Texts in Conversation
The Wisdom of Solomon and Romans use a potter shaping clay to show people dependent on God. In Wisdom, the potter makes both useful and worthless vessels, showing human pride in making idols. Paul uses it to show God’s freedom to redeem Gentiles.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 15:7
Deuterocanon
4 For we weren’t led astray by any evil plan of men’s, nor yet by painters’ fruitless labor, a form stained with varied colors, 5 the sight of which leads fools into lust. Their desire is for the breathless form of a dead image. 6 Lovers of evil things, and worthy of such hopes, are those who make, desire, and worship them. 7 For a potter, kneading soft earth, laboriously molds each article for our service. He fashions out of the same clay both the vessels that minister to clean uses, and those of a contrary sort, all in like manner. What shall be the use of each article of either sort, the potter is the judge. 8 Also, laboring to an evil end, he molds a vain god out of the same clay, he who, having but a little before been made of earth, after a short space goes his way to the earth out of which he was taken, when he is required to give back the soul which was lent him.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Romans 9:21
New Testament
19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” 20 But who indeed are you—a mere human being—to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? 22 But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
Date: 55–58 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Verses 20-21 underscore the statement with a double illustration. This must not be allegorized. It comes from a broad Old Testament tradition (compare Isaiah 29:16; 45:9; 64:7; Jeremiah 18:3-6; Job 10:9; 33:6 and the ensuing Jewish texts ... Sirach 33:7-15). Paul develops the tradition in his own way but seems to borrow from Isaiah 29:16 in verse 20 and comes very close to Wisdom of Solomon 15:7 in verse 21. The question in verse 20 reminds us of Isaiah 45:9 but is hardly borrowed from there. The Old Testament texts do not have the focus ... which points not to the manner (Zahn) but the result (Kuhl) ..."
Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 269.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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