Yesaya 45:11

45:11 This is what the Lord says,

the Holy One of Israel, ¹  the one who formed him,

concerning things to come: ² 

“How dare you question me ³  about my children!

How dare you tell me what to do with ⁴  the work of my own hands!

Yesaya 27:11

27:11 When its branches get brittle, ⁵  they break;

women come and use them for kindling. ⁶ 

For these people lack understanding, ⁷ 

therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;

the one who formed them has no mercy on them.

Yesaya 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ⁸ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ⁹ 

Should the thing made say ¹⁰  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

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

[45:11]  ¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[45:11]  ² tc The Hebrew text reads “the one who formed him, the coming things.” Among various suggestions, some have proposed an emendation of יֹצְרוֹ (yotsÿro, “the one who formed him”) to יֹצֵר (yotser, “the one who forms”; the suffixed form in the Hebrew text may be influenced by vv. 9-10, where the same form appears twice) and takes “coming things” as the object of the participle (either objective genitive or accusative): “the one who brings the future into being.”

[45:11]  ³ tn Heb “Ask me” The rhetorical command sarcastically expresses the Lord’s disgust with those who question his ways.

[45:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “Do you command me about…?” The rhetorical question sarcastically expresses the Lord’s disgust with those who question his ways.

[27:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[27:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”

[29:16]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”