And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying,
Jeremiah had just watched a potter crush a spoiled lump of clay and start again. Now God speaks and gives that silent scene its meaning: it is a message about His right over a whole nation, and about the mercy He shows when a nation turns.
God sent Jeremiah to watch ordinary work before giving him anything to say. One writer sees more than a craftsman in that workshop:
He was to see a real work there; vessels made by the hand and skill of the workman. But there was a lesson in the work, as well as a reality. There was a parable in it; for the prophet had to see God Himself at the wheel, as well as the potter.
God aimed that word at a whole nation, and its first lesson is about who holds whom:
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 instructing His servant as to His sovereignty, saying, "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). 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 argues from the smaller to the greater:
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 spoiled vessel matched what Israel had become:
God in His goodness had brought them out of Egypt. He 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… 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 caught up in the ruin. That ruin was about to bring the judgment of God on them.
One writer sets out what the passage shows about man:
The will of man is only evil. The sole hope is in God Himself. But Israel, like Christendom now, feels neither, even where both are confessed in words. For where grace works there is a real turning from evil, and man is quick to claim the credit for it. On the other hand, man is prone to depart from the living God. And God would deny Himself if He made light of disobedience, and treated evil in His sight as if it were good.
God had already spared one guilty city:
How wonderful is God's mercy! He has no delight in judgment, but He delights in mercy… Jonah had pronounced the judgment of God on the guilty city, crying, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"… Then we read, "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it." How very sad it is to see God's people Israel reject God's offers of mercy by refusing to turn from their evil ways! They were just as evil as the Ninevites, but with less excuse, since they had more light.
The picture does not stop with Israel:
In Jeremiah 18 we have seen God's ways with the nations, but in Romans 9 we learn something of God's ways with people… Every person, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter. For we have all become marred by sin, and by taking our own evil way… Those who reject His mercy come in for judgment, and those who listen to Him He brings into blessing.
One writer points to a later scene where the clay is no longer soft:
This time it is not clay that can still be formed but an earthen vessel that has been hardened in the fire. It can only be broken. The message is clear but solemn. There is a time when discipline can be accepted for profit, and there is a time when it is too late.
- Sign, then word. Jeremiah watched real work at a wheel. Then God's word turned that scene into a message about Himself.
- Hand. The message is about position. A nation is clay, and God holds it. If a man may do as he pleases with clay, far more may the Sovereign God.
- Marred. Israel matched the spoiled vessel. Idolatry had reached kings, priests, princes, elders and people alike.
- Turn. God relents when a nation turns from evil. Nineveh proved it. Israel refused, with more light than Nineveh had.
- Remade. Romans 9 brings the picture down to each person: every one of us is marred clay in the Potter's hand. Those who listen to Him He brings into blessing. Clay left to harden can only be broken.
House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, house of Israel.
God sends Jeremiah to a workshop to watch a craftsman at his wheel. Then He turns that scene into a message for the whole nation. What does it mean to be clay in God's hand? Does that crush a people, or give them their only real hope?
The sign works by comparison. A man shaping a pot has full control over the lump in front of him. God presses that everyday fact into a much larger claim.
If a creature made 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 point lands on Israel's freedom to act:
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.
Jeremiah watched a vessel spoil under the potter's hands. That was the nation's state when God spoke — and not because God had neglected them.
In His goodness God had brought them out of Egypt. He had planted them in the land of promise to be a witness for Himself to the nations of the world. He fenced them in and kept them apart from the nations, so that they might be free from all their pollutions. He protected them. He gave them His law, so that they might know how to be pure as a people for Himself. Sadly, they turned out marred in the potter's hand.
The verse names Israel. One writer sees the same hand at work over every nation in history.
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, shaping and forming them as He thinks good. Who can 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!
The clay is helpless, but a marred vessel was not thrown out of the workshop.
They could not escape from the hand of God, but God was prepared, like the potter, to make them into another vessel, a vessel that would be for His pleasure.
