Jeremiah 19:10-11

Jeremiah was to break his jar in the sight of his hearers as a symbolic act, and was to announce that in similar fashion, the Lord would destroy the people and the city. They would not be able to recover from this catastrophe any more than one could repair a shattered earthenware jar. The only burial places would be in Topheth. The "fireplace" would become a cemetery.

Earlier the Lord implied that He would reshape the nation if the people repented, as a potter reshapes a vessel under construction on the wheel (Jeremiah 18:1-2). But now Judah was a hardened vessel incapable of changing. All the Lord could do with it now was break it.

"If there is nothing so workable as a clay pot in the making, there is nothing so unalterable as the finished article." [Note: Kidner, p. 78.]