Mazmur 33:9-11

33:9 For he spoke, and it ¹  came into existence,

he issued the decree, ²  and it stood firm.

33:10 The Lord frustrates ³  the decisions of the nations;

he nullifies the plans ⁴  of the peoples.

33:11 The Lord’s decisions stand forever;

his plans abide throughout the ages. ⁵ 

Amsal 19:21

19:21 There are many plans ⁶  in a person’s mind, ⁷ 

but it ⁸  is the counsel ⁹  of the Lord which will stand.

Amsal 21:30

21:30 There is no wisdom and there is no understanding,

and there is no counsel against ¹⁰  the Lord. ¹¹ 

¹ tn That is, “all the earth” in the first line of v. 8. The apparent antecedent of the masculine subject of the verbs in v. 9 (note וַיֶּהִי [vayyehiy] and וַיַּעֲמֹד [vayya’amod]) is “earth” or “world,” both of which are feminine nouns. However, כָּל (kol, “all”) may be the antecedent, or the apparent lack of agreement may be explained by the collective nature of the nouns involved here (see GKC 463 §145.e).

² tn Heb “he commanded.”

³ tn Heb “breaks” or “destroys.” The Hebrew perfect verbal forms here and in the next line generalize about the Lord’s activity.

⁴ tn Heb “thoughts.”

⁵ tn Heb “the thoughts of his heart for generation to generation.” The verb “abides” is supplied in the translation. The Lord’s “decisions” and “plans” here refer to his decrees and purposes.

⁶ sn The plans (from the Hebrew verb חָשַׁב [khashav], “to think; to reckon; to devise”) in the human heart are many. But only those which God approves will succeed.

⁷ tn Heb “in the heart of a man” (cf. NAB, NIV). Here “heart” is used for the seat of thoughts, plans, and reasoning, so the translation uses “mind.” In contemporary English “heart” is more often associated with the seat of emotion than with the seat of planning and reasoning.

⁸ tn Heb “but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand.” The construction draws attention to the “counsel of the Lord”; it is an independent nominative absolute, and the resumptive independent pronoun is the formal subject of the verb.

⁹ tn The antithetical parallelism pairs “counsel” with “plans.” “Counsel of the Lord” (עֲצַת יְהוָה, ’atsat yehvah) is literally “advice” or “counsel” with the connotation of “plan” in this context (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “purpose”; NCV “plan”; TEV “the Lord’s will”).

sn The point of the proverb is that the human being with many plans is uncertain, but the Lord with a sure plan gives correct counsel.

¹⁰ tn The form לְנֶגֶד (lÿneged) means “against; over against; in opposition to.” The line indicates they cannot in reality be in opposition, for human wisdom is nothing in comparison to the wisdom of God (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 232).

¹¹ sn The verse uses a single sentence to state that all wisdom, understanding, and advice must be in conformity to the will of God to be successful. It states it negatively – these things cannot be in defiance of God (e.g., Job 5:12-13; Isa 40:13-14).