Text -- Isaiah 45:9 (NET)

The Lord Gives a Warning

45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, one who is like a mere shard among the other shards on the ground! The clay should not say to the potter, “What in the world are you doing? Your work lacks skill!”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 45:9

¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”

² tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.

³ tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

⁴ tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.

⁵ tn Heb “your work, there are no hands for it,” i.e., “your work looks like something made by a person who has no hands.”