Journal Through the Bible: Week 71 Friday

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Jeremiah chapter 19

Does God issue any commands?

• God told Jeremiah to go buy an earthen bottle and gather the elders of the people and priests for a field trip to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom where God would give Jeremiah a message for them.
• After pronouncing the curses of God in the Valley of the Son of Hinnon Jeremiah was to break the bottle and say that even so would God break this people and this city.

Does God make any promises?

• God promised that the valley in which they stood (which is where they sacrificed their children, burnt incense to Baal, and filled the land with innocent blood) would no longer be called Tophet or Hinnom but The Valley of Slaughter because the people would die there by their enemies' swords.
• God promised such famine that the people's wickedness would plunge them even into cannibalism.

Does this chapter teach anything about Jesus?

• Jeremiah was a messenger to the people of Jerusalem. Jesus was a messenger to the people of Jerusalem.
• The place in the Valley of Tophet or Son of Hinnom where the ceremonial sacrifice of Jewish infants took place later became the ever-burning garbage dump in the Valley of Gehenna which Jesus used as a visual when teaching about Hell.

Does this chapter teach anything about yet-future events?

• The metaphor of the Valley of Tophet (where the abominable sin of burning live infants as sacrifices took place!) was called by God The Valley of Slaughter. It later became the Valley of Gehenna, the ever-burning place of refuse where Jesus taught about Hell. This passage then teaches about the abominations of false-worship that will lead to an eternity in Hell.