The Hebrew verb yatsar (יָצַר) means to form, fashion, or shape — particularly the creative work of a potter molding clay. It appears over 60 times in the Old Testament, most memorably in Genesis 2:7 where God formed man from the dust of the ground, and in Isaiah's potter-and-clay imagery (Isaiah 29:16; 45:9; 64:8). The related noun yotser means potter or maker. A secondary meaning includes the mental "forming" of thoughts and intentions (Psalm 103:14 — "he knows how we are formed").
Yatsar reveals something profound about God's creative intimacy. Unlike the broad term bara (H1254, create ex nihilo), yatsar emphasizes the hands-on, personal craftsmanship of the Creator. God is not a distant architect — He is the potter who gets His hands into the clay. Isaiah 64:8 declares: "We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." This image grounds human identity in divine purpose: we did not form ourselves, we cannot reform ourselves, and we cannot complain to the One who shaped us. Jeremiah 18 shows God as the sovereign Potter who has the right to reshape the clay as He wills. Paul references this in Romans 9:20–21 to defend God's absolute sovereignty in election. Yatsar is also used of God forming Israel as a nation (Isaiah 43:1, 21) and forming the prophets before birth (Jeremiah 1:5).