Job 5:13

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

He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. He taketh - Paul (1 Corinthians 3:19) quoted this clause with the formula establishing its inspiration, It is written.

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 God’ s church and people, but makes them eager and venturous, and so to make more haste than good speed in their wicked designs.

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, Isaiah 29:15, that think they can work out anything (πανουργια), 1 Corinthians 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, Isaiah 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," Isaiah 19:11; Isaiah 19:13-14. Did ever any man deal so unwisely as Ahithophel, that oracle, 2 Samuel 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, Proverbs 7:16, and with embroidered work of Egypt, Ezekiel 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," Proverbs 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, Psalms 9:16.

(13) He taketh the wise.—St. Paul quotes the former half of this verse in his warning to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 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 (Genesis 30:8).

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."

13. in their own craftiness] Quoted by St Paul, 1 Corinthians 3:19. This is the only quotation from the Book of Job in the New Testament, though Romans 11:35 seems a reminiscence of Job 41:11. Philippians 1:19 contains language similar to ch. Job 13:16. carried headlong] lit. hastened, i. e. precipitated before it be ripe, and so frustrated.

He taketh the wise in their own craftiness - This passage is quoted by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:19, with the usual formula in referring to the Old Testament, γέγραπταιγάρ gegraptai gar,

13. The wise — Those whose “wisdom is of this world,” as in 1 Corinthians 3:19, a verse in which the apostle quotes this very passage from the Hebrew, rather than the Septuagint.