Isaiah 45:9
Read Isaiah 45:9 Using Other Translations
What does Isaiah 45:9 mean?
Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker
That contends with him, enters into a controversy, and disputes
with him, or litigates a point with him; quarrels with his
purposes and decrees; murmurs and repines at his providences, and
finds fault with his dispensations: this seems to have respect to
the murmurs, quarrels, and contests of the Jews about Christ, the
author of righteousness and salvation, when he should appear:
let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the
earth;
let men strive with men, who are as earthen vessels made of the
same mass and lump, and so are upon an equal foot, and a match
for each other; but let them not have the insolence and vanity to
strive with their Maker, who, as he has made them, can dash them
in pieces as a potter's vessel: shall the clay say to him
that fashioneth it, what makest thou?
yet this might be said with as much propriety and justice as that
the Jews should quarrel with God for not sending the Messiah as a
temporal prince to rescue them from the Roman yoke; but in a mean
and humble manner, in the form of a servant, as a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with griefs; and, at last, became obedient to the
death of the cross, the way in which he was to be the Saviour of
men: or thy work, he hath no hands?
or thus, or "thy work say unto thee, he, the potter, hath no
hands"; no power nor skill to make me; I can make myself: as
weakly, as wickedly, and as foolishly did the Jews, seeing no
need of the Saviour sent them, nor of his righteousness and
salvation, argue for justification by their own works, and in
favour of their self-sufficiency to work out their own salvation.
The Targum takes the words to be spoken to idolaters, and
paraphrases the former part thus;
``woe to him who thinks to contend in judgment against the words of his Creator, and trusts that earthen images shall profit him, which are made out of the dust of the earth''and there are many interpreters who think they are spoken against the idolatrous Babylonians, particularly against Belshazzar, as Kimchi; and others, against Astyages, a king of Persia, who was angry with the father and mother of Cyrus, and sought to have slain him as soon as born F17.
F17 Vid. Abendana in Miclol Yophi in loc.
