Discovery BoxIsaiah 40:15 
Context40:15 Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales.
He lifts 1 the coastlands 2 as if they were dust.
Isaiah 29:16
Context29:16 Your thinking is perverse! 3
Should the potter be regarded as clay? 4
Should the thing made say 5 about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?
Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?
1 tn Or “weighs” (NIV); NLT “picks up.”
2 tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV, NLT).
3 tn Heb “your overturning.” The predicate is suppressed in this exclamation. The idea is, “O your perversity! How great it is!” See GKC 470 §147.c. The people “overturn” all logic by thinking their authority supersedes God’s.
4 tn The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “of course not.” On the interrogative use of אִם (’im), see BDB 50 s.v.
5 tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”
