Bible Strands
Job 5:12
He thwarts the schemes of the crafty, so that their hands find no success.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz, one of Job's three friends, addresses Job in the first of his speeches (Job 4–5), listing divine acts as groundwork for his claim that Job's suffering stems from hidden sin.
The words — מֵ֭פֵר (Me.fer, "frustrates") carries the sense of breaking or shattering a plan at its root; עֲרוּמִ֑ים ('a.ru.Mim, "crafty") shares its root with "naked," evoking cunning stripped of cover.
The thread — Psalms 33:10 states the same principle in corporate terms (the LORD frustrates the plans of the nations), and Isaiah 8:10 applies it to human alliances against Judah.
Why it lands — In context this verse is a weapon aimed at Job, not a comfort offered to him; the reader must hold both the truth of the claim and the cruelty of its application.
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 disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
Cross-references
- Psalms 21:11 Though they intend You harm, the schemes they devise will not prevail.
- Psalms 33:10 The LORD frustrates the plans of the nations; He thwarts the devices of the peoples.
- Isaiah 8:10 Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”
- Proverbs 21:30 There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the LORD.
- Psalms 37:17 For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.
- Isaiah 37:36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- Acts 12:11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”
- Nehemiah 4:15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their scheme and that God had frustrated it, each of us returned to his own work on the wall.
- Job 12:16 True wisdom and power belong to Him. The deceived and the deceiver are His.
- Acts 23:12 When daylight came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.