Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Thou shalt not know from whence it riseth "Thou shalt not know how to deprecate" - שחרה shachrah; so the Chaldee renders it, which is approved by Jarchi on the place; and Michaelis Epim. in Praelect. xix.; see Psalms 78:34.
Videtur in fine hujus commatis deese verbum, ut hoc membrum prioribus respondeat. "A word appears to be wanting at the end of this clause to connect it properly with the two preceding." - Secker.
In order to set in a proper light this judicious remark, it is necessary to give the reader an exact verbal translation of the whole verse: -
"And evil shall come upon thee, thou shalt not know how to deprecate it;
And mischief shall fall upon thee, thou shalt not be able to expiate it;
And destruction shall come suddenly upon thee, thou shalt not know" -
What? how to escape, to avoid it, to be delivered from it? perhaps צאת ממנה tseth mimmennah, "they could not go out from it, "Jer 11:11. I am persuaded that a phrase is here lost out of the text. But as the ancient versions retain no traces of it, and a wide field lies open to uncertain conjecture, I have not attempted to fill up the chasm, but have in the translation, as others have done before me, palliated and disguised the defect, which I cannot with any assurance pretend to supply. - L.