The lament of the mourning mother continues: _My tent is laid waste and all my cords are broken; My sons went forth of me_ (to battle) _and are not; There is none to spread my tent any more, And to set up my curtains_ (cf. Amos ix. 11). Overhearing, as it were, this sorrowful lamentation (_qinah_), the prophet interposes with the reason of the calamity: _For the shepherds became brutish_ or _behaved foolishly_, stulte egerunt (Vulg.)--the leaders of the nation shewed themselves as insensate and silly as cattle--_and Iahvah they sought not_ (ii. 8); _Therefore_--as they had no regard for Divine counsel--_they dealt not wisely_ (iii. 15, ix. 23, xx. 11), _and all their flock was scattered abroad_.
Once more, and for the last time, the prophet sounds the alarm: _Hark! a rumour! lo, it cometh! and a great uproar from the land of the north; to make the_ _cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt of jackals!_ It is not likely that the verse is to be regarded as spoken by the mourning country; she contemplates the evil as already done, whereas here it is only imminent (cf. iv. 6, vi. 22, i. 15). The piece concludes with a prayer (vv. 23-25), which may be considered either as an intercession by the prophet on behalf of the nation (cf. xviii. 20), or as a form of supplication which he suggests as suitable to the existing crisis. _I know, Iahvah, that man's way is not his own; That it pertaineth not to a man to walk and direct his own steps: Correct me, Iahvah, but with justice; Not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me small!_ (Partly quoted, Ps. vi. 1, xxxviii. 1.) _Pour out Thy fury upon the nations that know Thee not, And upon tribes that have not called upon Thy name; For they have devoured Jacob_ [_and will devour him_], [_and consumed him_], _and his pasture they have desolated!_ (Ps. lxxix. 6, 7, quoted from this place. In Jer. the LXX. omits "and will devour him;" while the psalm omits both of the bracketed expressions.)
The Vulgate renders ver. 23: "Scio, Domine, quia non est hominis via ejus; nec viri est ut ambulet, et dirigat gressus suos." I think this indicates the correct reading of the Hebrew text (וְהָכֵין הָלךְ; cf. ix. 23, where two infinitives absolute are used in a similar way). The Septuagint also must have had the same text, for it translates, "nor will (= can) a man walk and direct his own walking." The Masoretic punctuation is certainly incorrect; and the best that can be made of it is Hitzig's version, which, however, disregards the accents, although their authority is the same as that of the vowel points: _I know Iahvah that not to man belongeth his way, not to a perishing_ (lit. "going," "departing") _man--and_ _to direct his steps_. Any reader of Hebrew may see at once that this is a very unusual form of expression. (For the thought, cf. Prov. xvi. 9, xix. 21; Ps. xxxvii. 23.)
The words express humble submission to the impending chastisement. The penitent people does not deprecate the penalty of its sins, but only prays that the measure of it may be determined by right rather than by wrath (cf. xlvi. 27, 28). The very idea of right and justice implies a limit, whereas wrath, like all passions, is without limit, blind and insatiable. "In the Old Testament, justice is opposed, not to mercy, but to high-handed violence and oppression, which recognise no law but subjective appetite and desire. The just man owns the claims of an objective law of right."
_Non est hominis via ejus._ Neither individuals nor nations are masters of their own fortunes in this world. Man has not his fate in his own hands; it is controlled and directed by a higher Power. By sincere submission, by a glad, unswerving loyalty, which honours himself as well as its Object, man may co-operate with that Power, to the furtherance of ends which are of all possible ends the wisest, the loftiest, the most beneficial to his kind. Self-will may oppose those ends, it cannot thwart them; at the most it can but momentarily retard their accomplishment, and exclude itself from a share in the universal blessing.