Isaiah 64:8

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) We are the clay, and thou our potter . . .—Commonly, partly, perhaps, from St. Paul’s application of the image in Romans 9:20-21, and Isaiah’s own use of it in Isaiah 29:16, we associate the idea of the potter with that of simple arbitrary sovereignty. Here, however (as in Jeremiah 18:6), another aspect is presented to us, and the power of the Great Potter is made the ground of prayer. The “clay” entreats Him to fashion it according to His will, and has faith in His readiness, as well as His power, to comply with that prayer. The thought of the “potter” becomes, in this aspect of it, one with that of the Fatherhood of God.

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 64:8-9. But now, O Lord, thou art our Father — Notwithstanding all this, thou art our Father, having both created and adopted us; therefore pity us thy children; we are the clay, and thou our potter — We are in thy hands as clay in the hands of the potter: thou canst form us, and dispose of us as thou pleasest. And we will not quarrel with thee, however thou art pleased to deal with us. We are all the work of thy hands — Therefore forget us not, forsake us not, but spare, and preserve, and save us. Be not wroth with us very sore — But let thy anger be mitigated by the clemency and compassion of a father. Neither remember iniquity for ever — Thou hast been angry with us a long time, be not so for ever. Behold, &c. we are thy people — Thy peculiar people, Isaiah 63:19. Another argument to enforce the former petition.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

64:6-12 The people of God, in affliction, confess and bewail their sins, owning themselves unworthy of his mercy. Sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates. Our deeds, whatever they may seem to be, if we think to merit by them at God's hand, are as rags, and will not cover us; filthy rags, and will but defile us. Even our few good works in which there is real excellence, as fruits of the Spirit, are so defective and defiled as done by us, that they need to be washed in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It bodes ill when prayer is kept back. To pray, is by faith to take hold of the promises the Lord has made of his good-will to us, and to plead them; to take hold of him, earnestly begging him not to leave us; or soliciting his return. They brought their troubles upon themselves by their own folly. Sinners are blasted, and then carried away, by the wind of their own iniquity; it withers and then ruins them. When they made themselves as an unclean thing, no wonder that God loathed them. Foolish and careless as we are, poor and despised, yet still Thou art our Father. It is the wrath of a Father we are under, who will be reconciled; and the relief our case requires is expected only from him. They refer themselves to God. They do not say, Lord, rebuke us not, for that may be necessary; but, Not in thy displeasure. They state their lamentable condition. See what ruin sin brings upon a people; and an outward profession of holiness will be no defence against it. God's people presume not to tell him what he shall say, but their prayer is, Speak for the comfort and relief of thy people. How few call upon the Lord with their whole hearts, or stir themselves to lay hold upon him! God may delay for a time to answer our prayers, but he will, in the end, answer those who call on his name and hope in his mercy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But now, O Lord, thou art our Father - (See the notes at Isaiah 63:16).

We are the clay - The idea seems to be, that their condition then had been produced by him as clay is moulded by the potter, and that they were to be returned and restored entirely by him - as they had no more power to do it than the clay had to shape itself. The sense is, that they were wholly in his hand and at his disposal (see the notes at Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah 45:9).

And thou our potter - Thou hast power to mould us as the potter does the clay.

And we all are the work of thy hand - That is, as the vessel made by the potter is his work. We have been formed by thee, and we are dependent on thee to make us what thou wilt have us to be. This whole verse is an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God. It expresses the feeling which all have when under conviction of sin; and when they are sensible that they are exposed to the divine displeasure for their transgressions. Then they feel that if they are to be saved, it must be by the mere sovereignty of God; and then they implore his interposition to 'mould and guide them at his will.'

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. father—(Isa 63:16).

clay … potter—(Isa 29:16; 45:9). Unable to mould themselves aright, they beg the sovereign will of God to mould them unto salvation, even as He made them at the first, and is their "Father."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; an argument or pathetical plea for pity; or, Notwithstanding all this, thou art our Father, both by creation and by adoption, therefore pity us thy children.

