Jeremiah 18:6 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So are ye in mine hand - When a vessel was ruined, the potter did not throw it away, but crushed it together, dashed it back upon the wheel, and began his work afresh, until the clay had taken the predetermined shape. It was God’s purpose that Judaea should become the proper scene for the manifestation of the Messiah, and her sons be fit to receive the Saviour’s teaching and carry the good tidings to all lands. If therefore at any stage of the preparation the Jewish nation took such a course as would have frustrated this purpose of Providence, it was crushed by affliction into an unresisting mass, in which the formative process began again immediately.