The Potter and the Shard: Arguing with Your Maker Text: Job 10:8-12
Introduction: The Ache of Being
We come now to the raw heart of the matter. We are in the midst of Job’s lament, a torrent of eloquent anguish that has poured out of him since he first cursed the day he was born. And here, in this passage, Job brings his case directly to God, not as a distant, abstract principle, but as the intimate, personal Creator. This is not the detached query of a philosopher in his study. This is the cry of a man on an ash heap, scraping his boils with a piece of broken pottery, a potsherd. And it is no accident that he uses the language of pottery, of clay, to make his appeal.
The modern world, when it suffers, has only two options. The first is to scream into a meaningless void, to curse a universe of blind, pitiless indifference. In this view, suffering is just bad luck, a random concourse of atoms that went awry. There is no one to appeal to, no one to blame, and therefore, no hope of meaning. It is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. The second option is to blame God, but the god they blame is a domesticated, manageable deity of their own invention. He is a celestial blunderer, a well-meaning but incompetent manager who has let the cosmic project get out of hand. They accuse Him of negligence or malice, as though they were the quality control inspectors and He was the one on probation.
Job will have none of this. His complaint is shot through with a profound, bedrock theology that our age has utterly lost. Job’s argument is not with a random universe, nor with a celestial incompetent. He is arguing with the sovereign, omnipotent Creator. His entire case rests on the fact that God is God. Job’s problem is not that God is absent, but that He is terrifyingly present. He is not questioning God’s power; he is questioning God’s intentions. He is, in essence, holding up the two ends of his life, his creation and his current destruction, and asking God how they can possibly be reconciled in the same divine mind.
This is a dangerous place to be, but it is an honest one. And because it is an argument within the covenant, within the framework of the Creator/creature distinction, it is an argument that God will entertain. You may argue with God; you may wrestle with Him as Jacob did. What you may not do is accuse God. You may not stand over Him as judge. Job walks this razor’s edge, and in his words, we find a profound exploration of what it means to be a creature, fashioned by God, and yet afflicted by the very hands that made us.
The Text
‘Your hands fashioned and made me altogether, And would You swallow me up? Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese, Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? You have made alongside me life and lovingkindness; And Your care has kept my spirit.’
(Job 10:8-12 LSB)
The Potter's Hands (v. 8)
Job begins his appeal by establishing the foundation of his complaint, which is the doctrine of creation.
"‘Your hands fashioned and made me altogether, And would You swallow me up?’" (Job 10:8)
Job’s starting point is not his own autonomy, but his createdness. "Your hands fashioned and made me." This is the language of a craftsman, an artist, a potter. It speaks of intimate, personal, detailed work. Job is not an accident. He is not a product of a cosmic assembly line. He was handcrafted by God. The word "altogether" or "in my entirety" emphasizes the completeness of this work. Every part of him, inside and out, was the direct result of divine intention.
This is the fundamental truth that our Darwinian age seeks to obliterate. They want us to believe we are the result of time, chance, and natural selection, a series of fortunate accidents. But if that is true, then our suffering has no meaning, and our complaints have no address. To whom do you cry out? The primordial soup? Job knows better. He knows he is a creature, and this knowledge is both the source of his comfort and the foundation of his agony. The same hands that so carefully fashioned him are now, it seems, crushing him.
And so he asks the terrible question: "And would You swallow me up?" The verb here implies a sudden, violent destruction. It’s the language of a beast devouring its prey. The juxtaposition is jarring. The careful, patient work of the artisan is followed by the ravenous act of the predator. How can this be? How can the God who took such care in the making take such apparent glee in the unmaking? This is the central paradox of what we call "hard providence." God gives, and God takes away. God makes, and God unmakes. Job is staring this reality in the face, and he is demanding an explanation for what appears to be a staggering contradiction in the character of God.
The Potter's Clay (v. 9)
He continues this theme, pressing his point by reminding God of the material He used.
"‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again?’" (Job 10:9)
Job’s plea, "Remember now," is a classic feature of biblical lament. It is not that Job thinks God has forgotten. Rather, he is calling upon God to act consistently with His own past actions and character. He is appealing to God on the basis of God’s own work. "You made me as clay." This is a direct echo of Genesis 2, where God formed man from the dust of the ground. It is an admission of utter dependency and frailty. Clay has no power in itself; it can only be what the potter makes it. Job is not claiming any inherent strength or rights. He is a man of dust.
This is the essence of the Creator/creature distinction. God is the Potter, we are the clay. He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; we are finite, temporal, and fragile. This is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be embraced. The prophet Isaiah would later use this same imagery to rebuke Israel’s arrogance: "Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’" (Isaiah 45:9).
But Job uses this truth not to rebel, but to appeal. His argument is one of profound humility. "You made me from dust. You know my frame. You know I am fragile. Why, then, do you apply such immense pressure? You are turning me back into the very dust from which you made me." It is an appeal to God’s wisdom and, dare we say, His sense of proportion. It is the cry of a creature who feels he is being handled with a roughness that his flimsy material cannot possibly withstand.
