flock, gathers the lambs, carries them, and gently leads them. Who has held the waters in hand, measured the heavens, comprehended the earth, and weighed mountains in the balance? Who has counseled or instructed God? Nations are like a drop in a bucket, like dust in the balance, as nothing before God. Can one compare God to anything, to an idol that a woodworker carved? God sits above the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. God brings princes to nothing, makes the judges of the earth like nothing; scarcely are they planted, but God blows upon them, and they wither and blow away. To whom then to liken God? Lift up your eyes and see: The One who created the stars, called them by name, by the greatness of God's might and strong power each one appears. Connection to the Special Sabbath The haftarah answers laments read on Tisha B'Av from the book of Lamentations. and 9 complain that Jerusalem "has none to comfort her," "she has no comforter." In , the haftarah answers, "Comfort, comfort My people, says your God." complains that "the ways of Zion mourn." In , the haftarah answers, "Clear in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make plain in the desert a highway for our God." complains that Zion's princes "are gone without strength before the pursuer." In and 26, the haftarah answers, "lift up your voice with strength," God "is strong in power." hoped for Jerusalem that "the punishment of your iniquity is accomplished" and God "will no more carry you away into captivity." In , the haftarah affirms, "Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim to her, that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off." As well, the haftarah echoes the parashah. In the parashah in , Moses pleads, "Let me go over, I pray, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill-country, and Lebanon." As if in answer, the haftarah rejoins in , "the nations are as a drop of a bucket, . . . and Lebanon is not sufficient fuel, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for burnt-offerings." Notes Further reading The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these sources: Ancient Instructions of Shuruppak. Sumer, early 3rd millennium BCE. In, e.g., Bendt Alster. Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, pages 60–69. Capital Decisions Ltd, 2005. (analog to Ten Commandments). Code of Hammurabi