Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 5:13
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
13. in their own craftiness ] Quoted by St Paul, 1Co 3:19. This is the only quotation from the Book of Job in the New Testament, though Rom 11:35 seems a reminiscence of Job 41:11. Php 1:19 contains language similar to ch. Job 13:16.
carried headlong ] lit. hastened, i. e. precipitated before it be ripe, and so frustrated.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness – This passage is quoted by the apostle Paul in 1Co 3:19, with the usual formula in referring to the Old Testament, gegraptai gar, for it is written, showing that he regarded it as a part of the inspired oracles of God. The word wise here undoubtedly means the cunning, the astute, the crafty, and the designing. It cannot mean those who are truly wise in the Scripture sense; but the meaning is, that those who form plans which they expect to accomplish by cunning and craft, are often the victims of their own designs. The same sentiment not unfrequently occurs in the Scriptures and elsewhere, and has all the aspect of being a proverb. Thus, in Psa 7:15 :
He made a pit and digged it,
And is fallen into the ditch which he made.
So Psa 9:15 :
The pagan are sunk down into the pit that they made;
In the net which they hid is their own foot taken.
So Psa 35:8 :
Let his net that he hath bid catch himself
Into that very destruction let him fall.
So Psa 37:15 :
Their sword shall enter into their own heart,
And their bow shall be broken.
Compare Eurip. Med. 409:
Kakon de panton tektones sofotatai.
See also the same sentiment in Lucretius, v. 1151:
Circumretit enim visatque injuria quemque,
Atque, unde exorta cst, ad caim plerumque revertit.
For force and rapine in their craftiest neta
Oft their own sons entangle; and the plague Ten-fold recoils.
It is to be remembered that Eliphaz here speaks of his own observation, and of that as a reason for putting confidence in God. The sentiment is, that he had observed that a straightforward, honest, and upright course, was followed with the divine favor and blessing; but that a man who attempted to carry his plans by intrigue and stratagem, would not be permanently successfu. Sooner or later his cunning would recoil upon himself, and he would experience the disastrous consequences of such a course. It is still true. A man is always sure of ultimate success and prosperity, if he is straightforward and honest. He never can be sure of it, if he attempts to carry his plans by management. Other men may evince as much cunning as himself; and when his net springs, it may include himself as well as those for whom he set it. It will be well for him if it is not made to spring on him, while others escape.
And the counsel of the froward – The design of the perverse. The word here rendered froward, npathalym, is from pathal, to twist, to twine, to spin. It then means, to be twisted, crooked, crafty, deceitful. Here it means those who are crooked, artful, designing. Septuagint, poluplokon, the involved – the much-entangled.
Is carried headlong – Hebrew is precipitated, or hastened. There is not time for it to be matured; there is a development of the scheme before it is ripe, and the trick is detected before there is time to put it in execution. Nothing can be more true than this often is now. Something that could not be anticipated develops the design, and brings the dark plot out to mid-day; and God shows that he is the foe of all such schemes.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 5:13
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
1. The wisdom of natural men is nothing but craft or wit to do wickedly.
2. Satan makes use of subtle, crafty men, and abuseth their parts for his own purposes.
3. The crafty are full of hopes that their devices will succeed; and full of trouble, because they succeed not.
4. What such plot and devise, they labour to act and effect.
5. Crafty men may devise strongly, but they have not strength sufficient to accomplish their devices.
6. It is a great and wonderful work of God, to disappoint the devices and stop the enterprises of crafty men. (J. Caryl.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness] So counterworks them as to cause their feet to be taken in their own snares, and their evil dealings to fall on their own pate. Such frequent proofs has God given of his especial interference in behalf of the innocent, who have been the objects of the plots and evil designs of the wicked, by turning those evil devices against their framers, that he who digs a pit for his neighbour shall fall into it himself has become a universal adage, and has passed, either in so many words or in sense, into all the languages of all the people of the earth. Lucretius expresses it strongly:
Circumretit enim vis atque injuria quemque,
Atque, unde exorta est, ad eum plerumque revortit.
LUCRET. lib. v., ver. 1151.
