Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageHow terrible for the one who argues with his Maker — a clay pot quarreling with the Potter! Does the clay demand of the one shaping it, 'What are you making?' or 'This work has no handles'?
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GWoe to the one who quarrels with his Maker — a potsherd among potsherds of clay! Does the clay say to the one forming it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your handiwork has no grip'?
KJV
King James VersionWoe 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?
BSB
Berean Standard BibleWoe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
Footnotes
The word *hoi* (Woe!) is a funeral lament — the prophetic cry over the already-doomed. The image is of a *cheres* (potsherd, broken piece of fired clay) arguing with its *yotzer* (potter, craftsman). The taunt "your handiwork has no grip" (*ufal'kha ein yadayim*) — literally "your work has no hands" — is a cutting accusation of incompetence. In context, the quarrel is Israel's grumbling about the Koresh/Cyrus commission — a resistance Isaiah frames as cosmically absurd. The pottery metaphor runs from Jeremiah 18 through Romans 9:20-21, always anchoring human resistance to divine sovereignty as a profound category error.
