Scripture Daily

Context No. 1803 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 45:1-16: in context

1The LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their armor, to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: 2“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will break the doors of bronze in pieces and cut apart the bars of iron. 3I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, who calls you by your name, even the God of Israel. 4For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called you by your name. I have given you a title, though you have not known me. 5I am the LORD, and there is no one else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me, 6that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is no one besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no one else. 7I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these things. 8Rain, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, that it may produce salvation, and let it cause righteousness to spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. 9Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands’? 10Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What have you become the father of?’ or to a mother, ‘What have you given birth to?’” 11The LORD, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker says: “You ask me about the things that are to come, concerning my sons, and you command me concerning the work of my hands! 12I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens. I have commanded all their army. 13I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways straight. He shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward,” says the LORD of Armies. 14The LORD says: “The labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you, and they will be yours. They will go after you. They shall come over in chains. They will bow down to you. They will make supplication to you: ‘Surely God is in you; and there is no one else. There is no other god. 15Most certainly you are a God who has hidden yourself, God of Israel, the Savior.’” 16They will be disappointed, yes, confounded, all of them. Those who are makers of idols will go into confusion together.

God addresses Cyrus, a pagan king he will use to free his exiles, and declares his own unrivaled sovereignty: I am the LORD, and there is no other; I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I am the LORD who does all these things. And then a warning against contending with such a God: woe to him who strives with his Maker, a clay pot among the pots of the earth. Shall the clay say to the potter, what are you making? or, you have no hands?

The image God uses to rebuke our quarreling with him is the clay and the potter. Woe, he says, to the clay pot that argues with the one who shapes it, that demands of the potter, what are you making of me? or complains, you are doing it wrong. The absurdity is meant to be felt: a lump of clay presuming to instruct and criticize the potter who forms it, as though the clay knew better than the maker what it should become. And that, God says, is what we do when we contend with him about his dealings with us, when we demand to know why he is shaping our lives as he is, when we complain that he is doing it wrong, as if we, the clay, understood better than our Maker what we should be and how we should be formed. There is a needed humility in this image. We are prone to quarrel with God about the shape our lives are taking, to demand explanations, to protest his providence, to insist that we know better than he does what we need and how things should go. The clay-and-potter image does not tell us that our questions are forbidden, or that God is a tyrant indifferent to us; it tells us that we are not in a position to instruct our Maker, that the creature does not know better than the Creator, and that there is a fundamental presumption in our arguing with God as though we could see, as he cannot, what should be done. The potter has wisdom and purpose that the clay cannot grasp; and the clay's part is not to instruct the potter but to trust him, to yield to his shaping, to believe that the hands forming it know what they are doing. My thoughts are not your thoughts, God says elsewhere; his wisdom in shaping us exceeds our grasp. To stop striving with our Maker, to trust the potter's hands even when we cannot see what he is making, is the humility the clay owes the one who forms it.

Do I quarrel with God about the shape my life is taking, demanding explanations and protesting his providence as if I, the clay, knew better than my Maker what I should become, or can I heed the image of the potter and the clay, yielding to his shaping and trusting that the hands forming me know what they are doing, even when I cannot see what he is making?

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