---
title: Isaiah 45:9 (JPS 1917) — Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, as a potsherd with the po… · tree and pragmatics
description: Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, as a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth! Who acts: Woe. Isaiah 45:9 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 45:9 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 of 2

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Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, as a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth!

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**Who acts:** Woe · **What happens:** strive

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This is Isaiah 45:9 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 of 2 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Woe), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:ISA:1010
# text = Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, as a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth!
1	Woe	woe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
2	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	nmod	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	striveth	strive	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	acl:relcl	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	Maker	Maker	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	potsherd	potsherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	potsherds	potsherd	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: exclamation
- act: warn
- voice: character
- polarity: neg
- teacher: changed act=warn, voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strive** | present | Woe unto LORD |  |  |  |  | with LORD's Maker; as a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth | tree rules |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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ה֗וֹי רָ֚ב אֶת־יֹ֣צְר֔וֹ חֶ֖רֶשׂ אֶת־חַרְשֵׂ֣י אֲדָמָ֑ה הֲיֹאמַ֨רחֹ֤מֶר לְיֹֽצְרוֹ֙ מַֽה־תַּעֲשֶׂ֔ה וּפָעָלְךָ֖ אֵין־יָדַ֥יִם לֽוֹ׃ס

[Isaiah 45:9: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.45.9/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. **Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, as a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth!**
2. [Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it: 'What makest thou?' Or: 'Thy work, it hath no hands'?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/ISA.1011/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:ISA:1010` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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