Catholic Commentary on Jeremiah 18

“Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.” (Jeremiah 18:6)

The Potter and the Clay

The LORD tells Jeremiah: go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message. So Jeremiah goes and sees the potter working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD: can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent.

The Catechism identifies the potter and clay image as one of the foundational images of divine sovereignty over human destiny, used by Paul in Romans 9 to speak of God's freedom in election (CCC 269).

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand. The marred pot is not discarded; it is reshaped. The same hands that formed it, form it again. The disaster is not the end; it is the reshaping. When your life feels like a marred vessel on the wheel, remember: the potter's hands are still on you. He is forming something as seems best to him.

Prayer

Lord God, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are we in your hand. Form us as seems best to you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

18
The Potter and the Clay
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal My message to you.”
 
3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
 
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 “O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
 
7 At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed. 8 But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.
 
9 And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom, 10 and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it.
 
11 Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.’
 
12 But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ”
 
13 Therefore this is what the LORD says:
 
“Inquire among the nations:
Who has ever heard things like these?
Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon
ever leave its rocky slopes?
Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance
ever run dry?
15 Yet My people have forgotten Me.
They burn incense to worthless idols
that make them stumble in their ways,
leaving the ancient roads
to walk on rutted bypaths
instead of on the highway.
16 They have made their land a desolation,
a perpetual object of scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
and shake their heads.
17 I will scatter them before the enemy
like the east wind.
I will show them My back and not My face
in the day of their calamity.”
Another Plot against Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 11:18-23)
 
18 Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”
 
19 Attend to me, O LORD.
Hear what my accusers are saying!
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn Your wrath from them.
 
21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine;
pour out the power of the sword upon them.
Let their wives become childless and widowed;
let their husbands be slain by disease,
their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses
when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.
 
23 But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me.
Do not wipe out their guilt
or blot out their sin from Your sight.
Let them be overthrown before You;
deal with them in the time of Your anger.

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