The Way of Man Is Not in Himself
17 Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege. 18 For Yahweh says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.” 19 Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.” 20 My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains. 21 For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered. 22 The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals. 23 Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps. 24 Yahweh, correct me, but gently; not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing. 25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.
With the siege closing, the chapter turns to a confession that a person cannot direct his own steps, and asks to be corrected rather than spared.
The opening is an eviction notice in three words: gather up your wares, you who live under siege. What follows describes the removal as a throw — God will sling out the inhabitants of the land — and adds a clause that explains the violence of the image: that they may feel it. The purpose is sensation. A people who have absorbed every warning without registering anything are to be made to notice, which is a hard mercy but is set out as a mercy.
The voice then becomes personal, and the picture is a collapsed tent. Cords broken, curtains down, children gone, and nobody left to pitch it again. For a nation whose formative memory was tent-dwelling in the wilderness, the ruin of a tent says what the ruin of a house could not. The arrangement that carried them through the desert has failed. And the response to it is one of the quietest lines in the book: Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it. No protest, no appeal, no request for it to be lifted.
Blame is placed immediately afterward, and it is placed on the shepherds who have become brutish and have not inquired of Yahweh. The failure is defined as the absence of a question. Leaders are not accused of consulting the wrong source but of not consulting at all, and the flock scattering is presented as the automatic result rather than as a punishment added on top.
Then the chapter arrives at the sentence that has outlasted its context. Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Coming after forty verses of catastrophic national decisions, it is a conclusion drawn from evidence rather than a piece of piety. Judah had chosen its alliances, its worship and its kings, and every choice had brought it here. What follows is the only reasonable request left. Correct me, but gently — not in anger, lest you reduce me to nothing. The prayer does not ask to escape correction, which is the difference between it and everything the false prophets were offering. It asks for a measure, and it gives the reason. A man corrected in full would not survive the correction.
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