What Does Proverbs 19:21 Mean?
Many plans are in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the LORD, it will stand.
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
There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand.THE KEY
The heart can draft countless futures; the verse locates what finally stands in the LORD’s counsel.
THE MEANING
Your heart holds many designs at once, each imagining a way forward. The verse places their abundance beside the LORD’s counsel, which rises and remains established. What lasts is not measured by how many possibilities you can construct.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a crowded mind or carefully laid plan can secure the future: many devices may fill the heart, but they do not determine what stands.
THE ROOT
מַחֲשָׁבוֹת
maḥăšāḇōṯ
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥāšaḇ
Think, reckon, plan, or devise.
The devices are constructed thoughts, designs, and calculations, the heart continually composing possible paths. The same root can describe reckoning, so these are worked-out plans, not merely passing impulses.
ALSO GROWS
maḥăšāḇāh: Thought, design, or plan.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This singular form shows that the verse’s many devices are distinct designs taking shape in the heart.
ḥešbōn: Account, reckoning, or calculation.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
The root’s sense of reckoning reveals the weighing and working out contained in the heart’s plans.
עֲצַת
ʿaṣat
GROWS FROM
יעץ
yāʿaṣ
Advise or counsel; form a plan.
The counsel is more than a forecast: it carries direction and purpose. The same root names both the act of advising and the counselor, so what stands has guidance within it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēṣāh: Counsel, advice, or purpose.
עֵצָה
This noun makes clear that the LORD’s counsel is a guiding purpose, set beside the heart’s many designs.
yōʿēṣ: Counselor or adviser.
יוֹעֵץ
The root links counsel with the one who gives direction, bringing intention and guidance together.
תָּקוּם
tāqūm
GROWS FROM
קום
qūm
Rise, stand, or be established.
“it will stand” in this verse is tāqūm. The verse’s final verb pictures the LORD’s counsel rising into settled reality. The contrast is between many inner constructions and a purpose that gets on its feet and remains.
ALSO GROWS
qūm: Rise, arise, or stand.
קוּם
This basic form carries the upward movement heard in the verse’s promise that the counsel will stand.
hēqīm: Raise, set up, or establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form shows the root’s connection between rising and being established.
THE PATTERN
Human plans multiply, while the LORD’s purpose endures and shapes what comes to pass.
The counsel of the LORD stands for the ages, the plans of his heart from generation to generation.Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.Instead, you ought to say, "If the LORD wills, we will live, and do this or that."THE THREAD
A person's heart plans his way, but the LORD sets his steps firm.The word translated deviseth comes from חשב, the same root behind devices here, so the verse does not treat planning itself as error. It sets the heart’s design beside the steps the LORD directs, echoing the difference between many thoughts and what stands.
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