Reference: Pottery
Easton
the art of, was early practised among all nations. Various materials seem to have been employed by the potter. Earthenware is mentioned in connection with the history of Melchizedek (Ge 14:18), of Abraham (Ge 18:4-8), of Rebekah (Ge 27:14), of Rachel (Ge 29:2-3,8,10). The potter's wheel is mentioned by Jeremiah (Jer 18:3). See also 1Ch 4:23; Ps 2:9; Isa 45:9; 64:8; Jer 19:1; La 4:2; Zec 11:13; Ro 9:21.
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And Melchizedek, king of Salem, the priest of the Most High God, took bread and wine,
Let me get water for washing your feet, and take your rest under the tree: And let me get a bit of bread to keep up your strength, and after that you may go on your way: for this is why you have come to your servant. And they said, Let it be so. read more. Then Abraham went quickly into the tent, and said to Sarah, Get three measures of meal straight away and make cakes. And running to the herd, he took a young ox, soft and fat, and gave it to the servant and he quickly made it ready; And he took butter and milk and the young ox which he had made ready and put it before them, waiting by them under the tree while they took food.
So he went and got them and took them to his mother: and she made a meal to his father's taste.
And there he saw a water-hole in a field, and by the side of it three flocks of sheep, for there they got water for the sheep: and on the mouth of the water-hole there was a great stone. And all the flocks would come together there, and when the stone had been rolled away, they would give the sheep water, and put the stone back again in its place on the mouth of the water-hole.
And they said, We are not able to do so till all the flocks have come together and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the water-hole; then we will get water for the sheep.
Then when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, coming with Laban's sheep, he came near, and rolling the stone away from the mouth of the hole, he got water for Laban's flock.
These were the potters, and the people living among planted fields with walls round them; they were there to do the king's work.
They will be ruled by you with a rod of iron; they will be broken like a potter's vessel.
Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?
But now, O Lord, you are our father; we are the earth, and you are our maker; and we are all the work of your hand.
Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones.
This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a potter's bottle made of earth, and take with you some of the responsible men of the people and of the priests;
The valued sons of Zion, whose price was the best gold, are looked on as vessels of earth, the work of the hands of the potter!
And the Lord said to me, Put it into the store-house, the price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty shekels of silver and put them into the store-house in the house of the Lord.
Or has not the potter the right to make out of one part of his earth a vessel for honour, and out of another a vessel for shame?
Fausets
Early known in Egypt. Israel in bondservice there wrought at it (Ps 81:6, so the Hebrew in 1Sa 2:14); but translated for "pots" the harden baskets for carrying clay, bricks, etc., such as are depicted in the sepulchral vaults at Thebes (Ex 5:6-12; 2Ch 16:6). The potter trod the clay into a paste (Isa 41:25), then put it on a wheel, by which he sat and shaped it. The wheel or horizontal lathe was a wooden disc, placed on another larger one, and turned by hand or worked by a treadle (Jer 18:3); on the upper he molded the clay into shape (Isa 45:9); the vessel was then smoothed, glazed, and burnt. Tiles with painting and writing on them were common (Eze 4:1). There was a royal establishment of potters at Jerusalem under the sons of Shelab (1Ch 4:25), carrying on the trade for the king's revenue. The pottery found in Palestine is divisible into Phoenician, Graeco-Phoenician, Roman, Christian, and Arabic; on handles of jars occur inscriptions: "to king Zepha .... king Shat" and Melek (Palestine Exploration, Our Work in Palestine).
Emblem of man's brittle frailty, and of God's potter-like power to shape our ends as He pleases (Ps 2:9; Isa 29:16; 30:14; Jer 19:11; La 4:2). As Isa 40:3 and Mal 3:1 are thrown together in Mr 1:2-3; also Isa 62:11 and Zec 9:9 in Mt 21:4-5; and Isa 8:14; 28:16 in Ro 9:33; so Jer 18:3-6,19, and Zec 11:12-13 in Mt 27:9. Matthew presumes his reader's full knowledge of Scripture, and merges the two human sacred writers, Jeremiah and Zechariah, in the one voice of the Holy Spirit speaking by them. In Matthew and Zechariah alike, the Lord's representative, Israel's Shepherd, has a paltry price set upon Him by the people; the transaction is done deliberately by men connected with the house of Jehovah; the money is given to the potter, marking the perpetrators' baseness, guilt, and doom, and the hand of the Lord overrules it all, the Jewish rulers while following their own aims unconsciously fulfilling Jehovah's "appointment."
