Israel suffers degradation for a period, but will ultimately be

restored and blessed, but Babylon, and all that it stands for, will sink,

never to rise again.  The strange idea of hiding a linen girdle in the hole

of a rock, finds an echo in another symbolic act which is recorded in

Jeremiah 43.  Israel had, contrary to the witness of Jeremiah, made alliance

with Egypt, and at Tahpanhes, a fortress in Egypt, Jeremiah once again set

forth prophetic truth in symbol.  The word translated 'brick kiln' in

Jeremiah 43:9 is rendered in the Revised Version 'brickwork', and 'brickyard'

by Rotherham.  Appendix 87 of The Companion Bible contains a drawing of the

fort of Defenneh (Gk. Daphnae, and so Tahpanhes) which shows the large

platform before the entry of Pharaoh's palace.  It was in this brickwork

platform that Jeremiah hid the great stones:

'Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,

Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brick

pavement, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the

sight of the men of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of

hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar

the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne upon these

stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over

them' (43:8 -10).

Returning to Jeremiah 13 to 19, we observe that in the second symbol

borrowed from the potter's craft, the vessel is now called an earthen bottle,

or pitcher, it is no longer ductile clay but burnt earthenware.  This bottle

is broken by Jeremiah in the valley of the son of Hinnom, called in the New

Testament Gehenna, the symbol of 'Hell' and called Tophet in chapter 19:6.

This reference to Tophet is repeated from chapter 7, where there is appended

a doom (verse 34) that will ultimately be pronounced over Babylon (Rev.

18:23), 'The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more

at all in thee'.

The use of the figure 'the hole of a rock by the Euphrates' can be

translated into less figurative language if we will read Jeremiah 16:15,16:

'But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the

land of the north, and from all the lands whither He had driven them:

and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their

fathers.  Behold, I will send ... hunters, and they shall hunt them

from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the Holes Of The

When we turn to the New Testament we shall find that Judas Iscariot is

associated with 'the Potter's Field' (Matt. 27:6,7) which is linked with

Gehenna, Tophet and Aceldama.  We have enough before us, however, without

complicating the issue by further additions.  Some readers may have found the

matter already so complex that a brief summary may be acceptable.  We will

attempt to weave the many strands that have come before us into some sort of

consistent pattern.  Israel, originally, were comparable to fine gold, but

had degenerated, and were likened to earthen pitchers, the work of the hands

of a potter (Lam. 4:1,2).

Nebuchadnezzar, to whom sovereignty was

transferred on the failure of Israel's kings, he too is likened to gold, but,

the prophet looking down the stream of time, sees the same degeneration, the

feet are feet of clay (Dan. 2).  The prophet Jeremiah goes over certain

aspects of the prophetic history of these two dynasties, using several

strange figures, a linen girdle, a potter at work with wheel and clay, the

smashing of a potter's vessel in Tophet or Gehenna, the hiding of the girdle