Verse 16
"For Israel hath behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer: now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a large place."
Instead of behaving as a lamb and following patiently in God's flock, Israel was like a stubborn heifer that refused to submit to the yoke. As a result of such rebellious conduct, God will feed Israel, not any more as a patient lamb in the flock, but as a stray lamb in the vast wildness of the wilderness, such being the most likely meaning of the "large place" mentioned here. Of course, such a lamb would almost immediately fall prey to wild beasts and destructions of every kind. Nothing is any more helpless and doomed to death than a lamb in such a "large place," It does not have the gift of swiftness in flight from danger. It cannot find its way back to where it belongs. A pigeon could do that, or even a dog, but a sheep, never. Its very cries are the signal for its enemies to close in for the kill. This verse is God's promise to abandon the Northern Kingdom to its enemies.
The Revised Standard Version makes the last clause of this verse interrogative, with the meaning implied that the "large place" is desirable, having the sense, "Can the Lord now feed them in a large place, since they have rebelled?" Of course the negative is implied anyway; and, for this reason, it is better to accept the ASV, as in the text we are using.
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