Bible Strands
Jeremiah 18:6
“O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses the house of Israel through Jeremiah, immediately after the potter parable (vv. 1–4) and the transitional word in v. 5.
The words — אוּכַל ('u.Khal, "am I able") paired with לֹא (lo', "not") forms the rhetorical "Can I not?", a question whose answer is already fixed.
The thread — The same clay-potter relation appears in Isaiah 64:8 and is pressed further in Romans 9:20 and Isaiah 45:9, where the formed object's right to question the Former is denied.
Why it lands — It removes any claim Israel (or the reader) has to self-determination: their shape is not their own to demand or refuse.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 64:8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
- Romans 9:20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
- Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
- Jeremiah 18:4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
- Matthew 20:15 Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
- Daniel 4:23 And you, O king, saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying: ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump with its roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, in the tender grass of the field. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and graze with the beasts of the field till seven times pass him by.’
- Romans 11:34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”