a one–armed man. He eyed him for awhile. Finally he went up to him and said, “Why did you leave before I finished you?”
The clay on the potter’s wheel can’t get up when it wants to. The clay on the potter’s wheel can’t talk back. The clay on the potter’s wheel is not able to do anything. It can only yield to the potter’s hand.
Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere will you find such a graphic picture of the sovereignty of God than in this. Man, the clay upon the potter’s wheel, and God, the Potter. You won’t find anything quite like this.
And our contemporary generation resists it because this is the day of the rights of man. We are hearing a great deal today about freedom, and every group is insisting upon its freedom—freedom to protest, freedom to do what it chooses. We seem to have forgotten about the rights of God. Today men will permit a racketeering gangster to plead the fifth amendment because we must protect his rights. God has incontestable authority. His will is inexorable, it is inflexible, and it will prevail. He has irresistible ability to form and fashion this universe to suit Himself. He can form this little earth on which we live to suit Himself. And, my friend, you, an individual, and I, an individual, can be nothing but clay in His hands. He has power to carry through His will and He answers to no one. He has no board of directors. He has no voters to whom He must respond. He has absolute authority. He is God. You and I live in a universe that is running to please God. And the rebellion of little man down here on this speck of dust that we live on is a “tempest in a teapot”! Our little earth, as we see in the pictures taken from the moon, is just a speck in the infinity of space. And, my friend, God rides triumphantly in His own chariot.
You will find that the Word of God has some very definite things to say concerning Him: “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Rom. 9:19–21).
It was Bengel who wrote this: “The Jews thought that in no case could they be abandoned by God, and in no case could the Gentiles be received by God.” And Dr. Lange, the great German expositor, said: “When man goes the length of making to himself a god whom he affects to bind by his own rights, God then puts on His majesty, and appears in all His reality as a free God, before whom man is a mere nothing, like the clay in the hand of the potter. Such was Paul’s attitude when acting as God’s advocate, in his suit with Jewish Pharisaism.”
God is absolute!

PERSONALITY OF THE CLAY

Now for a moment let’s look at the personality of the clay. I realize someone will be saying, “Believe me, you have a mixed metaphor here! You mean to tell me that clay has personality?” Clay is formless, it’s shapeless, it’s lifeless, it’s inept, it’s inert, it’s incapable, it’s a muddy mess. The psalmist wrote, “… he remembereth that we are dust” (Ps. 103:14). Dr. George Gill used to say in class, “God remembers that we are dust, but man sometimes forgets it, and he gets stuck on himself. And when dust gets stuck on itself, it’s mud.” We do sometimes forget this, but God remembers we are dust. I look at the clay on that wheel down at the potter’s house. That clay has no wish; it has no rights; it has no inherent ability. It is helpless, and it is hopeless.
The Scriptures confirm this. Listen to Paul in Ephesians 2:1. Although he is writing to the Ephesians, it can apply to you and me as well: “… you … who were dead in trespasses and sins” (italics mine). That’s man. Then he amplifies this later on in the same chapter: “… having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). That clay on the potter’s wheel is no different. Then Paul said to the Romans, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).
You and I need to recognize that our God is a sovereign God and that we are the clay. We were dead in trespasses and sin, without strength. God is the Potter with the power. “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom. 9:16). God is the One who is in charge. None of us has any claim on God. “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Rom. 9:15).
When Moses pleaded with God, God said to him, “Moses, I’m going to hear you, but I’m not going to hear you because you are Moses; I am going to hear you because I extend mercy.” That is the reason God heard him. God is not obligated to save any man. God is free to act as He wishes. He is righteous, and He is holy. This is a lost world, and it could remain like that, and no one would have the right to raise a question.
Now look at the other side of the coin. Let’s talk now about the power of the clay and the personality of the potter. This is the other side. “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” There is not only a principle here which is that God is sovereign, but also there is a purpose here.