One writer marks the one point where the comparison breaks down:
In this You are unlike the potter, for You have said: "If that nation I have spoken about turns from its evil, then I will relent of the harm I meant to do to them."
Romans 9 picks up the potter and turns the picture on single lives. Commentators see the two chapters covering different ground.
In Jeremiah 18 we have seen God's ways with the nations. In Romans 9 we learn something of God's ways with people… Every person, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter. We have all become marred by sin, and by taking our own evil way… Those who reject His mercy come in for judgment, and those who listen to Him He brings into blessing.
There is a careful limit on what the picture proves:
The potter's power over the clay establishes God's absolute right to act as He will, without giving an account of His matters to man. Yet the illustration does not teach that God has made any vessel for dishonour. It asserts and upholds God's rights, and no more.
One writer finds the same process at work in a single life.
God did then what He loves to do now — He stepped in and converted Paul, the foremost opponent of the church. The "chosen vessel" was an apostle of Satanic hate one moment and an apostle of Christ the next. A wonderful transformation that was, very like the figure 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 on the wheel and formed the vessel, and then the mind of the potter was in the vessel.
- Clay — a potter does as he pleases with a lump of earth. God's right over a nation is far greater.
- Marred — Israel became spoiled clay, and not for lack of care. God had freed them, planted them, fenced them in and given them His law.
- Nations — the whole circle of civilization is God's workshop. Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome were all shaped and broken in His hands.
- Mercy — here God is unlike a potter. If a nation turns from its evil, He turns from the harm He planned, and He makes the same lump again.
- Vessels — Romans 9 applies the picture to people. It asserts God's right; it does not teach that He made anyone for dishonour. With Paul, the vessel first lay in the Potter's mind, then the Potter's mind filled the vessel.
At the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy,
God speaks here from the potter's house, and the lesson widens from Israel to every nation on earth. Two questions follow, and the rest of the chapter answers them: where does God get such authority, and can He ever take back a sentence He has spoken?
Verse 7 follows what Jeremiah watched at the potter's wheel. That scene shows who is in control of a nation's history.
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 instructing His servant about His sovereignty, saying, "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). 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.
These three verbs are not empty language. History is full of the wreckage they describe. Yet at this very point God is unlike any human potter.
The circle of civilization is to Him what the workshop is to the potter. As the potter holds the clay and shapes it into vessels of different forms, so the Lord holds the nations in His hands. He fashions and forms them as He thinks good... Can the Lord not speak about a sinful nation, or an unrighteous kingdom, and say: let it be plucked up, broken, and destroyed? Who can tell Him no?... Where is proud Assyria, and corrupt Babylonia? How low He has brought Persia and Greece and Rome for their sins!... Broken and rejected kingdoms lie scattered over the ground, like the potter's useless pots... Yet You are righteous in all Your ways. And You are long-suffering and merciful also. In one way You are unlike the potter. 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" (v. 8).
An announced judgment is never a bluff. It is also not always final.
Men's threats are sometimes just idle words or empty boasting. God's predicted judgments are not like that. The Creator has never once threatened a judgment He did not intend to carry out. At times the repentance of the people has turned His hand aside. The sparing of Nineveh in the time of Jonah is an example of this. It is part of the declared ways of God to withdraw sentence when men humble themselves before Him. Jer. 18:7-8 shows this plainly. He is also "slow to anger," leaving the door open for repentance until the last. But even the patience of God has limits.
Verse 8 says God will change His course. Yet Scripture elsewhere says He does not change.
The message was clear: there was still time for Judah to repent. If they did, God would "repent." Otherwise, He would have to chasten and discipline them. God "is not a man ... that he should repent" (Num. 23:19, older wording; the ESV reads "change His mind"), but He does repent when man changes, especially when man repents.
Nineveh is the clearest case of this principle at work.
The people came to see that they had sinned deeply against their Maker. They trembled at the mention of His judgment. They humbled themselves before Him. Jer. 18:7-10, as we have already seen, lays down the principles of God's dealing with nations. His eye sees their doings, and He visits them from time to time in His wrath, but is always prepared to show mercy. God's government must not be confused with His grace. The relief the Ninevites received is not the same as the eternal forgiveness of sins. God proclaims that forgiveness to people everywhere in the gospel message (Acts 13:38-39).
