Isaiah 64:8

8 But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 64:8

But now, O Lord, thou art our father
Notwithstanding all that we have done against thee, and thou hast done to us, the relation of a father continues; thou art our Father by creation and adoption; as he was in a particular manner to the Jews, to whom belonged the adoption; and therefore this relation is pleaded, that mercy might be shown them; and so the Targum,

``and thou, Lord, thy mercies towards us "are" many (or let them be many) as a father towards "his" children.''

We are the clay, and thou our potter:
respecting their original formation out of the dust of the earth; and so expressing humility in themselves, and yet ascribing greatness to God, who had curiously formed them, as the potter out of the clay forms vessels for various uses: it may respect their formation as a body politic and ecclesiastic, which arose from small beginnings, under the power and providence of God; see ( Deuteronomy 32:6 ) : and we all are the work of thy hand;
and therefore regard us, and destroy us not; as men do not usually destroy their own works: these relations to God, and circumstances in which they were as creatures, and as a body civil and ecclesiastic, are used as arguments for mercy and favour.

Isaiah 64:8 In-Context

6 We have all become like the unclean; all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag. All of us wither like a leaf; our sins, like the wind, carry us away.

7 No one calls on your name; no one bothers to hold on to you, for you have hidden yourself from us, and have handed us over to our sin.

8 But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.

9 Don't rage so fiercely, LORD; don't hold our sins against us forever, but gaze now on your people, all of us:

10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a wasteland.