How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Jeremiah 10:23 → Proverbs 20:24

Allusion

Later text

Jeremiah 10:23BSB

I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps.

Earlier text

Proverbs 20:24BSB

A man's steps are from the LORD, so how can anyone understand his own way?

Significance

Both texts affirm that human beings cannot autonomously determine their life's course. Jeremiah confesses "a man's way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps" (לֹא לָאָדָם דַּרְכּוֹ, lo la'adam darko), while Proverbs 20:24 asks "A man's steps are from the LORD, so how can anyone understand his own way?" Both use the key vocabulary of דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, "way") and צַעַד (tsa'ad, "step") to describe God's sovereign governance of human paths. Jeremiah applies this wisdom insight to the specific crisis of Judah's imminent judgment, drawing from proverbial theology to ground his prayer for tempered discipline (v. 24) rather than consuming wrath.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Longitudinal Theme — the shared wisdom vocabulary of דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) and צַעַד (tsa'ad) carries the canonical theme that the LORD, not man, directs human steps; Proverbs 20:24 states the principle and Jeremiah 10:23 confesses it in Judah's crisis — a single developing theme of divine governance of the way, not a typological or epochal link.