The potter image does not stay at the national level. Romans 9 applies it one person at a time.
In Jeremiah 18 we have seen God's ways with the nations. In Romans 9 we learn something of God's ways with people... Every person, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter. We have all become marred by sin and by taking our own evil way. There are those who, like Israel, will not listen to the word of God through His servants... and God has the power to make these marred vessels into vessels of wrath. And there are those who, like the Ninevites, listen to the message of God and turn from their evil ways. God makes them vessels of mercy.
- Held. Nations sit in God's hand as clay sits in the potter's — Israel was never free to do just as it pleased.
- Warned. The threat is real. Proud Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome lie broken like discarded pots.
- Turn. God is unlike the potter at one point — if the nation turns from its evil, He relents of the disaster He intended.
- Relent. He is not a man that He should change; He changes course when man changes, and above all when man repents.
- Limited. A withdrawn judgment is government, not the gospel. A spared city is not forgiven sin, and His patience has an end.
if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, then I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
In the potter's workshop, God gives Jeremiah His rule for dealing with nations: a sentence He has announced can still be withdrawn. The verse raises two hard questions — how can God threaten and then not act, and what does it mean that He "relents"?
One writer draws out God's power over the nations — and the exception verse 8 adds.
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 different kinds. In the same way, the Lord holds the nations in His hands. He forms and shapes them as He thinks good. … Where is haughty Assyria, and corrupt Babylonia? How low He has brought Persia and Greece and Rome for their sins! … Broken and rejected kingdoms lie scattered over the ground like the potter's useless earthenware. "O Lord, what desolation You have made in the earth! Yet You are righteous in all Your ways. And You are patient and merciful also. You are unlike the potter in this. 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."
The wording sounds as though God changes. One writer shows where the change really happens.
It does not mean a change of mind on God's part, but a change of action caused by a change of mind on man's part. God sends warnings to man so that man may change his mind and repent. Then God may change His action from judgment to mercy. God has not changed His mind. His mind has always been toward mercy … but man's sin must bring down the righteous judgment of God, even though He is slow to anger.
The suspended sentence does not mean God was wrong at first.
This change of mind on God's part … does not mean any regret about His first decision. Instead it shows His grace and righteousness. He suspends the sentence when He sees the least sign of repentance in the guilty one.
Verse 8 is not a one-time concession to Judah. It is God's declared way of working — and it has a limit.
Men's threats are sometimes just idle words or empty boasting. God's predicted judgments are not like that. The Creator has never once threatened judgments He did not intend to carry out. Yet sometimes the repentance of the people has held back His hand. … It is part of the declared ways of God to withdraw sentence when men humble themselves before Him. Jer. 18:7-8 shows this. He is also "slow to anger," leaving an open door for repentance until the last. But even the patience of God has its limits.
The relief promised here belongs to God's dealings with nations in this world.
God's government must not be confused with His grace. The Ninevites were spared, but that is not the same as the eternal forgiveness of sins. That forgiveness is proclaimed to men everywhere in the gospel message (Acts 13:38-39). The repentance described in Jonah 3:10 does not mean we shall meet the whole population of Nineveh in Heaven. Still, some people — possibly many — may well have found eternal blessing as a result of the great alarm.
The promise of verse 8 has a matching threat in the verses that follow. Judah's answer was defiance.
Suppose God threatens a nation with destruction, and that nation turns to the Lord. He will relent of the evil pronounced on them. … But suppose 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. … If Israel had then admitted the sin and guilt and turned to the Lord, He would have acted in sovereign grace towards them. Their answer was: "There is no hope; but we will follow our own plans" … They pushed aside the hand that would snatch them out of the fire.
The marred vessel was not thrown away.
Things had gone wrong with Israel. Idolatry had become common. The vessel had been marred. But the clay was still soft. There was still time to turn to God.
