Jeremiah 10:23 ('it is not in man to direct his steps'), Proverbs 20:24 ('a man's goings are of the LORD; how then can man look to his way?'), and Proverbs 16:33 ('the lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD') — cited together as comprehensive denial of human self-direction, down to seemingly random events like casting lots.

All three are Wisdom literature, a genre whose statements are covenantal/pastoral generalizations, not technical metaphysical propositions about libertarian free will. Jeremiah 10:23 in particular sits inside a personal prayer (vv.23-24: 'Correct me, LORD, but only with justice — not in your anger, or you will reduce me to nothing') — the co-text presupposes the speaker IS a responsible moral agent who can justly be corrected, not an inert object; the prayer would be incoherent addressed to a puppet. The Hebrew of 10:23, lo la'adam darko ('not to man [is] his way'), uses derek ('way') in the sense wisdom literature regularly gives it — one's life-course or ultimate outcome — not each discrete choice-act; the point is that humans cannot GUARANTEE the outcome of their plans by unaided effort or cleverness, echoing the programmatic Proverbs 3:5-6, 'trust in the LORD... do not lean on your own understanding.' Proverbs 16:9 makes the two-tier structure explicit in the same book this cluster is drawn from: 'the heart plans its way, but the LORD establishes the steps' — human planning and divine establishing are paired, not opposed, the classic compatibilist formula of the wisdom tradition. Proverbs 16:33 concerns lot-casting specifically, a recognized ANE mechanism (Urim/Thummim; the scapegoat lot, Lev 16:8; land division, Josh 18:10; Saul's selection, 1 Sam 10:20-21; Matthias's, Acts 1:26) used precisely to remove certain decisions from human manipulation or bias and place them under acknowledged divine providence — a targeted statement about providence over chance/randomness specifically, generalized into an aphorism, not a claim that every human decision is like a die-roll outside rational agency altogether. It is worth being honest that these texts DO assert real, robust providence and creaturely dependence — that is not explained away. The correct interpretive move is to locate precisely what kind of freedom this providence excludes: not radical creaturely autonomy or self-origination (which classical theism denies to any creature whatsoever, since all creaturely causal power is derivative), but real, morally responsible secondary agency operating within, not despite, a sustaining and providentially-ordering Creator.

This is exactly the creaturely-dependence structure classical theism affirms: humans are genuinely free secondary causes, but for a creature 'freedom' never means autonomous self-origination independent of the Creator who continually sustains its very existence and causal powers; true freedom is properly exercised in wise dependence on God, not in competition with him (Prov 3:5-6).