Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

Are You a Good Steward of Your Heart?

BIBLE VERSE CONTEXT:

GOD’S Sovereignty over man’s heart.

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord (16:1). 

THE ǁpreparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Men can neither think nor speak wisely and well of themselves, or without Divine assistance. Or, as many others, both ancient and modern interpreters, render the verse, The preparations, or dispositions, or orderings of the heart are in or from a man; (i.e. a man may consider and contrive in his own thoughts what he wills or designs to speak; which is spoken by way of concession, yet not excluding man’s dependence upon God therein, which is evident both from many plain texts of Scripture, and from undeniable reason;) but the answer or speech (as this word is oft used) of the tongue is from the Lord. Men cannot express their own thoughts without God’s leave and help, and their tongues are oft overruled by God to speak what was besides and above their own thoughts, as he did Balaam, Numb. 23, and Caiaphas, John 11:49–51.

Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 243.

The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps (16:9). 

Ver. 9. A man’s heart deviseth his way, &c.] This is to be understood, not of a wicked man, in whose heart is frowardness, and who devises mischief and evil imaginations continually, ch. 6:14, 18 for such are an abomination to the Lord; nor will he direct their goings, or prosper and succeed them in their ways: but of a good man, or righteous man, as Aben Ezra; who thinks of the way in which he should go, and desires to walk in a right way, as Jarchi; and who is influenced by the spirit and grace of God to think and act in this manner; for otherwise the way of man is not in himself; it is not of his own devising and finding out; nor is his disposition to walk in it of himself; and it is only such a man, a good man, whose steps are ordered by the Lord, as follows; see Jer. 10:23; Psal. 37:23. But the Lord directeth his steps; to go right on, and not turn to the right hand or the left; and to walk safely and surely, through a variety of troubles and difficulties, to his kingdom and glory.

John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 4, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 443.

Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand (19:21). 

(There are) many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. Man has “many devices,” through his iguorance of the future. Many and laboriously devised as they are, they often effect nothing. But God has one “counsel,” and that simple, not involved or complicate, and immutable. There is no succession of time or thought in His decrees. His counsel shall stand—i. e., unalterably be fulfilled (Jer. 44:28, 29). There is what is termed a parallage, or need of supplying each clause from the parallel one: “There are many devices in a man’s heart (but they shall not stand); but the counsel of the Lord (which is one; as opposed to the many devices of man), that shall stand.” “That” is emphatical. That, that I say alone, free from all mistake, imperfection, or want of power, shall stand (Ps. 115:3). God being the unchangeable One, will not change it: and no creature can suspend or prevent it. Of man’s many devices that alone shall stand which God pleaseth (Rom. 9:19, end; Dan. 4:35).

A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Job–Isaiah, vol. III (London; Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Company, Limited, n.d.), 478.

The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes (21:1).

THE king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.
The king’s heart; his very inward purposes and inclinations, which seem to be most in a man’s own power, and out of the reach of all others, and much more his tongue and hand, and all his outward actions. He names kings not to exclude other men, but because they are more arbitrary and uncontrollable than other men. As the rivers of water; which husbandmen or gardeners can draw by little channels into the adjacent grounds as they please, and as their occasions require. He turneth it; directeth and boweth, partly by suggesting those things to their minds which have a commanding influence upon their wills; and partly by a direct and immediate motion of their wills and affections, which being God’s creatures must needs be as subject to his power and pleasure as either men’s minds or bodies are, and which he moves sweetly and suitably to their own nature, though strongly and effectually. Whithersoever he will; so as they shall fulfil his counsels and designs, either of mercy or of correction to themselves, or to their people.

Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 254.

Deuteronomy 29:29 aptly summarizes the outlined point that God is sovereign over our hearts. Moses states it this way, perhaps much more simply for our understanding:  “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” 

DEUT. 29:29. The secret things belong. The conciseness and brevity of this passage has rendered its meaning ambiguous; still there is no necessity for discussing the various expositions of it. I will only shortly touch upon those most generally accepted, lest they should lead to error. The meaning is forced which some of the Hebrews give it, viz., that God is the sole avenger of hidden crimes, whilst those transgressions, which come to the knowledge of men, should be punished by earthly judges; for here the execution of punishment is not the subject in discussion, but Moses is simply commending the use of the doctrine of the Law. The opinion of those who conceive that the excellency of the Law is maintained, because God has manifested by it His secret things, would be more probable, if the rules of grammar did not oppose it; for the words are not to be read connectedly. “The secret things of God are revealed unto us,” since the ה, or demonstrative pronoun, which is adjoined to both, does not permit this any more than the copula which stands between them. To me there appears no doubt that, by antithesis, there is a comparison here made between the doctrine openly set forth in the Law, and the hidden and incomprehensible counsel of God, concerning which it is not lawful to inquire. In my opinion, therefore, the copula is used for the adversative particle; as though it were said, “God indeed retains to Himself secret things, which it neither concerns nor profits us to know, and which surpass our comprehension; but these things, which He has declared to us, belong to us and to our children.” It is a remarkable passage, and especially deserving of our observation, for by it audacity and excessive curiosity are condemned, whilst pious minds are aroused to be zealous in seeking instruction. We know how anxious men are to understand things, the knowledge of which is altogether unprofitable, and even the investigation of them injurious. All of them would desire to be God’s counsellors, and to penetrate into the deepest recesses of heaven, nay, they would search into its very cabinets. Hence a heathen poet truly says,—

     “Nil mortalibus arduum est:
     Cœlum ipsum petimus stultitia.”—Hor. Od. i. 3–37.

     “Nought for mortals is too high;
     Our folly reaches to the sky.”

On the other hand, what God plainly sets before us, and would have familiarly known, is either neglected, or turned from in disgust, or put far away from us, as if it were too obscure. In the first clause, then, Moses briefly reproves and restrains that temerity which leaps beyond the bounds imposed by God; and in the latter, exhorts us to embrace the doctrine of the Law, in which God’s will is declared to us, as if He were openly speaking to us; and thus he encounters the folly of those who fly from the light presented to them, and wrongfully accuse of obscurity that doctrine, wherein God has let Himself down to the measure of our understanding. In sum, he declares that God is the best master to all who come to Him as disciples, because He faithfully and clearly explains to them all that it is useful for them to know. The perpetuity of the doctrine is also asserted, and that it never is to be let go, or to become obsolete by the lapse of ages. How far the Law is perpetual I have more fully discussed in the Second Book of the Institutes, chap. xi. The rule of just and pious living even now retains its force, although we are delivered from the yoke of bondage and from the curse; but the coming of Christ has put an end to its ceremonies in such a way as to prove more certainly that they were not mere vain and empty shadows. Lastly, Moses requires obedience of the people, and reminds them that the Law was not only given that the Israelites might know what was right, but that they might do all that God taught. True is it indeed that all His precepts cannot be fully obeyed; but the perfection which is required, compels those to ask for pardon who otherwise feel themselves to be exposed to God’s judgment, as will be hereafter explained. Besides, we must observe that the doctrine that we must keep the whole Law has this object, that men should not separate one commandment from the others, and think that they have done their duty by performing only a part of it; since God admits no such divorce, having forbidden us to steal no less than to kill. (James 2:11.)

John Calvin and Charles William Bingham, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 410–412.

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