Applying the verse to his own troubled generation, one writer put the terms in a single line:
What then is to be done — what should be done? "If that nation," says God, "turns from their evil I will relent of the evil that I had thought to do to them." That is as plain as it is gracious.
- Clay. God holds the nations like clay in a potter's hands. He shapes them, and broken kingdoms lie scattered as proof.
- Turn. One word suspends the sentence: if the nation turns from its evil, God withdraws the disaster He announced.
- Relent. God's mind never changed; His action changed because man did. He was always toward mercy.
- Reprieve. Escaping judgment now is not the same as forgiveness for eternity — government is not grace.
- Now. The vessel was marred, but the clay was still soft. The offer stands only while it lasts, for God's patience has limits.
And at the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant,
God has just shown Jeremiah a potter reshaping clay that had gone wrong in his hands. Now He states the rule behind His dealings with every nation on earth. Verse 9 is the positive half of that rule. The moment God promises to build and plant a nation, a condition comes with the promise. What happens when a favoured people treat that gift as untouchable?
Who holds the nations? One writer answers from the potter's workshop.
Civilization as a whole is to Him what the workshop is to the potter. The potter holds the clay and shapes it into vessels of many kinds. In the same way the Lord holds the nations in His hands. He fashions and forms them as He thinks good. Who can question the work of God?
"Build" and "plant" were not abstract words to Jeremiah's hearers. They described what God had already done for them. That is why the warning attached to them stung.
This was a solemn warning to Israel. God had built them up and planted them in the land of Canaan. But they had not obeyed the voice of the Lord; they had done evil in His sight. Israel was indeed a marred vessel in the potter's hand. Because they rejected His mercy, they would become vessels of wrath.
When God takes back a promised good, He is not being unreliable. It follows from who He is.
People drift away from the living God. And God would deny Himself if He made light of disobedience and treated evil in His sight as if it were good.
The chapter says God will turn back from the good He promised. Writers are careful here, because Scripture elsewhere denies that God changes.
The message was clear: there was still time for Judah to repent. If so, God would "repent." Otherwise, He would need to chasten and discipline them. God "is not a man… that he should repent" (Num. 23:19), but He does repent when man changes, especially when man repents.
Where older translations say God will "repent," the ESV says He will "relent." The shift is in God's dealings, not in His mind about what is right.
This change of mind on God's part does not mean He regrets His original decision. Instead it shows His grace and righteousness. He suspends the sentence when He sees the smallest sign of repentance in the guilty person.
Verse 9 tells a blessed nation that it can lose its standing. Judah heard this and hid behind the very religious forms God had given them.
Unbelief still trembles underneath. So it shelters behind what God had set up, assuming it can never fall. It takes forms that have turned away from God and makes them a wall against the God they hide. It credits them with the stability of God Himself.
The principle in these verses governs nations in this life. One writer warns against reading more into it, with Nineveh as his example.
Jeremiah 18:7-10 lays down the principles of God's dealing with nations. His eye sees what they do. From time to time He comes against them in wrath, yet He is always ready to show mercy. Do not confuse God's government with His grace. The relief the Ninevites received is not the same thing as the eternal forgiveness of sins. The gospel message proclaims that forgiveness to people everywhere (Acts 13:38-39). The repentance described in Jonah 3:10 does not mean we will meet the whole population of Nineveh in heaven. Still, it is quite possible that some of them — perhaps many — found eternal blessing through that great alarm.
The New Testament applies the same picture to one person at a time.
In Jeremiah 18 we have seen God's ways with the nations. In Romans 9 we learn something of God's ways with people… Every person, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter. We have all been marred by sin and by taking our own evil way… Those who reject His mercy come in for judgment. Those who listen to Him He brings into blessing.
- Clay — The nations are clay in God's hands; He shapes and reshapes them as He sees good, and no one can call Him to account.
- Planted — God built and planted Israel in Canaan. The promise of good held only while they obeyed His voice.
