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”?

Yesaya 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 

[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.”