Isaiah 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ¹ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ² 

Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Isaiah 45:9

The Lord Gives a Warning

45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, ⁴ 

one who is like a mere ⁵  shard among the other shards on the ground!

The clay should not say to the potter, ⁶ 

“What in the world ⁷  are you doing?

Your work lacks skill!” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 18:2-6

18:2 “Go down at once ⁹  to the potter’s house. I will speak to you further there.” ¹⁰  18:3 So I went down to the potter’s house and found him working ¹¹  at his wheel. ¹²  18:4 Now and then ¹³  there would be something wrong ¹⁴  with the pot he was molding from the clay ¹⁵  with his hands. So he would rework ¹⁶  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ¹⁷ 

18:5 Then the Lord said to me, ¹⁸  18:6 “I, the Lord, say: ¹⁹  ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? ²⁰  In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’

Romans 9:20-24

9:20 But who indeed are you – a mere human being ²¹  – to talk back to God? ²²  Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ²³  9:21 Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay ²⁴  one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? ²⁵  9:22 But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects ²⁶  of wrath ²⁷  prepared for destruction? ²⁸  9:23 And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects ²⁹  of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory – 9:24 even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

[29:16]  ¹ tn Heb “your overturning.” The predicate is suppressed in this exclamation. The idea is, “O your perversity! How great it is!” See GKC 470 §147.c. The people “overturn” all logic by thinking their authority supersedes God’s.

[29:16]  ² tn The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “of course not.” On the interrogative use of אִם (’im), see BDB 50 s.v.

[29:16]  ³ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”

[45:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”

[45:9]  ⁵ tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.

[45:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

[45:9]  ⁷ tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.

[45:9]  ⁸ 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.”

[18:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “Get up and go down.” The first verb is not literal but is idiomatic for the initiation of an action. See 13:4, 6 for other occurrences of this idiom.

[18:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And I will cause you to hear my word there.”

[18:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And behold he was working.”

[18:3]  ¹² sn At his wheel (Heb “at the two stones”). The Hebrew expression is very descriptive of the construction of a potter’s wheel which consisted of two stones joined by a horizontal shaft. The potter rotated the wheel with his feet on the lower wheel and worked the clay with his hands on the upper. For a picture of a potter working at his wheel see I. Ben-Dor, “Potter’s Wheel,” IDB 3:846. See also the discussion regarding the making of pottery in J. L. Kelso, “Pottery,” IDB 3:846-53.

[18:4]  ¹³ 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.

[18:4]  ¹⁴ 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.

[18:4]  ¹⁵ 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.

[18:4]  ¹⁶ 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).

[18:4]  ¹⁷ 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.

[18:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying.”

[18:6]  ¹⁹ tn This phrase (literally “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24.

[18:6]  ²⁰ tn The words “deals with the clay” are not in the text. They are part of an elliptical comparison and are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[9:20]  ²¹ tn Grk “O man.”

[9:20]  ²² tn Grk “On the contrary, O man, who are you to talk back to God?”

[9:20]  ²³ sn A quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9.

[9:21]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump.”

[9:21]  ²⁵ tn Grk “one vessel for honor and another for dishonor.”

[9:22]  ²⁶ tn Grk “vessels.” This is the same Greek word used in v. 21.

[9:22]  ²⁷ tn Or “vessels destined for wrath.” The genitive ὀργῆς (orghs) could be taken as a genitive of destination.

[9:22]  ²⁸ tn Or possibly “objects of wrath that have fit themselves for destruction.” The form of the participle could be taken either as a passive or middle (reflexive). ExSyn 417-18 argues strongly for the passive sense (which is followed in the translation), stating that “the middle view has little to commend it.” First, καταρτίζω (katartizw) is nowhere else used in the NT as a direct or reflexive middle (a usage which, in any event, is quite rare in the NT). Second, the lexical force of this verb, coupled with the perfect tense, suggests something of a “done deal” (against some commentaries that see these vessels as ready for destruction yet still able to avert disaster). Third, the potter-clay motif seems to have one point: The potter prepares the clay.

[9:23]  ²⁹ tn Grk “vessels.” This is the same Greek word used in v. 21.