Proverbs 16:9
The heart of man disposeth his way: but the Lord must direct his steps.
Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner, 1752)
In The King James Version
A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
In Context
8Better is a little with justice, than great revenues with iniquity.
10Divination is in the lips of the king, his mouth shall not err in judgment.
Cross References
2 Chronicles 22:7For it was the will of God against Ochozias that he should come to Joram: and when he was come should go out also against Jehu the son of Namsi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Achab.
Proverbs 16:1It is the part of man to prepare the soul: and of the Lord to govern the tongue. It is the part of man, etc... That is, a man should prepare in his heart and soul what he is to say: but after all, it must be the Lord that must govern his tongue, to speak to the purpose. Not that we can think any thing of good without God's grace; but that after we have (with God's grace) thought and prepared within our souls what we would speak, if God does not govern our tongue, we shall not succeed in what we speak.
Proverbs 20:24The steps of men are guided by the Lord: but who is the man that can understand his own way?
Proverbs 21:30There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord.
Jeremiah 10:23I know, O Lord, that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a man to walk, and to direct his steps. The way of a man is not his... The meaning is, that notwithstanding man's free will, yet he can do no good without God's help, nor evil without his permission. So that, in the present case, all the evils which Nabuchodonosor was about to bring upon Jerusalem, could not have come but by the will of God.
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 16:9
8 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. Here, 1. It is supposed that an honest good man may have but a little of the wealth of this world (all the righteous are not rich),—that a man may have but little, and yet may be honest (though poverty is a temptation to dishonesty, ch. xxx. 9 , yet not an invincible one),—and that a man may grow rich, for a while, by fraud and oppression, may have great revenues, and those got and kept without right, may have no good title to them nor make… Read the whole commentary →