Jeremiah 18:4

18:4 Now and then ¹  there would be something wrong ²  with the pot he was molding from the clay ³  with his hands. So he would rework ⁴  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ⁵ 

Isaiah 64:8

64:8 Yet, ⁶  Lord, you are our father.

We are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the product of your labor. ⁷ 

Daniel 4:23

4:23 As for the king seeing a holy sentinel coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave its taproot in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, surrounded by the grass of the field. Let it become damp with the dew of the sky, and let it live with the wild animals, until seven periods of time go by for him’ –

Matthew 20:15

20:15 Am I not ⁸  permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ⁹ 

Romans 11:34

11:34 For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor? ¹⁰ 

¹ tn The verbs here denote repeated action. They are the Hebrew perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive. The text then reads somewhat literally, “Whenever the vessel he was molding…was ruined, he would remold…” For this construction see Joüon 2:393-94 §118.n and 2:628-29 §167.b, and compare the usage in Amos 4:7-8.

² sn Something was wrong with the clay – either there was a lump in it, or it was too moist or not moist enough, or it had some other imperfection. In any case the vessel was “ruined” or “spoiled” or defective in the eyes of the potter. This same verb has been used of the linen shorts that were “ruined” and hence were “good for nothing” in Jer 13:7. The nature of the clay and how it responded to the potter’s hand determined the kind of vessel that he made of it. He did not throw the clay away. This is the basis for the application in vv. 7-10 to any nation and to the nation of Israel in particular vv. 10-17.

³ tn The usage of the preposition בְּ (bet) to introduce the material from which something is made in Exod 38:8 and 1 Kgs 15:22 should lay to rest the rather forced construction that some (like J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 121) put on the variant כַּחֹמֶר (kakhomer) found in a few Hebrew mss. Bright renders that phrase as an elliptical “as clay sometimes will.” The phrase is missing from the Greek version.

⁴ tn Heb “he would turn and work.” This is an example of hendiadys where one of the two verbs joined by “and” becomes the adverbial modifier of the other. The verb “turn” is very common in this construction (see BDB 998 s.v. שׁוּב Qal.8 for references).

⁵ tn Heb “as it was right in his eyes to do [or work it].” For this idiom see Judg 14:3, 7; 1 Sam 18:20, 26; 2 Sam 17:4.

⁶ tn On the force of וְעַתָּה (vÿ’attah) here, see HALOT 902 s.v. עַתָּה.

⁷ tn Heb “the work of your hand.”

⁸ tc ‡ Before οὐκ (ouk, “[am I] not”) a number of significant witnesses read ἤ (h, “or”; e.g., א C W 085 Ë^1,13 33 and most others). Although in later Greek the οι in σοι (oi in soi) – the last word of v. 14 – would have been pronounced like ἤ, since ἤ is lacking in early mss (B D; among later witnesses, note L Z Θ 700) and since mss were probably copied predominantly by sight rather than by sound, even into the later centuries, the omission of ἤ cannot be accounted for as easily. Thus the shorter reading is most likely original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

⁹ tn Grk “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

¹⁰ sn A quotation from Isa 40:13.