Jeremiah 1:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I see a seething-pot Or, a pot boiling. The steam of this boiling pot represented God's judgments, which are often compared to a fire, as the afflictions of Israel were to a smoking furnace. Genesis 15:17. And the face thereof was toward the north The steam was represented to the prophet as raised by a fire, or driven by a wind coming from the north. Thus interpreted, the pot or caldron denoted Judea or Jerusalem, expressed by the same figure, Ezekiel 11:3; Ezekiel 11:7; Ezekiel 24:3. But the Hebrew פניו מפני צפונה, seems to be more exactly rendered by Blaney; The face thereof is turned from the north, or, as it is expressed in the margin, from the face of the north. For it appears from the next verse, that the evil was to come from the north; and therefore the steam, which was designed for an emblem of that evil, must have issued from that quarter. According to this interpretation, the pot denoted the empire of the Chaldeans, lying to the north of Judea, and pouring forth its multitudes like a thick vapour.