Isaiah 29:16

16 You have turned things around, as if the potter were the same as the clay. How can what is made say about its maker, "He didn't make me"? How can what is formed say about the one who formed it, "He doesn't understand [what he's doing]"?

Isaiah 29:16 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 29:16

Surely your turning of things upside down
Revolving things in their minds, throwing them into different shapes, forming various schemes, and inverting the order of things by their deep counsels, and seeking to hide things from the Lord: or, "O the perverseness of you" ^F26; in imagining and saying that no eye saw, nor anyone knew, what they did, not the Lord himself. So the Vulgate Latin version, "this is your perverse thought"; namely, what is before related. The Targum is,

``do you seek to pervert your works?''

Our version joins it with what follows; though a stop should be made here, because of the accent: shall be esteemed as the potter's clay:
their perverse counsels and designs shall be made of no more account with God, and be as easily turned about and brought to nought, as the clay can be formed, and shaped, and marred by the potter, at his pleasure: "if" or "surely as the potter's clay shall it be esteemed", as the words may be rendered; or it may refer to their persons, as well as their counsels. So the Septuagint version, "shall ye not be reckoned as the potter's clay?" ye shall. To which agrees the Targum,

``behold, as the clay in the hand of the potter, so are ye accounted before me;''

who could do with them just as seemed good in his sight. De Dieu renders them, "shall the potter be reckoned as the clay?" Such was the stupidity and perverseness of the Jews, in endeavouring to hide their counsels from the Lord, and in fancying that he did not see and know them, that they thought God was like themselves; which is all one as if the potter was reckoned as the clay, for they were the clay, and God the potter. The Vulgate Latin version is, "as if the clay could think against the potter"; contrive schemes to counterwork him; which, to imagine, was not more stupid, than to think they could do anything against the Lord: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not?
to say that God does not know what is done by his creatures, is in effect to say that he did not make them; for he that made them must needs know their actions, and even the very thoughts of their hearts; as he that makes a watch knows all that is in it, and the motions of it: or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no
understanding?
or judgment, did not know how to make it as it should be. So the Septuagint version, "thou hast not made me wisely"; or he did not understand the work itself, the make and fashion of it. So the Targum,

``thou does not understand me.''

This might as well be said, as for a creature to pretend that God does not know what and where he is, or what he is doing.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 So some in Gataker; (Mkkph) "subversio vestra", Pagninus, Montanus.

Isaiah 29:16 In-Context

14 therefore I will again confound these people with wonder after wonder. The wisdom of their wise men will vanish, and the understanding of the perceptive will be hidden.

15 Woe to those who go to great lengths to hide their plans from the Lord. [They do] their works in darkness, and say, "Who sees us? Who knows us?"

16 You have turned things around, as if the potter were the same as the clay. How can what is made say about its maker, "He didn't make me"? How can what is formed say about the one who formed it, "He doesn't understand [what he's doing]"?

17 Isn't [it true that] in just a little while Lebanon will become an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest?

18 On that day the deaf will hear the words of a document, and out of a deep darkness the eyes of the blind will see.