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The same day Pharaoh gave orders to the overseers and those who were responsible for the work, saying, Give these men no more dry stems for their brick-making as you have been doing; let them go and get the material for themselves. read more. But see that they make the same number of bricks as before, and no less: for they have no love for work; and so they are crying out and saying, Let us go and make an offering to our God. Give the men harder work, and see that they do it; let them not give attention to false words. And the overseers of the people and their responsible men went out and said to the people, Pharaoh says, I will give you no more dry stems. Go yourselves and get dry stems wherever you are able; for your work is not to be any less. So the people were sent in all directions through the land of Egypt to get dry grass for stems.
This he put into the pot, and everything which came up on the hook the priest took for himself. This they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.
They will be ruled by you with a rod of iron; they will be broken like a potter's vessel.
I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets.
And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.
For this cause says the Lord God, See, I am placing in Zion as a base, a stone, a tested stone, an angle-stone which is certain and of great value: and he who has faith will not give way.
You are turning things upside down! Is the wet earth the same to you as the one who is forming it? will the thing made say of him who made it, He made me not: or the thing formed say of him who gave it form, He has no knowledge?
And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.
A voice of one crying, Make ready in the waste land the way of the Lord, make level in the lowland a highway for our God.
I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.
Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?
The Lord has sent out word to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, See, your saviour comes; those whom he has made free are with him, and those to whom he has given salvation go before him.
Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones.
Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones. And when the vessel, which he was forming out of earth, got damaged in the hand of the potter, he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it. read more. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O Israel, am I not able to do with you as this potter does? says the Lord. See, like earth in the potter's hand are you in my hands, O Israel.
Give thought to me, O Lord, and give ear to the voice of those who put forward a cause against me.
And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Even so will this people and this town be broken by me, as a potter's bottle is broken and may not be put together again: and the bodies of the dead will be put in the earth in Topheth, till there is no more room.
The valued sons of Zion, whose price was the best gold, are looked on as vessels of earth, the work of the hands of the potter!
And you, son of man, take a back and put it before you and on it make a picture of a town, even Jerusalem.
Be full of joy, O daughter of Zion; give a glad cry, O daughter of Jerusalem: see, your king comes to you: he is upright and has overcome; gentle and seated on an ass, on a young ass.
And I said to them, If it seems good to you, give me my payment; and if not, do not give it. So they gave me my payment by weight, thirty shekels of silver. And the Lord said to me, Put it into the store-house, the price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty shekels of silver and put them into the store-house in the house of the Lord.
See, I am sending my servant, and he will make ready the way before me; and the Lord, whom you are looking for, will suddenly come to his Temple; and the angel of the agreement, in whom you have delight, see, he is coming, says the Lord of armies.
Now this took place so that these words of the prophet might come true, Say to the daughter of Zion, See, your King comes to you, gentle and seated on an ass, and on a young ass.
Then came true that which was said by Jeremiah the prophet, And they took the thirty bits of silver, the price of him who was valued by the children of Israel;
Even as it is said in the book of Isaiah the prophet, See, I send my servant before your face, who will make ready your way; The voice of one crying in the waste land, Make ready the way of the Lord, make his roads straight;
As it is said, See, I am putting in Zion a stone causing a fall, and a rock in the way: but he who has faith in him will not be put to shame.
Smith
Pottery.
The art of pottery is one of the most common and most ancient of all manufactures. It is abundantly evident, both that the Hebrews used earthenware vessels in the wilderness and that the potter's trade was afterward carried on in Palestine. They had themselves been concerned in the potter's trade in Egypt,
and the wall-paintings minutely illustrate the Egyptian process. The clay, when dug, was trodden by men's feet so as to form a paste,
Wisd. 15:7; then placed by the potter on the wheel beside which he sat, and shaped by him with his hands. How early the wheel came into use in Palestine is not known, but it seems likely that it was adopted from Egypt.
The vessel was then smoothed and coated with a glaze, and finally burnt in a furnace. There was at Jerusalem a royal establishment of potters,
from whose employment, and from the fragments cast away in the process, the Potter's Field perhaps received its name.
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These were the potters, and the people living among planted fields with walls round them; they were there to do the king's work.
I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets.
Get out of the good way, turning from the right road; do not keep the Holy One of Israel before our minds.
I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.
Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?
And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord: the sword causing death, dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth to take their bodies for food and put an end to them.