To figure out how God possibly restored any of His cracked copies, I decided to read in Jeremiah 18 about the potter’s shop. That sort of helped. I had to do an online search on pottery making to get the gist of what Jeremiah saw.

Even though one of the potter’s hands never leaves the forming clay on his wheel, the clay vessel can still become flawed and unusable. Similarly to how our Father is always there with His right hand embracing us during our formation, we can still become a flawed facsimile of His design for us. (Psalm 139:10)

The potter starts over the process of crushing, squeezing and molding the clay into the form in which he has need. After the pot has assumed its shape, the potter forces his hand into the inside of the pot, called the heart. If he doesn’t work on the capacity of the heart, the vessel might look good on the outside but it can’t be a source of supply thereby remaining useless. Only after He enlarges our hearts, we will be able to run the Way of His commandments. (Psalm 119:32)

Mixing water with more clay to fill the pot’s crack doesn’t work because when put back into the fire, the patch material doesn’t adhere. Bible time potters would fill the cracks with a mixture of powdered clay and blood that had been squeezed out of a fasuka. This was a tick like insect taken off of bulls or goats and kept in a small clay pot until their sticky bloody contents were needed. 

The pot is tempered, brought to the desired hardness or strength, by heating then cooling. However it is the adhesive power of the blood in the healing balm which makes the vessels strong. Just like the blood of Jesus binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted. (Psalms 147:3)

The potter repeats the process as often as necessary then puts his name on the healed vessel before releasing it for service. Pottery repaired in this way have been reborn and are called ‘vessels of mercy.’ The fact that clay pots thousands of years old have been found still intact, is an amazing testimony to that’s pot’s ability to take the heat. 

Vessels of His mercy are vessels of His strength.