Isaiah 29:16-17

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”?

Changes are Coming

29:17 In just a very short time ⁴ 

Lebanon will turn into an orchard,

and the orchard will be considered a forest. ⁵ 

[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.”

[29:17]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text phrases this as a rhetorical question, “Is it not yet a little, a short [time]?”

[29:17]  ⁵ sn The meaning of this verse is debated, but it seems to depict a reversal in fortunes. The mighty forest of Lebanon (symbolic of the proud and powerful, see 2:13; 10:34) will be changed into a common orchard, while the common orchard (symbolic of the oppressed and lowly) will grow into a great forest. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:538.