Although Jesus stands alone in his ability to observe the everyday habits and activities of men and women and to draw from them unforgettable lessons, the Old Testament also shows power in this direction. A notable example is found in the writings of Jeremiah. The illustration was not one which the prophet noticed for himself, but one to which he was directed by the word of the Lord. He was told to go and watch a potter at work, No doubt the sight was not new to him, but this was a special visit, for God told him that at the potter’s house he would be caused to hear a Divine word.
As commanded, Jeremiah set out. He probably went to the valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, south of Jerusalem. Here many relics of the earlier existence of potteries have been unearthed in modern times. Above the valley is what is believed to have been the gate of the potsherds, where broken earthenware was thrown away. The potter’s apparatus consisted of a large stone surmounted by a smaller one and connected with it by a shaft. He sat before the two stones and rotated the lower one with his feet. This action caused the upper stone to revolve also and as it moved around, the potter, using both hands, moulded and dressed the clay upon it to a shape according to his fancy. As the prophet watched, the potter became dissatisfied with the half-made vessel. He did not throw it way, however, but crushing it in his hands, he started afresh and this time made of it a vessel which pleased him.
The phrase “the unchanging east” is to some extent true and the potter’s activities are still carried on in the same way in the Holy Land. Thomson in “The Land and the Book” tells how during a visit to Palestine he went to watch a potter at work. For a long time he watched in vain but at last, to his delight, the modern potter repeated the action of old.
“From some defect in the clay, or because he had taken too little, the potter suddenly changed his mind, crushed his growing jar instantly in a shapeless mass of mud, and beginning anew, fashioned it into a totally different vessel.”
What was the Divine word which proceeded from the everyday activity which Jeremiah saw?
“Oh house of Israel, cannot I do with you as the potter? saith the Lord. Behold. as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down and destroy it.
If that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation to build and to plant it,
If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jeremiah 18:6-10)
When the apostle Paul used the figure of the potter in the epistle to the Romans, his object was to illustrate the doctrine of pre-destination. The word of God through Jeremiah, however, illuminated a different phase of God’s work with men. While men are willing to be moulded and submit themselves as clay in His hands, God is willing to mould them. Human nature is changeable stuff and can alter for good or for evil. So long as there are possibilities of good, the Divine potter is willing to exploit them by reframing and modification, if necessary.
How did this principle apply to the house of Israel? They were the clay and God was their potter. He was anxious to make of them vessels unto honour and usefulness for His purpose. On their part, however, they were both disheartened and wayward. “There is no hope” they said. “but we will walk after our own devices and we will do everyone the imagination of his evil heart”. They were not willing that God should work upon them and in this they shewed ingratitude and unnaturalness. The snows of Lebanon were perpetual and the waters gushing from the sides of the mountain range were unfailing. Each was a token of the love of God for Israel. Most unnaturally Israel failed to respond and refused every exhortation to turn and make their ways right and their goings good. Therefore, God would frame — a word descriptive of the potter’s activity — evil against them; would turn His back upon them; and scatter them with the sirocco blast or east wind.
The lesson of the potter’s house, therefore, was that the Israel of Jeremiah’s generation were not workable in the hands of God and could not be used by Him. Although not stated in the chapter, however, other thoughts are suggested as we set it against the background of the whole of the Divine purpose. The Jews of Jeremiah’s times were stiff and unbending as were the Jews of many other periods. Their stubbornness, however, could not alter the determination of God to mould Israel into a vessel unto honour and though many generations might mar His work, there would in the end be made an Israel of fair colours, beautiful and fit for the Master’s use. The waywardness of men may appear to delay the purpose of God, but it cannot defeat it.
The immediate lesson of the parable of the potter was reinforced by an episode, dealing with a related subject, described in the next chapter (Jeremiah 19). The prophet, carrying an earthen bottle collected a number of elders, both of people and priests, and went once more through the potsherd’s gate into the valley of Hinnom. There he made a speech denouncing the impiety of the Jews. Not only had they introduced false worship to the exclusion of Yahweh, but they had committed the abomination of child-sacrifice. For these evils a dire punishment would be exacted, which would make the ears of those who heard about it tingle. So great would be the carnage in the valley that it would no longer be called the Valley of Hinnom or Tophet – an Aramaic word for fireplace, revocalised to become “bosheth” or shame — but the Valley of Slaughter. Even in the defiled place the dead would be buried because there was nowhere else to bury them. Jerusalem would become a desolation and a hissing.
As the prophet’s censure reached its climax, with sudden dramatic gesture, he dashed the earthen vessel in his hands to the ground so that it was broken to fragments and in the awed silence which followed, his voice was heard:
“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.”
Those who listened knew that the times were threatening. These things were done during the reign of Jehoiakim, when the shadow of Nebuchadnezzar was already creeping over the land. In due time the storm broke and by successive waves of invaders, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah were overthrown. The predicted evils came upon the nation. The house of the king, the nobles and the people, on the flat roofs of which incense had been offered to the host of heaven, were defiled with blood. The kingdom was broken up and a miserable remnant only allowed to stay in the land.
Thus Israel moved progressively to ruin. When the first parable was spoken there was slight hope for them, and so the appeal was made that they should change and conform to the wishes of the Lord. At the time of the second parable, however, they had so far hardened, that the position was hopeless. When the potter’s vessel had become set, to break it meant that it could not be repaired and this was the fate of the generation which rejected the word of God through Jeremiah.
The Psalmist reminds us that we spend our years as a tale that is told. The tale will be retold in its salient features before the judgment seat of Christ. We may be sure that it will look very different then from the spectacle which it presents to us now, as we live it out day by day, and the difference is not likely to please us. No doubt the lives of the Jews, both individual and corporate, appeared much the same to them as ours do to us now. When, however, Jeremiah by the will and inspiration of God enabled them to obtain a comprehensive view and to see themselves as God saw them, their waywardness and intractability were clearly shown.
We have the advantage of seeing their conduct weighed in the prophet’s balances and can understand where they were found wanting. The lesson of Jeremiah’s parable, however difficult it is to apply, is easy to perceive. For Gentiles, called to the service of God, it is the same as for Jews. We bend or we are broken. As always, God is ready to mould those who are ready to be moulded. There is no end to His patience so long as we are amenable to treatment, but if we harden ourselves and defy Him to make of us the shape He chooses for us, we shall be broken as one breaks a potter’s vessel that cannot be made whole. It was fitting that Jeremiah’s words should be spoken in the Valley of Hinnom, for that valley of refuse was the site chosen later by Jesus to symbolize the end of those who are unusable in the Divine purpose. Our wisdom is to seek out carefully the will of God as revealed in the Bible, and having found it, deliberately to subordinate ourselves to it, that He, through it, might work upon us until we are vessels fit for His use. The watchword is given us by the apostle:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God”.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One