What Does 1 Corinthians 3:19 Mean in the King James?
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The cleverness that trusts its own schemes already carries the trap that can expose it.
THE MEANING
Worldly wisdom can appear self-securing, yet before God its cleverness is exposed by the very design it trusts. The verse speaks now wherever being shrewd feels like proof of being right: the scheme itself can become the means of capture.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a clever strategy is safe or true simply because it succeeds by the world’s standards.
THE ROOT
πανουργία
panourgia
GROWS FROM
πανουργ-
panourg-
Cunning or resourcefulness willing to use any means.
“craftiness” in this verse is panourgia. This is more than intelligence: it is ingenuity without a boundary on means. The verse makes that very cleverness the place where the wise are caught, so the scheme carries its own exposure.
ALSO GROWS
panourgia: Craftiness, cunning
πανουργία
This is the noun used in the verse: the wise are caught in the very cunning they rely on.
panourgos: Crafty, unscrupulous
πανοῦργος
This related word describes a person marked by that kind of cunning, showing how a strategy can become a character.
σοφία
sophia
GROWS FROM
σοφ-
soph-
Skill, discernment, wisdom.
The Greek words for “wisdom” and “wise” in this verse share the same σοφ- family. That family also includes a verb used for both making wise and devising cleverly, showing how skillful thought can serve discernment or become a scheme.
ALSO GROWS
sophos: Wise, skilled
σοφός
This is the related word translated “wise” in the verse; the same quality praised as wisdom is exposed as vulnerable when it trusts its own cunning.
sophizō: Make wise; devise cleverly
σοφίζω
This related verb can describe wisdom imparted or clever devising, revealing how the same capacity for skillful thought can take different directions.
THE PATTERN
A scheme built to control outcomes can turn back on its maker.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.THE THREAD
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.Job states the same pattern that 1 Corinthians draws on: the wise are caught through their own craftiness. Its next phrase adds that tangled counsel is swept away, making the scheme’s self-defeat plain.
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