Yesaya 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ¹ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ² 

Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Yesaya 65:16

65:16 Whoever pronounces a blessing in the earth ⁴ 

will do so in the name of the faithful God; ⁵ 

whoever makes an oath in the earth

will do so in the name of the faithful God. ⁶ 

For past problems will be forgotten;

I will no longer think about them. ⁷ 

[29:16]  ¹ 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.

[29:16]  ² tn The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “of course not.” On the interrogative use of אִם (’im), see BDB 50 s.v.

[29:16]  ³ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”

[65:16]  ⁴ tn Or “in the land” (NIV, NCV, NRSV). The same phrase occurs again later in this verse, with the same options.

[65:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “will pronounce a blessing by the God of truth.”

[65:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “will take an oath by the God of truth.”

[65:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “for the former distresses will be forgotten, and they will be hidden from my eyes.”