Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
He disappointeth the devices of the crafty - He foils them in their schemes, or makes their plans vain. This too was the result of close observation on the part of Eliphaz. He had seen instances where the plans of crafty, designing, and artful people had been defeated, and where the straightforward had been prospered and honored. Such cases led him to believe that God was the friend of virtue, and was worthy of entire confidence.
So that their hands - So that they. The hands are the instruments by which we accomplish our plans.
Their enterprise - Margin, Or, "anything." Hebrew ׁ tûshı̂yâh . This word properly means uprightness from ׁ yâsha‛ ; then help, deliverance, Job 6:13; then purpose, undertaking, enterprise, that is, what one wishes to set up or establish. Gesenius. This is its meaning here. Vulgate, "Their hands cannot finish (implere) what they had begun." Septuagint, "Their hands cannot perform that which is true" - ̀́ alēthes . The Chaldee Paraphrase refers this to the defeat of the purposes of the Egyptians: "Who made vain the thoughts of the Egyptians, who acted wisely (or cunningly - ) that they might do evil to Israel, but their hands did not perform the work of their wisdom Job 5:13, who took the wise men of Pharaoh in their own wisdom, and the counsel of their perverse astrologers he made to return upon them." The general sense is, that artful and designing men - people who work in the dark, and who form secret purposes of evil, are disappointed and foiled. Eliphaz probably had seen instances of this, and he now attributes it to God as rendering him worthy of the confidence of people. It is still true. The crafty and the designing are often foiled in such a manner as to show that it is wholly of God. He exposes their designs in this way, and shows that he is the friend of the sincere and the honest; and in doing this, he shows that he is worthy the confidence of his people.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Job 5:12:
Job 6:13
Job 11:6
Job 26:3
Job 30:22
1 Corinthians 3:19
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