We are the clay; a metonymy of the matter, clay for the vessels made of clay; or, we are clay, pointing at our original matter; or it may relate to their state, that God framed them in a body civil and ecclesiastical, out of a confused multitude; they plead at the same time their own frailty, why they would be pitied; and God’s covenant interest in them, why he should pity them.

We all are the work of thy hand; another argument of the same nature with the former, Psalm 138:8, not only as men, but as a body of men made thy peculiar.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But now, O Lord, thou art our father,.... Notwithstanding all that we have done against thee, and thou hast done to us, the relation of a father continues; thou art our Father by creation and adoption; as he was in a particular manner to the Jews, to whom belonged the adoption; and therefore this relation is pleaded, that mercy might be shown them; and so the Targum,

"and thou, Lord, thy mercies towards us "are" many (or let them be many) as a father towards "his" children.''

We are the clay, and thou our potter: respecting their original formation out of the dust of the earth; and so expressing humility in themselves, and yet ascribing greatness to God, who had curiously formed them, as the potter out of the clay forms vessels for various uses: it may respect their formation as a body politic and ecclesiastic, which arose from small beginnings, under the power and providence of God; see Deuteronomy 32:6,

and we all are the work of thy hand; and therefore regard us, and destroy us not; as men do not usually destroy their own works: these relations to God, and circumstances in which they were as creatures, and as a body civil and ecclesiastic, are used as arguments for mercy and favour.

Geneva Study Bible

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the {i} clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

(i) Even though O Lord by your just judgment you may utterly destroy us as the potter may his pot, yet we appeal to your mercies, by which it has pleased you to adopt us to be your children.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. thou art our father] See on Isaiah 63:16.

we are the clay, and thou our potter] The nearest parallel to this application of the common image of clay and potter is perhaps Job 10:9. It is the plea of the creature against seeming unreasonableness on the part of the Creator. Can the potter allow the work on which he has lavished his utmost skill and care to be broken in pieces?

8–12. The prayer now ends in a direct and touching supplication, supported by various pleas, that Jehovah will at last cause His wrath against His people to cease.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - But now, O Lord, thou art our Father (see the comment on Isaiah 63:16). We are the clay, and thou our Potter (comp. Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah 45:9). Thy hands have made us and fashioned us, both as individuals and as a nation. Thou hast lavished thy labour and thy skill upon us. Surely thou wilt not "forsake the work of thine own hands" (Psalm 138:8). Isaiah 64:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(8-9)

This was the case when the measure of Israel's sins had become full. They were carried into exile, where they sank deeper and deeper. The great mass of the people proved themselves to be really massa perdita, and perished among the heathen. But there were some, though a vanishingly small number, who humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God, and, when redemption could not be far off, wrestled in such prayers as these, that the nation might share it in its entirety, and if possible not one be left behind. With ועתּה the existing state of sin and punishment is placed among the things of the past, and the petition presented that the present moment of prayer may have all the significance of a turning-point in their history. "And now, O Jehovah, Thou art our Father: we are the clay, and Thou our Maker; and we are all the work of Thy hand. Be not extremely angry, O Jehovah, and remember not the transgression for ever! Behold, consider, we beseech Thee, we are all Thy people." The state of things must change at last; for Israel is an image made by Jehovah; yea, more than this, Jehovah is the begetter of Israel, and loves Israel not merely as a sculptor, but as a father (compare Isaiah 45:9-10, and the unquestionable passage of Isaiah in Isaiah 29:16). Let Him then not be angry עד־מאד, "to the utmost measure" (cf., Psalm 119:8), or if we paraphrase it according to the radical meaning of מד, "till the weight becomes intolerable." Let Him not keep in mind the guilt for ever, to punish it; but, in consideration of the fact that Israel is the nation of His choice, let mercy take the place of justice. הן strengthens the petition in its own way (see Genesis 30:34), just as נא does; and הבּיט signifies here, as elsewhere, to fix the eye upon anything. The object, in this instance, is the existing fact expressed in "we are all Thy people." Hitzig is correct in regarding the repetition of "all of us" in this prayer as significant. The object throughout is to entreat that the whole nation may participate in the inheritance of the coming salvation, in order that the exodus from Babylonia may resemble the exodus from Egypt.