Jeremiah 18:1-4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The word which came to Jeremiah, &c. We have here the beginning of a new discourse of Jeremiah, which, if introduced in its proper place, as we have reason to think it is, was probably also, as well as the foregoing, delivered in some part of the first three years of Jehoiakim's reign. Arise, and go down to the potter's house Some well-known place where pots were made; and there I will cause thee to hear my words I will further reveal my mind to thee, that thou mayest make it known to this people. God has frequently condescended to teach us his will by very familiar and striking images. Then I went, &c. Not being disobedient to the heavenly vision. And behold he wrought a work on the wheels Hebrew, על האבנים, literally, upon the stones. Thus also the LXX., επι των λιθων. “There can be no doubt,” says Blaney, “that the machine is intended on which the potters formed their earthen vessels; and the appellation, οι λιθοι, the stones, will appear very proper, if we consider this machine as consisting of a pair of circular stones placed one upon another like millstones; of which the lower was immoveable, but the upper one turned upon the foot of a spindle or axis, and had motion communicated to it by the feet of the potter sitting at his work; as may be learned from Sir 38:29. Upon the top of this upper stone, which was flat, the clay was placed, which the potter, having given the stone the due velocity, formed into shape with his hand.” And the vessel that he made of clay Hebrew, כחמר, as clay, that is, while it was yet clay, was marred, was spoiled in the potter's hand, so that he did not think fit to go on with his design, as to the form of the vessel, but turned the same clay into a vessel of another form: as he judged best. Nothing can more strongly represent the absolute dominion God has over us than this image of the potter fashioning his clay into what form or vessel he pleased.