This second vision summarizes one of the main features of Jeremiah’s message: God will call down an enemy from the north to punish his people. There is some disagreement among scholars concerning the nature of what Jeremiah saw. Some assume either that it was the vision of a pot floating through the air, coming in the direction of the prophet, or else that it was a magician’s pot brewing poisonous fumes. However, it seems more natural to assume that Jeremiah saw an actual cooking pot (perhaps in his house or in front of his house), and that through this means God communicated to him his message.

Translators should render The word of the LORD came to me a second time with the same expression they used in verse 11, with the addition of “again” or “a second time.” Good News Translation shows that this verse is continuing the narration by beginning with “Then.” This can be helpful in some other languages as well.

Boiling is the interpretation accepted by most translations (Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, Luther 1984, La Bible Pléiade, New International Version), though others interpret the ambiguous Hebrew expression to mean “on a fire, fanned by the wind” (New English Bible; similarly Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, An American Translation). Although either interpretation is possible, in the light of the next verse it would seem that the notion of boiling is uppermost in the prophet’s mind.

It is not always natural to speak of a boiling pot. Some languages would instead indicate that it was a “pot with boiling liquid” or “pot with something boiling in it.” If translation requires more detail in the description of the pot, then it was probably a cooking pot of the wide-mouth variety with two handles. Elsewhere in Jeremiah the word occurs twice in the list of articles taken from the Temple (52.18, 19), where it is used of the container for carrying away the ashes from the altar of burnt offerings (see Exo 27.3).

Facing away from the north is also ambiguous in Hebrew. However, Old Testament scholars tend to see here the picture of a boiling pot tipping so that its contents are about to pour out towards the south. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is very effective in its rendering: “A boiling pot, whose rim is tipped from the north in my direction.” Another way of expressing the picture is “tilting away from the north,” as in New International Version and New English Bible. One other model is “It is a boiling pot tipped south towards Judah.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .