Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Corinthians 1:20

"Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" — 1 Corinthians 1:20 (ASV)

Where is the wise? Language similar to this occurs in Isaiah 33:18: Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where is he that counted the towers? Without intending to quote these words as having an original reference to the subject now under consideration, Paul uses them as anyone does, employing words familiar to himself or his readers that will convey his meaning.

A person familiar with the Bible will naturally often use Scripture expressions in conveying their ideas.

In Isaiah, the passage refers to the deliverance of the people from the threatened invasion of Sennacherib. The 18th verse represents the people meditating on the threatened terror of the invasion, and then, in the language of exultation and thanksgiving at their deliverance, saying, Where is the wise man that laid the plan of destroying the nation? Where the inspector-general (see my Note on the passage in Isaiah) employed in arranging the forces? Where the receiver (margin, the weigher), the paymaster of the forces? Where the man that counted the towers of Jerusalem and calculated on their speedy overthrow? All baffled and defeated; and their schemes have all come to nothing.

So the apostle uses the same language regarding the boasted wisdom of the world in reference to salvation. It is all baffled and shown to be of no value.

The wise. sofov. The sage. At first, Greek men of learning were called wise men, sofoi, like the magicians of the East. They afterwards assumed a more modest appellation and called themselves the lovers of wisdom, filosofoi, or philosophers. This was the name by which they were commonly known in Greece in Paul's time.

Where is the scribe? grammateuv. The scribe among the Jews was a learned person, originally employed in transcribing the Law, but later the term came to mean a learned person in general.

Among the Greeks, the word was used to mean a public notary, a transcriber of the laws, or a secretary. It was a term, therefore, nearly synonymous with a learned person, and the apostle evidently uses it in this sense here.

Some have supposed that he referred to Jewish men of learning here, but he probably had reference to the Greeks.

Where is the disputer of this world? The acute and subtle sophist of this age. The word disputer, suzhththv, properly means one who inquires carefully into the causes and relations of things—one who is a subtle and abstruse investigator. It was applied to the ancient sophists and disputants in the Greek academies, and the apostle undoubtedly refers to them.

The meaning is that in all their professed investigations, in all their subtle and abstruse inquiries, they had failed to ascertain the way in which people could be saved. God had devised a plan that baffled all their wisdom and in which their philosophy was disregarded.

The term world here, aiwnov, probably refers not to the world as a physical structure—though Grotius supposes that it does—but to that age: the disputer of that age, or generation, an age eminently wise and learned.

Has not God made foolish..., etc. That is, has He not, by the originality and superior efficacy of His plan of salvation, poured contempt on all the schemes of philosophers and shown their folly? Not only without the aid of those human schemes, but in opposition to them, He has devised a plan for human salvation that shows its efficacy and its wisdom in the conversion of sinners and in destroying the power of wickedness.

Paul here, possibly, had reference to the language in Isaiah 44:25: God turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.