Wisdom 9:13
For who among men is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of God is?
Open Wisdom 9:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quis enim hominum poterit scire consilium Dei ? aut quis poterit cogitare quid velit Deus ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τίς γὰρ ἄνθρωπος γνώσεται βουλὴν θεοῦ; ἢ τίς ἐνθυμηθήσεται τί θέλει ὁ κύριος;
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Whether We are to Believe that God, as He Has Always Been Sovereign Lord, Has Always Had Creatures Over Whom He Exercised His Sovereignty; And in What Sense We Can Say that the Creature Has Always Been, and Yet Cannot Say It is Co-Eternal
For my own part, indeed, as I dare not say that there ever was a time when the Lord God was not Lord, so I ought not to doubt that man had no existence before time, and was first created in time. But when I consider what God could be the Lord of, if there was not always some creature, I shrink from making any assertion, remembering my own insignificance, and that it is written, “What man is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord is? For the thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our devices are but uncertain. For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.” Many things certainly do I muse upon in this earthly tabernacle, because the one thing which is true among the many, or beyond the many, I cannot find. …
St Augustine The Harmony of the Gospels, Of the Evangelist John, and the Distinction Between Him and the Other Three
20. Finally, He here commits His sheep to the care of Peter, who loves Him, and thrice confesses that love, and then He states that He wills this very John so to tarry until He comes. In which utterance, again, He seems to me to have conveyed in a profound and mystical way the fact that this evangelical stewardship of John’s, in which he is borne aloft into the most liquid light of the Word, where it is possible to behold the equality and unchangeableness of the Trinity, and in which, above all, we see at what a distance from all others in respect of essential character that humanity stands by whose assumption it occurred that the Word was made flesh, cannot be clearly discerned and recognised until the Lord Himself comes. Consequently, it will tarry thus until He comes. …