POWER OF THE CLAY

Look now at the power of the clay. That clay on the potter’s wheel is like Browning’s “dance of plastic circumstance.” This wheel is the wheel of circumstance. That’s what it is!
I do not believe that life’s big decisions are made in a church sanctuary. I believe they are made out in the work–a–day world—in the office, in the school, in the workshop, at the crossroads of life—there is where the Potter is working with the clay. There is the place He is working with you, my friend.
You and I live in a world that seems to have no purpose or meaning at all. Multitudes of people see no purpose in life whatever and find confusion on every hand. Someone has expressed it in a little jingle:

In a day of illusions
And utter confusions,
Upon our delusions
We base our conclusions.
—Author unknown

How true that is of life today!
Look away, for a moment, from the potter’s wheel. Behind him we see shelf upon shelf of works of art. Those objects of beauty were one time on the potter’s wheel as clay—clay that yielded to the potter’s hand. Once they all were a shapeless mass of mud. What happened? That lifeless clay was under the hand of the potter, and as the wheel of circumstance turned, he molded and made them into the vessels that now stand on display.
I outlined the Book of Jeremiah for our Thru the Bible Radio program while my wife and I were down at Fort Myers in Florida. We had an apartment there for a few days. Every morning we would eat breakfast in the apartment, and I would work for a few hours on Jeremiah; then we would go over to one of the islands to hunt for shells. I discovered something. There are literally thousands of varieties of shells. I didn’t dream there were so many. Anything God does He does in profusion. My wife bought a book on shells, and we identified many of them.
In my hand I am holding a little shell that I picked up on Sanibel Island. It is a beautiful little shell. I had been working on the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah that morning, and when I found this, it occurred to me that the Lord was trying to say something to us. God started with just some little animal, a tiny mollusk, and around it He formed this shell. I thought, Well, since the great Architect has spent all that time with a little shell in the bottom of the ocean, what about man today?
Look again at those works of art which the potter has lining the shelves behind him. Don’t speak disparagingly of the clay! I’m sorry for what I said about it. It has marvelous capacity and resilience. This, my friend, and I am saying it reverently, this is what the Potter wants—clay. He doesn’t want steel. He doesn’t want oil. He doesn’t want rock. He wants clay. He wants something that He can put in His hand to mold and fashion. This is the stuff He is after—clay. God wants to work with human beings.
Someone may say, “Yes, but here is where the analogy breaks down. The distance between God and man is greater than between the potter and the clay.” I disagree with that. Actually God is nearer man than the potter is to the clay.
This is what I mean: the clay on the wheel down at the potter’s house to which Jeremiah takes us has no will. I do! That clay cannot cooperate with the potter. I can! I quoted the Genesis account of the creation of man for a purpose—God created man in His own likeness. He took man physically out of the dust of the ground; He made man. Then He breathed into his breathing–places the spirit of life, and man became a living soul. Man today has a free will, and he can exercise it. That clay has no will. But you and I do have a will; we can cooperate with the Potter.
Now I want to ask the Potter a question. What’s Your purpose in putting me on the potter’s wheel? Why do You bear down on me? Why do You keep working with me? Why, Potter, do You do this? I’m not being irreverent, but I am like the little gingerbread boy, I talk back. Why, O Potter, do you do this? What are You after?
Well, I go back to the potter’s house. Follow me now very carefully. I do not discover the purpose, but I learn something more important than the purpose for my life. I learn that the potter has a purpose, which is more important to know. I watch the potter there. He is serious. He means business. He’s not playing with the clay. This is his work. He is giving his time, his talents, his ability to working with the clay.
Notice again in verses 3–4: “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” My friend, this is not a cat–and–mouse operation. This is not the potter’s avocation. It is his vocation. This is not his hobby. This is not something with which he is amusing himself. He knows what he is doing. This tells me that God is not playing with me today. He is not experimenting with us. He has purpose. And, friend, that comforts me. This is the second great principle we see here: the Potter has a purpose.
As a sightseer, I stand with Jeremiah, and I say, “What’s he going to make?” Jeremiah says, “I don’t know. Let’s watch him.” The sightseer cannot tell as he watches, but the potter knows. He has a plan. He knows what he is doing. The clay does not know his purpose.
But, friend, someday we will know. When He puts us on the plastic wheel of circumstance, He means to accomplish something. He has a purpose. The psalmist says, “… I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15). Someday I’ll be like Him! “… it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). That’s going to be a fair morning. That’s going to be a new day. And God will be vindicated—He was not being cruel when He caused us to suffer. Some day, some glorious someday, we’ll see that the Potter had a purpose in your life and in mine. Notice how Paul writes to the Ephesians. He began the second chapter with the doleful words which I have already quoted: “And you hath he quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). And if that is all, then I’m through too. But, my friend, there is more: “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). In the ages to come we’ll be a demonstration, and we’ll be yonder on display. We will reveal what the Potter can do with lifeless clay. He gets the glory. It will be wonderful to be a vessel in the Master’s hand.

