Bible Strands
Job 12:24
He deprives the earth’s leaders of reason and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job addresses his three friends in a speech detailing God’s absolute authority over human history and political power.
The words — מֵסִיר (meSir) means “removing” and לֵב (lev) means “heart,” forming the literal phrase “removing the heart” that the text uses to describe how God strips rulers of their inner capacity.
The thread — The motif of leaders being displaced into a trackless wasteland appears in Psalms 107:40, and the related theme of stripped discernment is recorded in Job 12:20.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to accept that human leadership and understanding are not self-sustaining but are subject to divine withdrawal.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
Cross-references
- Psalms 107:40 He pours out contempt on the nobles and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
- Job 12:20 He deprives the trusted of speech and takes away the discernment of elders.
- Hosea 7:11 So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.
- Job 17:4 You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them.
- Psalms 107:4 Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no path to a city in which to dwell.
- Isaiah 6:9 And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
- Isaiah 19:1 This is the burden against Egypt: Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud; He is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him, and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them.
- Daniel 4:16 Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let him be given the mind of a beast till seven times pass him by.
- Daniel 4:33 At that moment the sentence against Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from mankind. He ate grass like an ox, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.