Yesaya 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”?

Roma 9:20-21

9:20 But who indeed are you – a mere human being ⁴  – to talk back to God? ⁵  Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ⁶  9:21 Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay ⁷  one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? ⁸ 

[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.”

[9:20]  ⁴ tn Grk “O man.”

[9:20]  ⁵ tn Grk “On the contrary, O man, who are you to talk back to God?”

[9:20]  ⁶ sn A quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9.

[9:21]  ⁷ tn Grk “Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump.”

[9:21]  ⁸ tn Grk “one vessel for honor and another for dishonor.”