1 Corinthians 3:20

This passage is taken from Psalms 94:11. It proclaims the emptiness of human wisdom, not now as to its result, but as to its very essence. The Hebrew and the LXX. say, “the thoughts of man. ” The apostle says, of the wise, because it is through them that mankind exercise their understanding.

The verb knowing has two objects in the original texts (Hebrew and Greek), as is often the case; first, the object known, the thought; then what God knows of those thoughts: that they are vain. We cannot render this forcible turn of expression in French.

The apostle here judges human wisdom only from the point of view of the discovery and attainment of salvation. He certainly respects every sincere effort to discover the truth (Php 4:8); but salvation is a thought of God superior to all the discoveries of human wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:6-8).

Though he had addressed the whole Church (1 Corinthians 3:17: Ye are...), it was those who encouraged disorders whom the apostle had indirectly threatened in the foregoing verses. The three following verses contain the direction which it remains to him to give to the Church itself as to its conduct toward Christ's true ministers. They are therefore the conclusion of the passage begun 1 Corinthians 2:5.