Jeremiah (1-31) 18:5 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ⁶ O house of Israel.’ Now there is a difference here. In verse 6, it is the house of Israel that is addressed. But the house of Israel has fallen; the fall of Samaria, the capital, took place long gone. The ten northern kingdoms, the house of Israel were removed from their lands, and the Samaritans put there in their place. And yet Israel is addressed here. But very soon, down in verses 11, it will be Judah that is addressed. ‘Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’ That is where Jeremiah was, and he is going to address them. So the two kingdoms are separately addressed in verse 6 and verse 11. What comes across to us is that this is what happened to the house of Israel. The first declaration is to Israel: ‘O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?’ Were there Israelites who thought it was a failure on God's part that they had been abandoned and left to fall? Could it be that Judaeans thought that God had dealt with the northern tribes very poorly? The idea here is that the potter has every right to re-form what he is making. If God has undertaken to bless the Jewish nation, and to watch over them and protect them and use them in his purposes, if he has chosen to reveal his word to them, and grant them teachers and privileges, and to protect them from their enemies; if they resist him and disobey him contrary to his warnings, does he not have the right to leave them and to make something else out of the clay? Of course he does. What right does the clay have to answer back to the potter, when he chooses to rework it? The clay is owned by the potter. He has obtained it, mixed it; it is his to do as he pleases with, and to make what he wishes from it. If it is defective and it has flaws, he has every right to revise his ideas and to remake it. The absolute sovereignty of the potter over the lump of clay is instinctively understood by all, and helps us to see the sovereignty of the Creator over all that he has made. This is true even though what God has made is living beings with rational minds and conscious experience. They are accountable to him and they know it; he has planted in their being an awareness of his law. Now here in Jeremiah this potter and clay analogy is going to be used in the context of a lesson on repentance – whether you repent, or whether you refuse to repent. Has the potter not every right to dispose of you as he pleases? The same analogy is found in Paul's letter to the Romans, but he is inspired to set it into an entirely different context, which is the context of predestination. Some people try to identify the two together very closely, and of course there is a link, but they are teaching separate lessons, and the original application of the illustration in Jeremiah is to the matter of repentance. God is free like the potter to make what he will, but here the focus is on Judah’s responsibility and their failure to repent. They have been told that if they do repent, they will not be judged, but they refuse to. Because of that the potter will remake the pot – it is flawed – and none can complain.‘At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation.’ Now ‘At what’ is in italics, but the Hebrew indicates that as soon as God speaks concerning a nation, he will act. There is a suddenness comes into this verse. On some matters, and matters of very significant judgment, God often chooses to act suddenly. In one sense he never acts suddenly, because he gives warning, and he exhibits amazing patience towards wrongdoers before he acts. But this passage appears to be speaking about a final warning, maybe followed very rapidly by a sudden judgment. There is a change in pace here. ‘At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it’ – to pluck up a kingdom so that all the metal goes out of it, and all the order and rule and discipline of the operation of a nation or kingdom collapses, so that they can be easily pulled down, dismantled entirely, and then destroyed. All the terms are significant. At the very instant I shall speak and give the warning, then the clock is ticking. ‘If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil’ – there will be a space, but now only a little space. Up to now there has been an earlier warning perhaps and a long space. But now comes the moment, the final warning, with only a short space. There is spoken of here an opportunity to repent – ‘I will repent [change my mind] of the evil that I thought to do unto them’, and they can escape. Is the word ‘if’ here a hypothetical ‘if’? Is it a realistic possibility? Well, God knows the future and he knows they will not repent, but there is nothing to indicate that they were not responsible for their hardness of heart. There is a genuine opportunity to repent. If they repent, says the Lord, ‘I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.’But the converse is also true. ‘And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it.’ There is another final warning. Here is a nation under promise. You can be built up; you can be settled and established. This is of course thinking of Israel – but they have fallen now – and then Judah. The promises of God were still over them if they would be faithful and follow him. If that nation, to whom God has declared blessing and good, does ‘evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them,’ and the nation will fall. So here are warnings of rapid or sudden judgment: final warnings.