Bible Strands
Jeremiah 19:12
This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — YHWH speaks through Jeremiah to declare impending judgment on Jerusalem and its inhabitants at the moment the prophet commands the city’s leaders to witness a symbolic act of breaking a clay jar.
The words — The Hebrew כֵּן (ken, "thus") and אֶעֱשֶׂה ('e'eseh, "I will do") anchor the declaration, while וְלָתֵת (ve'late, "and to make") introduces the specific outcome of the divine action.
The thread — The judgment motif extends to the defiled houses of Jerusalem and Judah's kings in Jeremiah 19:13, while the oath to the patriarchs regarding the land in Jeremiah 11:5 contrasts with this present reversal of blessing.
Why it lands — The text states directly that YHWH will transform a sacred location into a mass burial ground, describing the physical reality before any theological inference about covenant failure. It requires the reader to acknowledge that spoken judgment executes immediately, turning places of worship into sites of death.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 10:13 When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
- Jeremiah 11:5 This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.” “Amen, LORD,” I answered.