There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord.

Wisdom and knowledge and wise suggestions are of no use against the Lord.

Two companion proverbs. Nothing avails against, nothing without, God. The horse is the type of warlike strength, used chiefly or exclusively in battle. 1-Kings 4:26; 1-Kings 10:26-28, may be thought of as having given occasion to the latter of the two proverbs.

There is no wisdom nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. No human schemes whatever, formed with the greatest wisdom and prudence, can ever prevail against God, or set aside or hinder the execution of any design of his; nothing that is pointed against his church, his cause, and interest, his truths and ordinances, in the issue shall succeed; all that are found fighters against him shall not prosper, let them be men of ever so much sagacity and wisdom; though there may be ever so many devices in a man's heart, and these ever so well planned, they shall never defeat the counsel of the Lord; see Proverbs 19:21. The Targum is,
"there is no wisdom, &c. as God's;''
and so the Syriac version, "as the Lord's"; there is none like his, there is none to be compared with his; there is none of any value and worth but his; all is folly in comparison of that: or there is none "before the Lord" (n); no wisdom of the creature can stand before him, it presently vanishes and disappears.
(n) "in conspectu Jehovae", Gejerus; "coram Domino", Gussetius, p. 495.

Means are to be used, but, after all, our safety and salvation are only of the Lord. In our spiritual warfare we must arm ourselves with the whole armour of God; but our strength must be in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Men's best devices and reliances are vain compared with God's, or without His aid (Proverbs 19:21; Psalm 20:7; Psalm 33:17).

If we further seek for the boundaries, the proverbs regarding the rich and the poor, Proverbs 22:2, Proverbs 22:7, Proverbs 22:16, present themselves as such, and this the more surely as Proverbs 22:16 is without contradiction the terminus. Thus we take first together 21:30-22:2.

30 No wisdom and no understanding,
And no counsel is there against Jahve.
The expression might also be 'לפני ה; but the predominating sense would then be, that no wisdom appears to God as such, that He values none as such. With לנגד the proverb is more objective: there is no wisdom which, compared with His, can be regarded as such (cf. 1-Corinthians 3:19), none which can boast itself against Him, or can at all avail against Him (לנגד, as Daniel 10:12; Nehemiah. 3:37); whence it follows (as Job 28:28) that the wisdom of man consists in the fear of God the Alone-wise, or, which is the same thing, the All-wise. Immanuel interprets חכמה of theology, תּבוּנה of worldly science, עצה of politics; but חכמה is used of the knowledge of truth, i.e., of that which truly is and continues; תבונה of criticism, and עצה of system and method; vid., at Proverbs 1:2; Proverbs 8:14, from which latter passage the lxx has substituted here גבורה instead of תבונה. Instead of 'לנגד ה it translates πρὸς τὸν ἀσεβῆ, i.e., for that which is 'נגד ה against Jahve.