Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, and say to them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter's jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. – Jeremiah 19:10-11

Today's Scripture Reading (July 16, 2026): Jeremiah 19

One of our most-loved Nursery Rhymes was penned in the late 18^th century. The rhyme in question is "Humpty, Dumpty," the famous egg who sat on the wall. One problem with our understanding of Humpty Dumpty is that the poem nowhere suggests that Humpty Dumpty was an egg. It is thought that the original intention of the rhyme was that it was supposed to be a riddle, a statement in which people would be invited to guess the identity of Humpty Dumpty. But the riddle long ago turned into a children's rhyme, and the mystery found at the core of the rhyme has long since been forgotten.

But that has not stopped some from trying to guess the riddle's answer. Suggested answers include King Richard III, the last king of the House of York, whom the upstart House of Tudor toppled. Two other possible answers to the riddle emerge from the Siege of Colchester in 1648, a battle from the middle of the English Civil War. During the war, the Royalist army found itself hemmed in at the walled city of Colchester.  Outside the walls were the Parliamentarians. The rhyme, some assert, is about either a sniper, a man known as One-Eyed Thompson, or a cannon, appropriately known as Humpty Dumpty, that sat on the walls of a church called Mary-at-the-Walls. The story tells of the Parliamentarians outside the city who weakened the wall beneath either the sniper or the cannon, causing the fall of "Humpty Dumpty." As a result of this fall, the city of Colchester was lost, and all the king's horses and all the king's men, referring of course to the Royalist Army trapped inside the city, couldn't save either the town or Humpty Dumpty.

God seems to have a similar illustration and story for Jeremiah to tell. Again, the weeping prophet is given an illustration of what is about to happen in Jerusalem. He is to go and take a jar and break it. The imagery here is not that Jeremiah would gently break the jar, leaving large pieces that might be put back together. The imagery is of a smashed jar that has been broken into so many pieces that it is impossible to reassemble, even with all of the king's horses and all the king's men at the ready to do the task.

But maybe the one thing we miss when we read this prophecy is that, while in the short term the prophecy was fulfilled and Jerusalem was left in ruins, God is still the God of the impossible, and in the long term it seems that God himself would put the city back together again. Jerusalem still stands today, although, admittedly, once again, it would seem that the Holy City is broken, divided among the People of Israel, the Followers of Jesus Christ, and the Followers of Islam. But no matter how broken the city might seem, God remains the God who can still put the pieces back together.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 20