Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. break . bottle-a symbolical action, explained in Jer 19:11.

the men-the elders of the people and of the priests (Jer 19:1; compare Jer 51:63, 64).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:10-15 The potter's vessel, after it is hardened, can never be pieced again when it is broken. And as the bottle was broken, so shall Judah and Jerusalem be broken by the Chaldeans. No human hand can repair it; but if they return to the Lord he will heal. As they filled Tophet with the slain sacrificed to their idols, so will God fill the whole city with the slain that shall fall as sacrifices to his justice. Whatever men may think, God will appear as terrible against sin and sinners as the Scriptures state; nor shall the unbelief of men make his promise or his threatenings of no effect. The obstinacy of sinners in sinful ways, is their own fault; if they are deaf to the word of God, it is because they have stopped their ears. We have need to pray that God, by his grace, would deliver us from hardness of heart, and contempt of his word and commandments.