(14) As the breaking of the potters' vessel . . . Psalm 2:9 had given currency to the figure. In Jeremiah 18:4; Jeremiah 19:10, it passes into a parable of action. The schemes of the intriguers were to be not crushed only but pulverised.

Verse 14. - And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces. Isaiah is fond of mixed metaphors, and of superseding one metaphor by another. From comparing Judah's fall and ruin to the shattering of a lofty wall, he suddenly turns to a comparison of it with the breaking to pieces of an earthen pitcher. Judah shall be so broken as when the pitcher is crushed into minute fragments, so that there is no piece large enough to convey a coal from one fire for the lighting of another, or to be of even the least use for drawing water from a well. A complete dissolution of the political fabric is foreshadowed, such as did not actually take effect till the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.

30:8-18 The Jews were the only professing people God then had in the world, yet many among them were rebellious. They had the light, but they loved darkness rather. The prophets checked them in their sinful pursuits, so that they could not proceed without fear; this they took amiss. But faithful ministers will not be driven from seeking to awaken sinners. God is the Holy One of Israel, and so they shall find him. They did not like to hear of his holy commandments and his hatred of sin; they desired that they might no more be reminded of these things. But as they despised the word of God, their sins undermined their safety. Their state would be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. Let us return from our evil ways, and settle in the way of duty; that is the way to be saved. Would we be strengthened, it must be in quietness and in confidence, keeping peace in our own minds, and relying upon God. They think themselves wiser than God; but the project by which they thought to save themselves was their ruin. Only here and there one shall escape, as a warning to others. If men will not repent, turn to God, and seek happiness in his favour and service, their desires will but hasten their ruin. Those who make God alone their confidence, will have comfort. God ever waits to be gracious to all that come to him by faith in Christ, and happy are those who wait for him.And he shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel,.... That is, their confidence in an arm of flesh, and they that place it there; and this either God shall do, or the enemy, and God by him; or rather it may he rendered impersonally, "it shall be broken"; and may refer to the wall to which the ruin of this people is compared, that that when it falls shall be broke to pieces, as a potter's vessel is when it falls upon a pavement, or is dashed against anything, or, struck with a rod of iron:

that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare; or that is broken in pieces without mercy, as the Targum; no pity shall be shown by the enemy, nor mercy from the Lord:

so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit; as poor people are wont to do, to take fire from the hearth, and water out of a well, in a piece of a broken pitcher (n); but this vessel should be broke into so many shivers, that there should not be such a piece left of it as could be made use of for such purposes. This denotes the utter and irreparable ruin and destruction of these people, which, though it was not at this time, yet afterwards by the Babylonians, and especially by the Romans.

(n) Vid. Misn. Sabbat, c. 8. sect. 7.