PERSONALITY OF THE POTTER

In conclusion let us consider the personality of the potter. This is the most important and wonderful thing of all. To do this we must take one final look in the potter’s house.
I say to Jeremiah, “The potter is a kindly looking man.” Jeremiah answers, “He is. He doesn’t want to hurt the clay. He wants the clay to yield because he wants to make something out of it.” I gaze into the face of the potter. Oh, how intent he is. How interested he is in the clay.
Oh, what a Potter God is! If I could only see my Potter! But Scripture says I cannot see God. Philip asked the question, which I certainly would have asked, when he said to Jesus, “… Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us” (John 14:8). The Lord Jesus said to him, “… he that hath seen me hath seen the Father …” (John 14:9).
My friend, let us look at the Potter very carefully now. See the Potter’s feet as He is working them on the pedals, turning, turning that wheel of circumstance. See the hands of the Potter as He deftly, artistically, oh, so intently and delicately, kindly and lovingly works with the clay. I look at Him. Those feet have spike wounds in them. And there are nail prints in those hands.
That’s not all.
I turn over to Matthew’s Gospel and read: “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me” (Matt. 27:3–10).
Two verses startle me: “And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.” They probably did not know what they were doing when they called it the field of blood, but I hope you don’t miss it. This Potter is more wonderful than any other potter. He shed His blood that He might go into that field and take those broken pieces and put them again on His potter’s wheel to make them again another vessel.
Just this past week I talked with a woman who has a broken home and a broken life. Is God through with her? Is He through with us when we make a failure of our lives? Oh, no. He’s not through with us—that is, if the clay will yield to Him. All that is necessary is the clay yielding to the Potter. He paid the price for the field, it’s a field of blood. You may look back on your life and say, “Oh, what failure! I don’t think God could use me.” My friend, He is working with those broken pieces today, and He’ll work with you if you’ll let Him. He has already paid the price for your redemption. You can’t make anything out of yourself for Him, and I can’t either, but He can take us and put us on the wheel of circumstance and shape us into a vessel of honor.
We are the clay; He is the Potter.

THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN VESSEL

In the first verse of chapter 19 God sends Jeremiah to get a potter’s earthen bottle and tells him to take elders of the people and of the priests with him as witnesses.

And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee [Jer. 19:2].

“The valley of the son of Hinnom” was at this time the place where the horrible worship of Moloch was conducted. God spells it out for them—

Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind [Jer. 19:4–5].

Because of these things, God says that the valley of the son of Hinnom would soon be known as the valley of slaughter, because as they had killed their children as offerings to Baal and Moloch, God would allow their enemies to kill them there (see vv. 6–9).
After pronouncing this frightful judgment upon the people of Jerusalem, God directed Jeremiah to break the clay bottle in the sight of the witnesses—

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury [Jer. 19:11].

Returning from Tophet, or the valley of Hinnom, Jeremiah went to the court of the Lord’s house and gave this final word:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words [Jer. 19:15].

He had warned, pleaded, and entreated, but their hearts were unrelenting. The clay had resisted the hand of the Potter too long. Very soon the enemy would come and shatter the nation in pieces.





McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Prophets (Jeremiah/Lamentations) (electronic ed., Vol. 24, pp. 83–94). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.