191 God said to me, "Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside the Potsherd Gate, and preach there what I tell you. 3 "Say, 'Listen to God's Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I'm about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring! 4 Doom - because they've walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom - because they have massacred innocent people. 5 Doom - because they've built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at! 6 "'And so it's pay day, and soon' - God's Decree! - 'this place will no longer be known as Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Massacre Meadows.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 19:1-6
Commentary on Jeremiah 19:1-9
(Read Jeremiah 19:1-9)
The prophet must give notice of ruin coming upon Judah and Jerusalem. Both rulers and ruled must attend to it. That place which holiness made the joy of the whole earth, sin made the reproach and shame of the whole earth. There is no fleeing from God's justice, but by fleeing to his mercy.