The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying,
Chapter 18 opens with the briefest introduction Jeremiah ever gives: a word came to him from the LORD. What follows is not a sermon but an errand. God sends His prophet to a workshop, where a potter at his wheel becomes His picture of what He is doing with a whole nation.
God first tells His servant where to go. He promises to speak once Jeremiah arrives.
In Jeremiah 18:1-2, the LORD tells His servant to "go down to the potter's house," and there He would cause him to hear His words. Jeremiah obeyed and went. He saw the potter working on a vessel at the wheel: "And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand." The potter then took the clay again and made it "another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do."
God did not leave the sign unexplained. He told Jeremiah what it meant for Israel.
Having seen what the potter did, the LORD spoke to His servant as He had promised. He addressed His words to the house of Israel. God was teaching His servant about His sovereignty: "Can I not do with you as this potter has done? … Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel" (Jer. 18:5-6). Israel was not free to do as it pleased, for it was in God's hand, and He could do with it as He pleased.
The same hand shapes every other kingdom too.
The circle of civilization is to Him just what the workshop is to the potter. As the potter holds the clay and moulds it into vessels of many shapes, so the LORD holds the nations in His hands. He fashions and forms them as He thinks good. Who shall question the work of God? … Where is haughty Assyria, and corrupt Babylonia? How low has He brought Persia and Greece and Rome for their sins! … Broken and rejected kingdoms, like the potter's useless earthenware, lie scattered over the face of the ground.
Israel was that spoiled vessel. God had given the nation every advantage first.
God in His goodness had brought them out of Egypt, and had planted them in the land of promise to be a witness for Himself to the nations of the world. He had hedged them in, keeping them apart from the nations so that they might be free from all their pollutions. He had protected them, and had given them His law, so that they might know how to be pure as a people for Himself. But they proved to be spoiled in the hand of the potter. They had become polluted with idolatry. Their kings, their priests, their princes, their elders, and the people themselves were all caught up in the ruin that was about to bring the judgment of God upon them.
The potter's right does not lock the outcome. One commentator points to a city that proved it.
If God threatens a nation with destruction and that nation turns to the LORD, He will relent of the disaster He pronounced on it. Jonah's prediction of Nineveh's overthrow is a full illustration of this, and that prediction came from God. Nineveh repented, and God did not carry out the judgment on that generation. But if the LORD has promised a nation good and that nation does evil in His sight, He will relent of the good He had promised them. So the potter's action carries a great lesson: the lesson of God's sovereignty, to do as He pleases, yet always in perfect righteousness.
But "relent" does not mean God had second thoughts about a mistake.
This change of mind on God's part … does not imply any regret about His original decision. Instead, it shows His grace and righteousness in suspending the sentence when He sees the least sign of repentance in the guilty one.
The same hand that shapes nations works on one person, and the dividing line is how each person answers His word.
He sees a flaw, an imperfection in the clay. Others, looking on, have not spotted it, as the artist's eye does. He crushes the clay under his hand into a shapeless mass again. And again his fingers mould and fashion it into his design. Again and again defects appear. Again and again the clay is reduced to a shapeless mass, until at last it rises before him in perfect design; his eye surveys it with satisfaction and pride, and he takes it from the wheel to place it among the choice things of the earth.
That same hand still divides between two outcomes, and the dividing line is the response to His word.
Every individual, like every nation, is a spoiled vessel in the hand of the Potter, for sin has spoiled us all, and we have taken our own evil way. There are those who, like Israel, will not listen to the word of God through His servants — the word of mercy proclaimed in the gospel — and God has the power to make these spoiled vessels into vessels of wrath. Again, there are those who, like the Ninevites, listen to the message of God, and turn from their evil ways to God, and God makes them vessels of mercy. No man can escape from the hand of God.
- Word — the message starts as an errand: God sends His servant to a potter's house and promises to speak there.
- Wheel — the workshop is to the potter what the whole span of civilization is to God. He shapes the nations, and broken kingdoms lie about like discarded earthenware.
- Flaw — Israel was the spoiled vessel. God rescued, planted and fenced off that nation and gave it His law, yet idolatry polluted it from kings down to people.
- Turn — the potter's right is not a locked verdict. Nineveh turned, and God relented. That is grace suspending a sentence, not God regretting a mistake.
- Vessel — the same hand works on one life. Every person is spoiled clay. Those who refuse His word become vessels of wrath, those who listen become vessels of mercy, and no one escapes the hand of God.
Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
Before God gives Jeremiah a word for the nation, He sends him down to a potter's workshop. Why must the prophet watch a craftsman at his wheel first?
The order matters. God promised the word at the potter's house, and Jeremiah had to go there before he heard it.
In Jeremiah 18:1-2, the Lord tells His servant to "go down to the potter's house," and there He would cause him to hear His words. Jeremiah obeyed the word of the Lord. He went to the potter's house and saw him working at his wheel. "And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand." The potter then took the clay again and made it "another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do."
