Isaiah 45 · a question people ask
"Woe to him who strives with his Maker" (45:9). Does the chapter forbid asking God questions?
The woe is for "him who strives with his Maker" (45:9) (tap strives, Maker). In Hebrew strives is riv, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "strive, contend". The verse pictures it: "Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands’?" (45:9), and the next verse has a second woe, on him "who says to a father, ‘What have you become the father of?’" (45:10). Then the LORD speaks: "You ask me about the things that are to come, concerning my sons, and you command me concerning the work of my hands!" (45:11) (tap come), and tells what his hands have made (45:12). The same chapter also says, "I didn’t say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’" (45:19), and calls, "Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth" (45:22). The chapter has both the woe and the call, and these notes say no more than the verses say. The chapter on Isaiah 29 sets 45:9 beside 29:16 and 64:8, where the clay and the one who forms it come again.
The verses
“Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What have you become the father of?’ or to a mother, ‘What have you given birth to?’” The LORD, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker says: “You ask me about the things that are to come, concerning my sons, and you command me concerning the work of my hands! I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens. I have commanded all their army.”
“I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness. I didn’t say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right.”
““Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.”
“You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay, that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?”