Formed by the Potter
2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
Jeremiah 18:2-4
The Lord sent Jeremiah to a potter. Pottery has been very common for thousands of years of human history. A visit to any archaeological site reveals it in large quantities. Everyone owned pottery. I think of the plates and mugs in my kitchen cabinet. While these are mass produced, they continue the use of ceramics to this day.
The Hebrew word for potter is yotzer (יוֹצֵר), which comes from the root (yatzar) meaning “to form, fashion, create”. He forms a yetzer (יֵ֫צֶר), a pot (or, more generally, something formed). In verse 11, the Lord says, “Look! I am preparing a disaster for you”. The word “preparing” is yatzar. God is forming/fashioning a disaster against the nation in reaction to their behavior. They are like clay in the hands of a master potter. (See also Isaiah 29:16 and Romans 9:20-21)
The potter works on a wheel to fashion his creation. By keeping it spinning, he smooths it into the desired shape. The word for “wheel” (verse 3) is literally a “pair of stones”. “Stone” (eben, אֶ֫בֶן) is a common word in the Bible. You may recognize it by the name Ebenezer (“stone of help”). More uniquely, it is in the dual form in this verse. It is two stones: one for the top, another for the base. Interestingly, the only other place this dual form is used is Exodus 1:16 (delivery or birth stool).
Yatzar first occurs in Genesis 2:7, when God “formed (yatzar) a man from the dust of the ground”. The word “create” in Genesis 1 is a completely different word. God didn’t just create people; he formed us. The ancient Egyptians told a similar story, depicting the god Khnum creating children on the potter’s wheel before placing them in their mothers’ wombs. The Bible says it’s not Khnum, but the Lord “who formed you in the womb” (Isaiah 44:2).
I think that’s the key difference between a mug in my cabinet and a vessel dug up from the past. Mine were created by a machine. The old ones were formed with hands. God has made us all unique. And he continues to form us, if we will let him.
To Ponder…
- Are you soft and pliable for God to work on you?
- Do you believe God is a good potter and knows what he’s doing as he works on you?
(Images from The Temple Dictionary of the Bible by Richard Myers)