The place God chose was an ordinary workshop, and the trade itself carried the lesson.
Scripture says of the potter that he treads the clay to make it pliable, Isaiah 41:25; and he forms his vessel on a wheel. Jeremiah 18:3. In the East, potters make much of the ordinary pottery in a very simple way. The workman turns the wheel with his feet, and with his hands he forms the vessel as it pleases him.
God then spoke, and He argued from the smaller case to the greater one.
Then came the message: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." If a creature of dust can do as he pleases with the clay, how much more can the Sovereign God. The Holy Spirit evidently uses this in Romans 9:20-32.
The lesson does not stop at Israel. Whole empires have passed through those hands — and on one point the picture is unlike a potter's.
The circle of civilization is to Him just what the workshop is to the potter. The potter holds the clay and shapes it into vessels of many forms. In the same way, the Lord holds the nations in His hands, fashioning and forming as He thinks good… Where is haughty Assyria, and corrupt Babylonia? How low has He brought Persia and Greece and Rome for their sins!… O Lord, You are unlike the potter in this, for You have said: "If that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it."
Israel was the spoiled lump on the wheel. Judgment had not yet fallen, and there was a reason for the delay.
In longsuffering and mercy God was waiting. He was looking for some evidence of repentance, so that He might delay the judgment He had predicted long before, or in mercy turn from His anger and bless them. They could not escape from the hand of God. But God was ready, like the potter, to make them into another vessel, a vessel that would be for His pleasure.
Yet mercy meets a real turning, not a claimed one.
The will of man is only evil. The sole hope is in God Himself. But Israel, like Christendom now, feels neither, even where people confess both in words. Where grace works there is a real turning from evil, and man is quick to claim the credit of it.
The same picture fits one man: Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul.
That was a wonderful transformation. It is very like the picture given us in Jeremiah 18:2-6, where the potter worked the shapeless clay. First the vessel was in the mind of the potter. Then he worked at the wheel and formed the vessel. Then the mind of the potter was in the vessel. From eternity God had a purpose in mind about Saul. Now He picks him up and converts him. His will is broken, and from that moment he becomes a most blessed servant of Christ.
- Go. God promised the word at the potter's house, not before it. Jeremiah obeyed, and then he heard.
- See. An everyday workshop taught it. The potter softens the clay, turns the wheel with his feet, and shapes the vessel as he pleases.
- Hear. If a man of dust may do as he likes with clay, far more may the Sovereign God — the argument Romans 9 later takes up.
- Turn. Here God is unlike the potter: when a nation turns from its evil, He relents of the disaster He intended.
- Be formed. God remakes the spoiled lump; He does not throw it away. First the vessel is in the Potter's mind, then the Potter's mind is in the vessel.
And I went down to the potter's house; and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
God sends Jeremiah on an errand with no explanation: walk to a craftsman's shop and watch. A message for a whole nation would come through an ordinary man at an ordinary wheel.
The order came with a promise: go, and God would speak there.
In Jeremiah 18:1–2, the Lord tells His servant to "go down to the potter's house," and there He would let him hear His words. Jeremiah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to the potter's house. There he saw him working on a vessel at the wheel: "the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand." The potter then took the clay again and made it "another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do."
What Jeremiah watched was ordinary trade work, done with feet and hands.
Of the potter Scripture says he treads the clay to make it pliable (Isaiah 41:25). He forms his vessel on a wheel (Jeremiah 18:3). Much of the ordinary pottery in the East is made in a very simple way. The workman turns the wheel with his feet, and with his hands he forms the vessel as it pleases him.
One question decides the scene: where is the vessel while the wheel still turns? And what happens when the clay will not hold the design?
The workman takes the lump of clay; he presses it to the wheel; the wheel turns before his eye. Where now, let me ask, is the vessel? It is in the mind of the potter, before it is formed: the design is there. His fingers shape the mass before him. Little by little it grows up before his eye. Little by little the thought in his mind passes into the clay. It rises up before him, and the thoughts unspoken until now grow into the vessel his fingers are forming. He sees a flaw, an imperfection in the clay. Others looking on have not spotted it; the artist's eye has. He crushes the clay under his hand into a shapeless mass again. And again his fingers shape and fashion it into his design. Again and again defects appear. Again and again he reduces the clay to a shapeless mass, until at last it rises before him in perfect design.
God explains the picture by reasoning from the workman up to Himself. The New Testament picks up the same reasoning.
If the creature of dust can do as he pleases with the clay, how much more the Sovereign God. The Holy Spirit clearly uses this in Romans 9:20–32.
The same lesson set a limit on the nation's freedom.
God was instructing His servant as to His sovereignty, saying, "Can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel" (Jeremiah 18:5–6). The nation of Israel was not free to do exactly as it pleased, for it was in God's hand and He could do with it just as He pleased.
The picture is not only about power. It is about timing too: the clay stays soft only for a while.
Things had gone wrong with Israel. Idolatry had become widespread. The vessel had been marred. But the clay was still soft. There was still time to turn to God.