“For force and wrong entangle the man that uses them;
And, for the most part, recoil on the head of the contriver.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The wise in their own craftiness; wicked men, who are wise to do evil, and wise in the opinion of the world, he not only deceiveth in their hopes and counsels, but turns them against themselves; as we see in Ahithophel, Haman, &c. The froward, or perverse, or wrestlers; such as wind and turn every way, as wrestlers do, and will leave no means untried to accomplish their counsels. Is carried headlong, i.e. is tumbled down and broken, and that by their own precipitation and haste. Their malice cannot have the patience to proceed wisely and leisurely against Gods church and people, but makes them eager and venturous, and so to make more haste than good speed in their wicked designs.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. Paul (1Co3:19) quoted this clause with the formula establishing itsinspiration, “it is written.” He cites the exact Hebrewwords, not as he usually does the Septuagint, Greek version(Ps 9:15). Haman was hanged onthe gallows he prepared for Mordecai (Est 5:14;Est 7:10).
the wisethat is, “thecunning.”
is carried headlongTheirscheme is precipitated before it is ripe.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness,…. As beasts are taken in a pit, or birds in a snare or net, or with birdlime; so these crafty men, who are wise in their own opinion, and really so in things natural, civil, and worldly, or however, to do evil are entangled and taken in their own schemes; they fall into the pit they have digged for others, and are snared in the works of their own hands, as Haman and his sons were hanged on the gallows he prepared for Mordecai, Es 7:10; or, “by their own craftiness” q, by the crafty schemes they themselves have formed: so sometimes those very things crafty men design to prevent, are brought about by the very means they make use of; thus Joseph’s brethren designed to prevent the accomplishment of his dreams, which portended their subjection to him, Ge 37:9, by selling him to the Ishmaelites, who carried him to Egypt, where, in process of time, he was made governor of the land, and where his brethren became obedient to him, Ge 42:6; with which fact Eliphaz might be acquainted, it being not long before his time: so the Jews, to prevent the Romans taking away their city and nation, contrived to put Christ to death, and did, whereby they brought the wrath of God upon them, executed by those very persons; the same they did also, to prevent the spread of his fame and glory in the world, and that he might not be believed on as the Saviour of men, whereas, hereby he became the Saviour of them; and he a crucified Christ, being preached to the world by his ministers, the savour of his knowledge has been diffused in every place, his glory great in all the earth, and will be more so: the Targum applies this to the wise men of Pharaoh, and the Apostle Paul to the Jewish doctors and wise philosophers of the Gentiles, 1Co 3:19; which quotation proves the authority of this book:
and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong: that is, the counsel or well contrived schemes of the crafty and wise before mentioned, who twist and wind about, as the word r here used signifies, that there is no tracing their measures, and finding out the spring of them, nor the ends they have in view; yet these are sometimes carried on to execution in a rash and precipitate manner, and so miscarry; and like a man that is had to a precipice, and is thrown down from thence, and is destroyed at once, so are their counsels and schemes dashed to pieces by the providence of God: or, “is hastened” s; too much haste is made to accomplish it, and so it comes to nought, through an over eagerness to have it done at once; not waiting a fit opportunity for the accomplishment of it.
q “per suam ipsorum astutiam”, Schultens. r “intorquentium”, Schmidt; “tortuosorum”, Schultens. s “festinata, ab origine festinandi”, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(13) He taketh the wise.St. Paul quotes the former half of this verse in his warning to the Corinthians (1Co. 3:19): The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. The word rendered froward means crooked, perverse, or tortuous. The name Naphtali is derived from the same root (Gen. 30:8).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. The wise Those whose “wisdom is of this world,” as in 1Co 3:19, a verse in which the apostle quotes this very passage from the Hebrew, rather than the Septuagint. There lurks an insinuation, that Job’s boasted wisdom may prove to be a like counterfeit of the real. “He captures the wise, not when their wisdom has forsaken them, and they make a false step, but at the very point where they make the highest use of it.” Hengstenberg. “This,” says Hitzig, “is the only passage in this book which is cited in the New Testament.”
Froward Crooked or cunning.
The Koran has a similar thought: “God outwits the cunning,” 13:44. Lucretius is still more in point:
“Circumretit enim vis, atque injuria, quemque
Atque unde exorta est, ad eum plerumque revortit.”
