The
Potter and the Clay Pots: Biblical Symbolism
Pottery is mentioned often
in the Bible. In the elaborate descriptions of the temple
vessels and offerings, for example, the most luxurious and valuable
vessels were of bronze, gold, and silver (Ex 27:3; 37:24).
For everyday usages in common households, however, pots were made
of clay. The Lord ordered Jeremiah to preserve his land deed
in a clay jar (Jer 32:14), a practice also found with regard to
the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
But there is another way
that potter and pottery (yoser and homer, in Hebrew)
are referenced in the Bible, and that is for theological, spiritual,
and moral imagery. In this week's segment of Isaiah, we read:
"Your perversity is as though the potter were taken to be the
clay, as though what is made should say of its maker, 'He made me
not!' Or the vessel should say of the potter, 'He does not understand'"
(29:16).
The potter's art provided
the biblical writers with many possibilities for expressing deeper
truths. As we endeavor to fully appreciate the meaning and
power of these words, it would help us to look at the broader spectrum
of the use of this imagery in the Bible. This article will
attempt to do that.
Our quest takes us all the
way back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis.
The creation story depicts God as a potter fashioning a man from
clay: "The Lord God formed the man out of the clay of the ground
and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so the man became
a living being" (Gen 2:7). The New American Bible
makes a foot note comment here: "God is portrayed as a potter
molding the man's body out of clay. There is a play on words
in Hebrew between adam ("man") and adama
("ground").
This theme of God, the Master
Potter, modeling people and nations is a common one throughout the
Bible. We see it in Isaiah. In addition to the above
quoted text (Is 29:16), we read: "I have stirred up one from
the north who shall trample rulers down like red earth, as the potter
treads the clay" (Is 41:25). "Yet, oh Lord, you
are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the
work of your hands" (Is 64:7). "This guilt of yours
shall be like a descending rift, bulging out in a high wall whose
crash comes suddenly like a potters jar smashed beyond rescue"
(Is 30:13-14).
In chapter 18:1-6, Jeremiah
used the figure of the potter reforming his imperfect objects of
clay into other forms to show what the Lord might do to Israel:
"I went to the potter's house, and there he was, working at
the wheel. Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned
out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another
object of whatever sort he pleased. Then the words of the Lord came
to me: 'Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has
done? Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in
my hand, house of Israel'" (Jer 18:3-6). In chapter 19,
Jeremiah's breaking a clay jar symbolized the breaking up of the
kingdom: "Thus says the Lord: 'Go, buy a potter's earthen pot,
take some elders of the people and proclaim the words which I will
speak to you. . . . And you shall break the pot in the sight
of the men who went with you and say to them, Thus says the Lord
of Hosts: Thus will I smash this people and this city, as one smashed
a clay pot so that it cannot be repaired'" (19:1,2,10-11).
Some of the wisdom literature
of the Bible incorporates this symbolism into their proverbial teaching:
"For truly the potter, laboriously working the soft earth,
molds for us vessels. . . . As to what shall be the use of
each vessel, the worker in clay is the judge" (Ws 15:7).
"As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so
in his conversation is the test of a human" (Sir 27:5).
"Like clay in the hands of a potter, to be molded according
to his pleasure, so are humans in the hands of their Creator, to
be assigned by God their function" (Sir 33:13). "Teaching
a fool is like gluing a broken pot" (Sir 22:7). "Zion's
precious children, fine gold their counterpoint, now worth no more
than earthen jars made by the hands of a potter!" (Lam 4:2).
Figurative and vivid uses
of the earthen material for pottery, clay, appear as imagery in
the Psalms: "You will shatter them in pieces like
a clay pot (keli yoser)" (Ps 2:19); "My throat
is as dry as clay" (Ps 22:16). In the poetry of Isaiah,
"He tramples over rulers as if they were mud, like a potter
tramples clay (Is 41:25). And in Proverbs, fine talk
is seen as covering over what a person is really like in this imagery:
"the fine glaze on a cheap clay pot" (Prv 26:23).
Job weaves the
pottery symbolism into his suffering: "Your hands have formed
me and fashioned me; will you then turn and destroy me? Oh,
remember that you fashioned me from clay! Will you then bring
me down to dust again?" (Job 10:8-9).
Daniel uses the
potter's work to interpret a dream to King Nabuchadnezzar.
"The feet and toes you saw, partly of potter's tile and partly
of iron, mean that it shall be a divided kingdom, partly strong
and partly fragile. . . " (Dan 2:41).
In the NT, we look
to the Letter to the Romans where Paul compares God's control
to the potter's control over the clay: "But who indeed are
you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is made
say to its maker, "Why have you created me so?"
Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make out of
the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for an
ignoble one?" (Rom 9:20-21). And we turn to the Second
Letter to the Corinthians where we hear: "we hold this
treasure in earthen vessels (ostrakinos skeuos)" (2
Cor 4:7), that is, the power is God's, not our own.
A director in a 30-day retreat
once advised her retreatant to pray with some of the above biblical
texts concerning the potter and the clay. "Imagine yourself
being modeled by your Creator," she said. "What's your
experience? What's your resistance? What's your acceptance?
What's your surrender? What's in your heart?" The biblical
symbolism of the potter and the clay has a great theological and
spiritual meaning for us personally and as church. But for
it really to come home for us, we must put ourselves on that wheel
and allow God's providential hands to work with us.
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| Text:
Isaiah 29:13-24
13 The Lord said: Since this people
draws near with words only and honors me with their lips alone,
though their hearts are far from me, And their reverence for me
has become routine observance of the precepts of men,
14 Therefore I will again deal with
this people in surprising and wondrous fashion: The wisdom of its
wise men shall perish and the understanding of its prudent men be
hid.
15 Woe to those who would
hide their plans too deep for the LORD! Who work in the dark, saying,
"Who sees us, or who knows us?"
16 Your perversity is as though the
potter were taken to be the clay: As though what is made should
say of its maker, "He made me not!" Or the vessel should
say of the potter, "He does not understand."
17 But a very little while, and Lebanon
shall be changed into an orchard, and the orchard be regarded as
a forest!
18 On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book; And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of
the blind shall see.
19 The lowly will ever find joy in
the LORD, and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the tyrant will be no more
and the arrogant will have gone; All who are alert to do evil will
be cut off,
21 those whose mere word condemns
a man, Who ensnare his defender at the gate, and leave the just
man with an empty claim.
22 Therefore thus says the LORD, the
God of the house of Jacob, who redeemed Abraham: Now Jacob shall
have nothing to be ashamed of, nor shall his face grow pale.
23 When his children see the work
of my hands in his midst, They shall keep my name holy; they shall
reverence the Holy One of Jacob, and be in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Those who err in spirit shall acquire
understanding, and those who find fault shall receive instruction.
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