Jeremiah 19:1. Take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests, that aged men might have weight in reforming the bloody worship of the idolaters.
Jeremiah 19:2. The valley of the son of Hinnom. See Isaiah 30:33. The prophet stood in the very place where the infants were murdered, as in Jeremiah 19:4, the seat of their idolatry.
Jeremiah 19:9. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons. In ancient war, the citizens being soldiers, those who resisted the assailant, and refused his terms, were all put to the sword. The Romans often did this. In all such cases therefore, the defenders would hold out to the last extremity, as was foretold would be the case with the apostate Jews. Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53. And indeed it was so in Samaria, 2 Kings 6; and in Jerusalem, when they resisted the Chaldeans. Lamentations 4:10. It was the same also when they resisted the Romans, as is stated by Josephus, in his wars of the Jews: 7:8.
Jeremiah 19:10. Then shalt thou break the bottle, with anathemas, that Jerusalem shalt be so broken up by the army of the Chaldeans and reduced to ashes, that it must entirely be rebuilt and made a new city. Perhaps he saw as it were through the flames, what the Romans also would do in the final visitation.
REFLECTIONS.
We here find Jeremiah in the character of a patient, laborious, and suffering minister: though he knew that many sought his life, yet nothing could deter him from his duty. He well knew that God would yet save a ruined nation, if they should repent. Oh how kind is the Lord to take so many methods to prevent the ruin of sinners.
It becomes the greatest of men to pay a deference to all divine messages. The princes, priests, and elders of Judah, though they hated Jeremiah, had yet such a sense of decency and regard to the message from God, that they followed him to Tophet. Thus should those who are most respectable for age, wealth and station, reverence the word of God, and attend upon his institutions. Their own salvation depends upon it; and their example will have great influence upon others. If superiors allow themselves to show any slight to divine ordinances, their inferiors will pay no regard; and thus the little religion which is left among us may soon be quite lost.
God will do all that he has declared, and bring about all the evil he has pronounced. His judgments will be found to be as dreadful as his word, whether men will believe it or not. They think him to be such a one as themselves; that he forgets what he has threatened, or will not fully execute it. But God is faithful, and cannot deny himself. Let us therefore never harden our hearts, but diligently hear and obey his word: so shall we escape the evil which shall come upon the obstinate, and stand before the Son of man.