1 Corinthians 1:19

“For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will set aside the understanding of the prudent.”

Isaiah, Isaiah 29:14, had declared at the time when Sennacherib was threatening Judah, that the deliverance granted by Jehovah to His people would be His work, not that of the able politicians who directed the affairs of the kingdom. Was it not they on the contrary who, by counselling alliance with Egypt, had provoked the Assyrian intervention and thus paved the way for the destruction of Judah? It is on the same principle, says the apostle, that God now proceeds in saving the world. He snatches it from perdition by an act of His own love, and without deigning in the least to conjoin with Him human wisdom, which on the contrary He sweeps away as folly.

The verbs in the future, I will destroy...I will set aside, express a general maxim of the Divine government, which applies to every particular case and finds its full accomplishment in salvation by the cross. Paul quotes according to the LXX., who directly ascribe to God (“I will destroy...” etc.) what Isaiah had represented as the result of the Divine act: “Wisdom will perish,” etc. ᾿Αθετεῖν, to set aside, as useless or worth nothing. Not only has God in His plan not asked counsel of human wisdom, and not only in the execution of it does He deliberately dispense with its aid, but He even deals its demands a direct contradiction. The following verse forcibly brings out this treatment to which it is subjected in the gospel.