Jeremiah 1:13
And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north. And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
God called Jeremiah when he was very young, in the closing days before the Babylonian captivity, with a ministry beginning in the reign of Josiah and ending with Zedekiah, the last king of Judah who was carried away into Babylon. At his call he felt his own inability and shrank trembling from the awful responsibility, describing himself as only a child unable to go. God encouraged him with the promise of His presence for a very hard task among a rebellious and resistant people, commissioning him by the very words he would speak to pluck up and break down nations or to build and plant them. He was made to stand like a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls, whom they would fight against and cause to suffer but would not overcome.
The experience illustrates that before God calls men to His work He gives them humbling views of themselves and removes self-sufficiency, so that His strength is made perfect in their weakness. Those truly called know their own ignorance and weakness and the weight of responsibility attached to the work, and undertake it only because God's authority compels them. The verse shows Jeremiah receiving a vision as a mere human being, one of the frail mortals through whom God gave visions for the benefit of others.
The seething pot with its face toward the north means that trouble would come upon God's people from the north. This belongs to a prophetic pattern in which hostile powers rise from the north, including Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. After this vision the chapter turns to declarations concerning the terrible backsliding of Judah.