The Departure into Exile. The personified community is told to pick up its bundle (mg.), and prepare for the inevitable exile. She bewails her hurt and her spoilt dwelling. These troubles, says the prophet, come from her unwise rulers (shepherds), and already are upon her. Identifying himself with the people, he pleads with Yahweh for mercy in judgment, on the ground of man's weakness. (Jeremiah 10:23 should be repointed and rendered, Not for man is it to walk and direct his steps.) Jeremiah 10:25 can hardly be Jeremiah's; its cry for vengeance on the heathen contradicts his attitude towards the nations as the Divinely commissioned instruments of Yahweh's wrath against His people's sin. (Omit yea, they have devoured him, with LXX, and with the parallel cited in mg.)
Jeremiah 10:17-25
17 Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitante of the fortress.
18 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so.
19 Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.
20 My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
21 For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.
22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.
23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
24 O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.
25 Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.