The Intricate Embryo (v. 10-11)
Job now moves from the general metaphor of clay to the specific, wondrous reality of his own formation in the womb. The language is poetic, but it is also strikingly scientific.
"‘Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese, Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews?’" (Job 10:10-11)
This is ancient embryology, a description of conception and gestation that is both beautiful and accurate. The "pouring out like milk" refers to the male seed, and the "curdling like cheese" describes the process of coagulation and formation in the womb. From this initial, fluid state, God then undertakes the intricate work of building a human body. He clothes it with skin and flesh, and He knits, or weaves, it together with bones and sinews. The psalmist uses this same language: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13).
This is a direct assault on the modern paganism of the abortion industry. The Bible does not see a fetus as a "potential life" or a "clump of cells." It sees the direct, personal, and intricate handiwork of Almighty God. Every conception is a creative act of God. Every stage of development is a display of His artistic genius. The level of detail here is staggering. God is not a distant clockmaker; He is the master weaver, the divine sculptor, working carefully and deliberately on each individual life.
And this is the heart of Job’s appeal. "Look at the detail! Look at the care! Look at the artistry You invested in me. You wove me together, thread by thread. Why would you go to all that trouble, only to unravel Your own masterpiece? Why knit me together so carefully, only to tear me apart so violently?" This is not the complaint of an unbeliever; it is the complaint of a man who believes so profoundly in God’s creative power that he cannot reconcile it with his present experience of God’s destructive power.
The Gift of Life and Love (v. 12)
Finally, Job summarizes the entirety of God’s past dealings with him, moving from physical creation to providential care.
"‘You have made alongside me life and lovingkindness; And Your care has kept my spirit.’" (Job 10:12)
God’s work did not stop at birth. He granted Job "life and lovingkindness." The word for lovingkindness is hesed, that great covenantal term for God’s steadfast, loyal, faithful love. Job is testifying that his entire life, up to this point, has been a display of God’s covenant faithfulness. God gave him life, and He sustained that life with a constant stream of mercy and favor. This was the testimony of his prosperity. His wealth, his family, his health, all of it was a manifestation of God’s hesed.
Furthermore, "Your care has kept my spirit." The word for care is related to providence or oversight. God’s watchful eye was constantly upon him, preserving his very spirit, his inner man. Job is acknowledging that every breath he has ever taken, every moment of stability, every ounce of spiritual resolve, has been a gift of God’s providential grace. He is not a self-made man. He is a God-made and a God-kept man.
And this makes the final, unspoken question all the more piercing. "You have given me life, and steadfast love, and watchful care my entire existence. And now... this. How does this fit? How can the God of hesed become the God of wrath? How can the one whose care preserved my spirit now be the one who is crushing it?" Job is holding up God’s character to God Himself and asking for an account.
Conclusion: Arguing from Grace
What are we to make of this? Job is on the brink, teetering between faith and despair. His theology is impeccable, but his experience is unbearable. He is doing what every saint in the midst of hard providence must learn to do: he is arguing with God on the basis of God’s own promises and God’s own past actions. He is arguing from grace.
His argument is this: "God, you made me out of nothing. You showed me nothing but favor. You have been faithful to me all my days. Therefore, what you are doing now makes no sense." This is a far cry from the modern complaint, which says, "I deserve better." Job’s complaint is, "You have given me better, and I don’t understand the change."
Of course, we know what Job did not. We know about the heavenly council. We know that this suffering is not pointless, but is part of a grand cosmic contest, a demonstration of the power of God’s grace in a man’s life. God is not contradicting Himself. He is taking His servant into deeper, more difficult territory. As Calvin said, God wrestles with us from the outside in order to strengthen us on the inside. God was not turning Job back to dust. He was refining him in the fire, turning the clay into a vessel of honor, fit for the master’s use.
And the ultimate answer to Job’s question is found at the cross. There, the one who was the perfect image of God, the one through whom all things were made, was Himself crushed. The hands that fashioned the universe were pierced with nails. The one who was poured out as a drink offering was the same one who had poured out the stars. God in Christ took the full force of His own righteous wrath, the ultimate "swallowing up," so that we who are made of dust might be remade into the glorious image of the Son. He was unmade so that we might be remade.
Therefore, when we are in the midst of our own ash heap, when we feel the Potter’s hands pressing hard upon our fragile frame, we can make the same appeal as Job, but with a confidence he could not yet possess. We can say, "Remember Your Son. Remember the cross. You have made me, and You have redeemed me. You have given me life and hesed in Christ. Your care has kept my spirit. Therefore, though you slay me, yet I will trust in You, for I know that my Redeemer lives, and that the hands which now seem to crush are the very same hands that will raise me up on the last day."