Discovery BoxJeremiah 18:2-3 
Context18:2 “Go down at once 1 to the potter’s house. I will speak to you further there.” 2 18:3 So I went down to the potter’s house and found him working 3 at his wheel. 4
Jeremiah 18:6
Context18:6 “I, the Lord, say: 5 ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? 6 In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’
Jeremiah 19:11
Context19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, 7 ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. 8 I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. 9 The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ 10
1 tn Heb “Get up and go down.” The first verb is not literal but is idiomatic for the initiation of an action. See 13:4, 6 for other occurrences of this idiom.
2 tn Heb “And I will cause you to hear my word there.”
3 tn Heb “And behold he was working.”
4 sn At his wheel (Heb “at the two stones”). The Hebrew expression is very descriptive of the construction of a potter’s wheel which consisted of two stones joined by a horizontal shaft. The potter rotated the wheel with his feet on the lower wheel and worked the clay with his hands on the upper. For a picture of a potter working at his wheel see I. Ben-Dor, “Potter’s Wheel,” IDB 3:846. See also the discussion regarding the making of pottery in J. L. Kelso, “Pottery,” IDB 3:846-53.
5 tn This phrase (literally “Oracle of the
6 tn The words “deals with the clay” are not in the text. They are part of an elliptical comparison and are supplied in the translation here for clarity.
7 tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.
8 tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.
9 tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”
10 sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.
