Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
Her towns - the suburban villages and towns near Jerusalem, such as Bethany.
Remarks:
(1) How exactly God's judgments tally in their attendant circumstances to the sin which has provoked them! The valley of Hinnom, the scene of the Jews' greatest guilt, was made the scene of the denunciation of their doom, and was to be the scene of its execution (Jeremiah 19:2). As its name Tophet once indicated the loud drum-peal of joy (Jeremiah 19:6), so it was hereafter to be noted as the scene of unmingled woe. Once it resounded with the cries of "innocent" (Jeremiah 19:4) children cruelly put to death; hereafter it was to resound with the death-groans of adult men who richly merited their retributive punishment. As "the houses of Jerusalem" were defiled by the burnt offerings "unto the host of heaven" upon the flat roofs, so were they to be "defiled as Tophet," and to be burnt with fire by the enemy. As the Jews "estranged" the place (Jeremiah 19:4) which was God's from Him who was its rightful owner, so was the land to be estranged from them, and given to strangers, while they themselves must sojourn as captives and strangers in a strange land.
(2) Surely all history, and especially that of God's ancient people, teaches that there is a moral government even in this fallen world, and that a nation's sin is sure to entail exactly corresponding retribution; while, on the other hand, "righteousness exalteth a nation" (Proverbs 14:34). The wise and sagacious politicians of the Jews might adopt what able "counsel" for the defense of the land they could devise, but God would "make void their counsel" (Jeremiah 19:7), and "cause them to fall before their enemies." "There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord" (Proverbs 21:30). "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished" (Proverbs 11:21). The game which transgressors play is a losing game: and soon or late they will discover that piety is the truest policy.
(3) Whatsoever people or state is broken by God, is "like a potter's vessel" broken to pieces, so that it "cannot be made whole again" (Jeremiah 19:11) by man. But what is impossible to man is possible to God, and He will surely keep His promise of restoring Israel, broken and scattered as the Jews have long been. Let us, from their case, learn to beware of "hardening" our hearts so as "not to hear God's words (Jeremiah 19:15): and, on the other hand, let us adore the riches of His grace that keeps His covenant forever with His elect.