- Repents — God does not regret His decisions. He turns back from a declared course when people turn. He withdraws a promised good when they do evil. He will not treat evil as though it were good.
- Shelter — Judah hid behind the religious forms God had given them. They treated what He set up as if it could never fall.
- Vessels — What is true of a kingdom is true of a person. Every one of us is marred clay. Those who listen to Him He brings into blessing; those who refuse His mercy meet judgment.
if it do evil in my sight, that it hearken not unto my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.
At the potter's house God gives two rules: verse 9 is about building and planting a nation, verse 10 about that nation then turning to evil. So can a nation lose good that God Himself promised — and does God change?
The lesson begins in a potter's workshop, and the point is who holds whom.
God was instructing His servant about His sovereignty, saying, "Cannot I do with you as this potter? ... Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel" (Jer. 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.
These verses are not a one-off threat. Commentators read them as God's stated policy for any nation. One writer also marks off what that policy does not offer.
Jer. 18:7-10, as we have already seen, lays down the principles of God's dealing with nations. His eye sees their doings, and He visits them from time to time in His wrath, but is always ready to show mercy. Do not confuse God's government with His grace. The relief the people of Nineveh received is not the same thing as the eternal forgiveness of sins. The Gospel message proclaims that forgiveness to people everywhere (Acts 13:38-39).
The verse says God will "relent" — older translations say He will "repent" — of good He had said He would do. Elsewhere Scripture says He is not a man that He should repent. Writers answer by asking whose mind changes — and what God's warnings are for.
It does not mean a change of mind on God's part, but a change of action caused by a change of mind on man's part. God sends warnings to man, so that man may change his mind and repent. Then God may change His action from judgment to mercy. God has not changed His mind. God's mind has always been toward mercy... but man's sin must bring down the righteous judgment of God, even though He is slow to anger. There is only one way of escape, and that is repentance on the part of sinful man. With this in view God sends warnings to individuals and to nations. If they hear and repent, then God may act according to the desires of His heart, and show mercy. If man will not repent, judgment must fall.
One writer separates two kinds of word from God: the kind He may withdraw, and the kind He never will.
God is not a man, so He does not repent about His eternal and unchangeable counsels and unconditional promises. Those "are without repentance." But in His grace He may repent of a threatened judgment — that is, not carry it out — as He did with Nineveh.
Verse 8 offers hope to a condemned nation; verse 10 puts a favoured nation on notice.
On the other hand, God promised to bless Israel in the land only if they obeyed. So if they did evil, He would turn from, or repent of, the good He had said He would do — whether to Israel or in fact to any nation. Jer. 18:8-10. He would change the order of His dealings towards them... All this involves the responsibility of man, as well as God's government.
The words of verse 9 — to build and to plant — match what God had already done for Israel. So verse 10 speaks to them, not to some imagined nation.
This was a solemn warning to Israel. God had built them up and planted them in the land of Canaan. But they had not obeyed the voice of the LORD; they had done evil in His sight. Israel was indeed a marred vessel in the potter's hand. They had rejected His mercy, so they would be the vessels of wrath.
The evil in view is disobedience — "not listening to my voice." One writer roots God's answer to it in His own character, and applies it well beyond Israel.
The will of man is only evil. The sole hope is in God Himself. But Israel, like the Christian world today, feels neither, even when both are confessed in words... On the other hand, man is prone to turn away from the living God. And God would deny Himself if He made light of disobedience, and treated evil in His sight as if it were good.
- Potter — Israel is clay in God's hand, not free to act as it pleases. The workshop scene teaches His sovereignty first.
- Principle — Verses 7-10 state how God governs nations. He shows real mercy in this world. That mercy is not the eternal forgiveness offered in the gospel.
- Gift — God had built and planted Israel. The good in verse 10 is a promise already given, not one imagined.
- Forfeit — God tied blessing in the land to obedience, so evil in His sight changes His dealings. Man's responsibility meets God's government, and repentance is the one way back.
- Unchanged — The relenting is a change of action, not of mind. His eternal counsels and unconditional promises stand. Man moves; God answers.