“For force and rapine in their craftiest nets
Oft their own sons entangle, and the plague Tenfold recoils.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 5:13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
Ver. 13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness ] Those wise to do evil, worldly wise, mere Machiavellians; for though the Florentine secretary was not born of some thousands of years after Eliphaz spoke this, yet the devil was well nigh as great a master then as now, and had his crafty cubs, students, and great proficients in that wisdom which St James affirmeth to be from beneath, and not from above (like the wings of the ostrich, it may help a man to outrun others upon earth, but helps not at all towards heaven); and further describeth it to be earthly, sensual, devilish. Earthly, as managing the lusts of the eyes unto the ends of gain; sensual, as managing the lusts of the flesh unto ends of pleasure; and devilish, as managing the pride of life unto ends of power: these subtle sirs, these profound politicians, that dig deep to hide their counsels, not from men only, but (which is impossible) from the Lord, Isa 29:15 , that think they can work out anything ( ), 1Co 3:19 , and that none can prevent them (as the apostle’s word from this text importeth), God takes and makes fools of them; he frustrateth the tokens of these liars, and maketh the diviners mad; he turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish, Isa 44:25 . “Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: – they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof: the Lord hath mingeled a spirit of perversities in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit,” Isa 19:11 ; Isa 19:13-14 . Did ever any man deal so unwisely as Ahithophel, that oracle, 2Sa 17:23 , curious to provide for his family after his death, and yet careless to preserve himself from eternal death? Was not this a madness even to a miracle? He should first (saith a reverend man) have set himself in order, and then he might have hanged his house with coverings of tapestry, Pro 7:16 , and with embroidered work of Egypt, Eze 27:7 . And if he had bridled his anger when he saddled his ass he would not have broken the lantern of his body, and quenched the light of his life, he would not have put his house in order, and himself into such a desperate and irrecoverable confusion. But what saith Solomon? “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins,” Pro 5:22 . “The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion, Selah.” Mark and meditate, as one rendereth it, Psa 9:16 .
And the counsel of the froward is carried headlong
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
He taketh, &c. This is quoted in 1Co 3:19 direct.
froward = perverse. Hebrew. pathal, to twist.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
taketh: 2Sa 15:31, 2Sa 15:34, 2Sa 17:23, Est 6:4-11, Est 7:10, Est 9:25, Psa 7:15, Psa 7:16, Psa 9:15, Psa 9:16, Psa 35:7, Psa 35:8, Luk 1:51, 1Co 1:19, 1Co 1:20
of the froward: Psa 18:26, Pro 3:32
Reciprocal: Gen 11:7 – confound Gen 31:22 – General Gen 41:8 – but there Exo 1:10 – wisely Num 22:25 – crushed Balaam’s Jos 8:17 – a man 1Sa 23:22 – haunt is 1Ki 14:6 – thou wife 2Ki 6:8 – took Ezr 6:13 – so they did Neh 4:15 – God Job 11:12 – would Job 18:7 – his own Job 37:24 – he Psa 33:10 – The Lord Psa 140:8 – Grant not Pro 22:12 – he Isa 19:3 – and I Isa 19:11 – the princes Isa 29:14 – for the wisdom Isa 31:2 – he also Jer 8:8 – We Jer 18:18 – counsel Jer 19:7 – I will make Dan 2:27 – cannot Hab 2:13 – is it Mat 2:8 – go Mar 11:33 – Neither Mar 12:17 – And they Luk 20:8 – General Luk 20:26 – they could Joh 7:53 – General Joh 8:9 – went out Act 23:16 – when 1Co 3:19 – For
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 5:13-14. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness Men wise to do evil, or wise in the opinion of the world; he not only deceives their hopes and counsels, but turns those counsels against themselves. And the counsel of the froward Hebrew, Of the perverse, or wrestlers, such as wind and turn every way, as wrestlers do, and will leave no means untried to accomplish their designs: is carried headlong That is, tumbled down and broken, and that by their own precipitation and haste. Such is their malice, that they cannot proceed leisurely and wisely, but are eager, and venturous, and rash, and so make more haste than good speed in their wicked designs: or, the meaning may be, The event will show that such deceitful cunning, though never so coolly and sedately digested, will deserve no better name than precipitate rashness and infatuation. They meet with darkness in the day-time In plain things they run into gross mistakes, and choose those courses which are worst for themselves. Darkness often denotes misery, but here ignorance or error. And grope in the noon-day Like blind men to find their way, not knowing what to do. They trip in the plainest way, and see not their danger, when it is visible to every body but themselves.