Job 5:13

Froward - Perverse; deceitful; false.

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 neighbor 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."

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, γέγραπται γάρ 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 Psalm 7:15 :

He made a pit and digged it,

And is fallen into the ditch which he made."

So Psalm 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 Psalm 35:8 :

Let his net that he hath bid catch himself

Into that very destruction let him fall."

So Psalm 37:15 :

Their sword shall enter into their own heart,

And their bow shall be broken."

Compare Eurip. Med. 409:

Κακῶν δὲ πάντων τέκτονες σοφώταται

continued...

5:13 The wise - Men wise to do evil, and wise in the opinion of the world, he not only deceives in their hopes and counsels, but turns them against themselves. Froward - Or, wrestlers: such as wind and turn every way, as wrestlers do, and will leave no means untried to accomplish their counsels. Is carried - Is tumbled down and broken, and that by their own precipitation.