- Name 57 of 70Our Potter
- HebrewYotserenu
- In plain wordsThe One who shapes us with His hands
- Where to find itIsaiah 64:8, in a prayer for a ruined land; Jeremiah 18 at the potter's house
The potter and the clay is one of the plainest pictures of God in the whole Bible. In Isaiah 64:8, a hurting people prayed we are the clay, and thou our potter
. They were calling God their Potter: the One who shapes them by hand, the way a craftsman shapes a lump of wet earth into a bowl or a jar. The name in Hebrew is Yotserenu, "our Potter."
A prayer from people who had run out of answers
Isaiah 63 and 64 hold a long prayer. The people who pray it admit that much of their trouble was their own doing. They do not dress it up. They say their best deeds look like dirty rags next to a holy God, that they fade like a leaf, and that their sins have carried them off like the wind (Isaiah 64:6). Later they describe Jerusalem as a desolation and the temple as burned with fire (Isaiah 64:10 to 11).
Then, with nothing left to offer, they say this:
But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Isaiah 64:8
Look at what they do not say. They do not promise to try harder. They do not argue that they deserve help. They simply remind God who made them. Clay is helpless on its own. A potter is not. Their whole hope rests on the fact that God started this work and has a reason to finish it.
Jeremiah at the potter's house
The prophet Jeremiah once got a field trip from God. God told him to go down to the potter's house, because there He would speak to him (Jeremiah 18:2). Archaeologists have found Israelite potter's wheels from the Iron Age, the time of the Bible's kings, made of two stones: a top stone that spun on a heavier base stone. A craftsman would keep it turning while his wet hands pulled the clay upward.
Jeremiah watched, and something went wrong. The jar fell out of shape. Maybe there was a pebble or an air pocket in the clay. The potter did not throw the lump in the trash.
And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jeremiah 18:4
Marred means spoiled or damaged. The potter kept the same clay and kept his hands on it, but the second vessel was not a copy of the first. Then God explained the lesson in one sentence: as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel
(Jeremiah 18:6).
In Jeremiah's day this was a warning. The nation was heading for disaster, and God was saying He had every right to reshape their future. The next verses add a hopeful twist: if a nation turns from its evil, God will change the plans He had announced against it (Jeremiah 18:7 to 8). In the prayer of Isaiah 64, the city already lies in ruins. The pot has collapsed. So the people prayed the only thing that made sense. Do what potters do. Make us again.
Yatsar and chomer: the Hebrew behind the picture
The word for potter, yotser, comes from the verb yatsar. Strong's lexicon, a standard word list for the King James Bible, defines it as to mold into a form, especially as a potter does. It is hands-on work. You cannot yatsar something from across the room.
That same verb shows up on the second page of the Bible. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground
(Genesis 2:7). The word "formed" there is yatsar. When the Bible tells up close how God made the first man, it pictures Him shaping the dust the way a potter shapes clay. When the people in Isaiah 64 called Him their Potter, they were reaching back to that picture.
The word for clay is chomer. In the King James Bible it is also translated mortar, mire and heap. In other words, it is common mud. Nobody pays for a bucket of raw clay because it is beautiful. Its worth comes from what the potter makes of it.
The verb can also mean to plan or decide ahead of time. A potter pictures the jar before he starts the wheel. In the same way, the God who shapes people has thought about them first.
Key King James verses on the potter and the clay
Isaiah used the picture more than once, and not always gently. Here he warns people who try to treat God as if He were smaller than they are:
Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with 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
A potsherd is a broken piece of pottery. To strive is to argue or fight. The point is simple: a clay pot that argues with its maker has forgotten what it is.
Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
Job 10:9
Job used the same picture in the middle of his suffering. Beseech means to beg. He asked God to remember that He had made him with His own hands.
For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
Psalm 103:14
This verse is gentle. Our "frame" is the way we are put together. God never forgets how fragile His clay is, and He treats it with care.
Living as clay in God's hands
Most people know what it feels like when something they were building caves in. A friendship ends badly. A plan for school or work falls apart. A habit you swore you would beat comes back. You look at your life and see a slumped mess where you hoped a strong jar would be.
The workshop in Jeremiah 18 says the story is not over. The clay is still on the wheel. The hands are still on the clay. You might not turn into the exact thing you first pictured. The potter in the story made another vessel, one that seemed good to him. Many people can look back and see that the second shape God gave their life was better than the one they had planned.
There is also rest in this name. If God is the Potter, you do not have to be. You are not required to invent yourself from scratch or repair every crack on your own. Clay has one job: to stay soft. Dry, stiff clay cracks when a potter presses on it. A heart that has gone hard and stopped listening is the same way.
- Name one area of your life that feels marred right now, and tell God plainly that you want Him to rework it.
- Notice where you have been arguing with the shape your life is taking. Ask whether you need to let go of a plan.
- If you are young and still figuring out who you are, remember that being unfinished is normal. You are still on the wheel.
- Read Jeremiah 18:1 to 10 and Isaiah 64 together this week.
The prayer in Isaiah 64 calls God Father and Potter in the same breath. To see the first of those two names up close, read Our Father. The next name in the book, a Father to the fatherless, shows how far that fatherly care reaches. You can browse every name on the names of God in the Bible page.