Writers see this picture acted out in one man's story.
In Acts 9 we read the wonderful account of Saul's conversion. Now this "chosen vessel" comes on the scene. His past history gave no sign of what he was to be. The apostle of man's deepest hatred against Christ would become the apostle of God's fullest grace to the Gentiles. The Great Potter (see Jeremiah 18:1–6) was about to take hold of a very unlikely-looking lump of clay and transform it. Until now that "chosen vessel" had been in the Potter's mind — from then on the Potter's mind would be in the vessel.
- Go down. God's word came only after Jeremiah obeyed and went. The workshop was the classroom where He promised to speak.
- Watch the wheel. The potter treads the clay soft, turns the wheel with his feet, and shapes the vessel with his hands as it pleases him.
- Mind before matter. The vessel exists in the potter's mind before his fingers touch the lump. The design comes first; the clay receives it.
- Clay in His hand. If a creature of dust may do as he pleases with clay, far more may the Sovereign God. Israel was never free to do exactly as it pleased.
- While it is soft. A marred vessel can still be remade. Saul the persecutor proves it: the Potter's mind ended up inside the vessel He chose.
And the vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter; and he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make.
God sent Jeremiah down to a potter's workshop. There a lump of clay collapsed under the potter's hands, and the potter shaped it a second time. God turned that everyday sight into a message for His people, and the message runs two ways at once: toward judgment and toward hope.
God promised to speak, but only after Jeremiah had gone down and watched.
In Jeremiah 18:1-2, the Lord tells His servant to "go down to the potter's house," and there He would cause him to hear His words. Obedient to the word of the Lord, Jeremiah went to the potter's house, and saw him working on a vessel on the wheels.
One writer widens that wheel to the size of the world:
The circle of civilization is to Him just what the workshop is to the potter. A potter holds the clay and shapes it into vessels of many different forms. In the same way the Lord holds the nations in His hands, shaping and forming them as He thinks good. Who shall question the work of God?... Broken and rejected kingdoms, like the potter's useless earthenware, strew the face of the ground.
The spoiled clay pictured the nation standing in front of Jeremiah. (Older translations use "marred" where the ESV has "spoiled.")
God in His goodness had brought them out of Egypt, and had planted them in the land of promise to be a witness for Himself to the nations of the world... Sadly, they were found marred in the hand of the potter. They had become polluted with idolatry. Their kings, their priests, their princes, their elders, and the people themselves were all involved in the ruin.
A potter throws out bad material. God does something no craftsman does: He turns back His own stated plan when a nation turns from evil.
The potter rightly rejects faulty material... "Lord, what desolation You have made in the earth! Yet You are righteous in all Your ways. And You are long-suffering and merciful also. For here You are unlike the potter. You have said: if that nation I have spoken about turns from its evil, then I will relent of the evil I had planned to do to them."
That change of course is not God changing His nature. It is God answering a real change in the one He is shaping. (Older translations say "repent" where the ESV of Numbers 23:19 says "change his mind.")
God "is not a man… that He should repent" (Num. 23:19), but He does repent when man changes, especially when man repents.
The potter did not patch the old shape. He pressed the clay down and began again. One writer sees in that the very pattern of grace.
This was to be no more repairing of the creature — such a thing would have been no fit work for God... But grace can make a new thing — not repairing the work marred on the wheel, but making it another vessel, as it seems good to the potter to make it. In its old state it was ruined, but in its ruins grace will take it up to make it a beautiful and pleasant vessel of the richest treasures.
One writer traces that second vessel to Israel's future:
We know that God will make another vessel, which is what the Lord Jesus was showing Nicodemus, as told in John 3. What is born of the flesh — even Abraham's flesh — is flesh. Only what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Only a born-again Israel will enter the Kingdom.
The clay collapses again and again. That is not failure — it is the potter's eye catching flaws no one else sees.
He sees a flaw, an imperfection in the clay. Others looking on have not spotted it, but the artist's eye has. He crushes the clay under his hand into a shapeless mass again. And again his fingers mould and fashion it into his design. Again and again defects appear. Again and again the clay is reduced to a shapeless mass, until at last it rises in perfect design before him.
One writer then asks where the potter himself has ended up:
Where is the potter now? Where was the vessel before he began? It was in the potter! Where is the potter now? He is in the vessel. All that his mind designed and worked is seen there. The vessel is fit for what he intended.
- Clay — nations and people are in God's hand, not their own. He shapes them as He sees good.
- Spoiled — God brought Israel out of Egypt to be His witness to the nations. Instead the whole nation went bad in His hands, from kings down to people.
- Relenting — here God is unlike a potter. He throws out no nation that turns from its evil, and He changes His announced course when people change.
- Remade — He does not repair the ruined shape. Grace takes the same clay and makes another vessel altogether.
- Filled — the crushing repeats until the design stands. The vessel that once lay in the Potter's mind now carries His mind inside it.