³ tn Heb “we [are] clay.”

³ tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency).

¹ tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency).

² tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency).

³ tn Aram “clay of clay” (also in v. 43).

² tn Aram “potter’s clay.”

¹ sn Clay refers to baked clay, which despite being hard was also fragile. Compare the reference in v. 41 to “wet clay.”

⁴ sn Any defense made with clay would crumble on impact.

¹ tn Grk “Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump.”

² tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency). The textual variant preserved in the Syriac text of Ephraem’s commentary on the Diatessaron (“he made eyes from his clay”) probably arose from the interpretation given by Irenaeus in Against Heresies: “that which the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, he then supplied in public.” This involves taking the clay as an allusion to Gen 2:7, which is very unlikely.

² sn The word translated “clay” here refers to a clay that has been baked or fired in a kiln. In Jer 18 the clay was still soft and pliable, capable of being formed into different kinds of vessels. Here the clay is set, just as Israel is set in its ways. The word for jar probably refers to a water jug or decanter and is onomatopoeic, vaqbuq, referring to the gurgling sound made by pouring out the water.

³ tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it,…?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

¹ tn The verb means “nipped off,” as a potter breaks off a piece of clay when molding a vessel.

⁴ sn The oven was most likely a rounded clay oven used for baking bread, which was heated by burning wood and dried grass.

² sn The oven was most likely a rounded clay oven used for baking bread, which was heated by burning wood and dried grass.

² tn The words “deals with the clay” are not in the text. They are part of an elliptical comparison and are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

¹ tn The preposition “like” creates a small tension here. So some ignore the preposition and read “clay” as an adverbial accusative of the material (GKC 371 §117.hh but cf. 379 §119.i with reference to beth essentiae: “as it were, by clay”). The NIV gets around the problem with a different meaning for the verb: “you molded me like clay.” Some suggest the meaning was “as [with] clay” (in the same manner that we have “as [in] the day of Midian” [Isa 9:4]).

¹ sn Those who live in houses of clay are human beings, for the human body was made of clay (Job 10:9; 33:6; and Isa 64:7). In 2 Cor 4:7 the body is an “earthen vessel”—a clay pot. The verse continues the analogy: houses have foundations, and the house of clay is founded on dust, and will return to dust (Gen 3:19; Ps 103:14). The reasoning is that if God finds defects in angels, he will surely find them in humans who are inferior to the angels because they are but dust. In fact, they are easily crushed like the moth.

⁴ tn The Hebrew term translated “container” may denote either a clay storage jar (cf. CEV “a clay jar full of wine”) or a leather container (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “a skin of wine”; NCV “a leather bag filled with [full of TEV] wine”).

³ sn The analogy fits the second line very well. Glaze makes a vessel look beautiful and certainly different from the clay that it actually is. So is one who has evil intent (“heart”) but covers it with glowing speech.