Isaiah 64King James Version
'Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down.' A prayer for the God who used to do mighty works. But now we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We all do fade as a leaf. Yet, O Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay, and thou our potter.
A communal lament: oh that you would rend the heavens and come down. From the beginning of the world no one has heard of a God who acts for those who wait for him. We have all become like an unclean thing; our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; we fade like a leaf. But you are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter.
The most honest prayer in Isaiah is a confession that the community has nothing to offer, followed by a single appeal: you made us; we are yours.
verse: "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", the potter metaphor removes all achievement language. The appeal is entirely based on origin.
Jerusalem in ruins, the temple burned. The community prays from the rubble. The opening wish, that God would rend the heavens, carries the urgency of people who can see exactly how bad things are. The closing question, will you refrain yourself, is a genuine question asked by people who have watched God refrain himself before.
The praying community, speaking as we, confessing collective sin and desolation. God addressed as father, potter, and the one who may or may not act. No individual figures; the chapter is entirely communal.
The filthy-rags verse (v. 6) is the most direct statement of total human moral inadequacy in the Hebrew Bible and foundational for New Testament soteriology. Paul's potter-clay argument in Romans 9 draws on this passage. The rend-the-heavens prayer (v. 1) is quoted and transformed in Mark 1:10 at Jesus' baptism: the heavens are opened.
For when you feel utterly inadequate, that even your best efforts are unclean, and you have nothing to bring. The filthy-rags confession is not self-flagellation but honest accounting. The potter-clay appeal is what comes after honest accounting.
1Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
2As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
3When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
4For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
5Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
7And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
8But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
9Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
10Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
12Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?