yāṣar

Semantic range

1. 1to mould, shape (the noun yôṣēr means potter)
2. 2to devise, plan beforehand

Genesis 2:7 does not say God created man; it says He formed him, using the potter's verb, from the dust of the ground. The image is deliberately hands-on and the prophets never let it go: "we are the clay, and thou our potter" (Isaiah 64:8); Jeremiah is sent to a potter's house to watch a marred vessel be reworked (Jeremiah 18:1–6).

The same verb appears in Jeremiah 1:5 — "before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee" — a verse Latter-day Saints read alongside Abraham 3:22–23 as testimony that God's knowledge of us antedates our mortal bodies.

Where it appears

• Genesis 2:7The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
• Jeremiah 1:5Foreordination language, in the potter's vocabulary.

See also

• בָּרָאbārāʾ
• אָדָםʾādām
• אֲדָמָהʾădāmāh