Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 45:9

"Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?" — Isaiah 45:9 (ASV)

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! (Isaiah 45:9) – This verse begins a new subject. Its connection with the preceding one is not very obvious. It may be designed to prevent the objections and complaints of the unbelieving Jews who were inclined to complain against God, and to question the wisdom of His dealings concerning them, in allowing them to be oppressed by their enemies, and in promising them deliverance instead of preventing their captivity. So Lowth understands it. Rosenmuller regards it as designed to meet a complaint because God chose to deliver them by Cyrus, a foreign prince, and a stranger to the true religion, rather than by someone from their own nation.

Kimchi, and some others, suppose that it is designed to restrain the pride of the Babylonians, who intended to keep the Jews in bondage, and who would thus contend with God. But perhaps the idea is of a more general nature.

It may be intended to refer to the fact that any intervention of God, any way of manifesting Himself to people, encounters enemies, and those who are inclined to contend with Him, and especially any display of His mercy and grace in a great revival of religion. In the previous verse, the prophet had spoken of the revival of religion. Perhaps he here refers to the fact that such a manifestation of His mercy would meet with opposition.

So it was when the Savior came, and when Christianity spread around the world; so it is in every revival now; and so it will be, perhaps, in the spreading of the gospel throughout the world in the time that will usher in the millennium.

People thus contend with their Maker; resist the influences of His Spirit; struggle against the appeals made to them; oppose His sovereignty; are angered by the preaching of the gospel, and often unite to oppose Him.

That this is the meaning of this passage seems to be the sentiment of the apostle Paul, who has used this image and applied it in a similar manner: Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? (Romans 9:20–21).

It is implied that people are opposed to the ways God governs the world. It is affirmed that calamity will follow all the resistance people make.

Indeed, calamity will follow, because:

1. God has all power, and all who contend with Him must be defeated and overthrown.
2. God is right, and the sinner who opposes Him is wrong, and must and will be punished for his resistance.

Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds ... of the earth – Lowth renders this:

Woe to him who contends with the power that formed him;
The potsherd with the molder of the clay.

The word translated ‘potsherd’ (חרשׁ cheresh) properly means “a shard,” or “sherd,” that is, a fragment of an earthenware vessel (Leviticus 6:28; Leviticus 11:33; Job 2:8; Job 41:22; Psalms 22:16).

It is then used proverbially for anything frail and insignificant. Here it is undoubtedly used for humanity, regarded as weak and insignificant in its efforts against God.

Our translation seems to indicate that it is appropriate for humans to contend with equals, but not with one so much their superior as God; or that they might have some hope of success in contending with their fellow humans, but none in contending with their Maker. But this meaning does not fit the context well.

The prophet's idea is not that such contentions are proper or appropriate among people, but rather the supreme folly and sin of contending with God; and the thought illustrating this is not that people may appropriately contend with each other, but rather the extreme weakness and fragility of humanity.

The translation proposed, therefore, by Jerome, "Woe to him who contends with his Maker—testa de samiis terrae—a potsherd among the earthen pots (made of the Samos earth) of the earth"—which is found in the Syriac and adopted by Rosenmuller, Gesenius, and Noyes, is undoubtedly the true rendering.

According to Gesenius, the particle את 'êth here means “by” or “among”; and the idea is, that a human is a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth; a weak, fragile creature among others equally so—yet impiously presuming to contend with the God who made him.

The Septuagint translates this: "Is anything endowed with excellence? I fashioned it like the clay of a potter. Will the plowman plow the ground all day long? Will the clay say to the potter," etc.

Shall the clay... – It would be absurd for the clay to complain to the one who molds it about the form he chooses to give it. No less absurd is it for a human, made of clay and molded by God's hand, to complain about the way He has made him, the rank He has assigned him in the scale of being, and the purposes He intends to accomplish through him.

He hath no hands – This means he has no skill, no wisdom, no power. It is chiefly by the hand that pottery is molded; and the hands here represent the skill or wisdom shown in making it. The Syriac translates it, "Neither am I the work of your hands."