What Does 1 Corinthians 3:20 Mean?
And again, The LORD knows the reckonings of the wise, that they are empty.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.THE KEY
Human wisdom can sound full from the outside while the Lord’s knowing exposes its thoughts as empty.
THE MEANING
The Lord knows the reasoning behind what appears wise to you. Confidence and complexity do not make those thoughts substantial; the verse calls them empty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a thought becomes true or valuable because it is sophisticated or held by someone considered wise.
THE ROOT
μάταιοι
mataioi
GROWS FROM
μαται-
matai-
Empty, futile, without effect or substance.
Here “vain” names more than pride: it describes reasoning that has no lasting substance or result. The same word family describes futility and empty speech, so the verse weighs wisdom by what its thoughts actually hold.
ALSO GROWS
mataiotēs: Futility, emptiness, vanity.
ματαιότης
It makes explicit the emptiness that the verse finds in the wise person’s thoughts.
mataioō: To make futile or become futile.
ματαιόω
It shows how something that appears substantial can prove fruitless.
mataiologos: An empty talker; one whose words are futile.
ματαιολόγος
It carries the same emptiness from thought into speech.
διαλογισμούς
dialogismous
GROWS FROM
λογίζομαι (logizomai), with διά- (dia-)
λογίζομαι means to reckon or calculate; with διά-, the word carries the sense of reasoning through or deliberating.
“reckonings” in this verse is dialogismous. The Greek points to deliberations and calculations, not only passing ideas. That sharpens the contrast: reasoning that seems wise can still be weighed as empty.
ALSO GROWS
dialogizomai: To reason through or deliberate.
διαλογίζομαι
This verb shows the active reasoning contained in the “thoughts” named here.
logismos: A calculation, reasoning, or thought.
λογισμός
It keeps the image of thought as something worked out and assessed, rather than a passing impression.
THE PATTERN
Confidence or concealment does not make human judgment sound; the Lord sees what it actually holds.
All the ways of a person are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the breaths.Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the arguer of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this world?And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
The LORD perceives the thoughts of humankind, that they are vapor.This is the line 1 Corinthians echoes: the Lord knows human thoughts and finds them empty. The Greek wording repeats the same chain, γινώσκει (ginōskei, knows), διαλογισμούς (dialogismous, reasonings), and μάταιοι (mataioi, futile), so the verse applies that searching judgment directly to what appears wise.
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