Proverbs 19:21

19:21 There are many plans ¹  in a person’s mind, ² 

but it ³  is the counsel ⁴  of the Lord which will stand.

Proverbs 21:30

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

and there is no counsel against ⁵  the Lord. ⁶ 

Isaiah 7:7

7:7 For this reason the sovereign master, ⁷  the Lord, says:

“It will not take place;

it will not happen.

[19:21]  ¹ 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.

[19:21]  ² 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.

[19:21]  ³ 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.

[19:21]  ⁴ 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”).

[21:30]  ⁵ 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).

[21:30]  ⁶ 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).

[7:7]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 14, 19 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).