The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole decision is of Jehovah.
Proverbs 16 ends with a picture from daily life: a choice taken out of human hands and left to a throw. Two questions follow — what was this practice, and who decides what we call luck?
What the lot actually was
The lot was not a mystical rite but a simple physical method, used across Israel's life for choices no one wanted to make by preference.
God commanded this way of settling a matter over the two goats on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:8-10). He also commanded that the land be divided by lot (Numbers 26:55-56). The people used it for various purposes after the return from exile… Names, dates, and so on for selection were marked on pieces of wood, pottery, and similar things. These 'lots' were then shaken together, either in a vessel or in the fold of a garment, until one came out.
The "lap" is that fold of clothing. The action looks like gambling:
"The lot is cast into the lap," that is, like dice being thrown, with people depending on "luck" to favour them. But the believer depends on God. Even if such methods are used, it is not luck that disposes the result, but the Lord, who steps into men's activities (v. 33).
Chance, caprice and majority all ruled out
The second half of the verse denies more than superstition. It denies that any human pressure — personal whim or the weight of numbers — settles the outcome.
God still stoops to serve His people, and to interpret their own wretched minds for them, expressing their desires better than they could themselves. For this purpose He uses the lot. He leaves nothing to mere chance, or to the whim of any section of the people, and still less to that modern mistake, the will of the majority. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord." It also causes arguments to cease.
The older wording quoted here, "the whole disposing," is what the ESV renders "its every decision."
Another writer states the same truth as providence: God governs the world and does not just watch it.
There is no such thing as blind fate. But there is a Providence that guides and governs the world… Providence is God's ordering of all issues and events, according to the counsel of His will, to His own glory… The wheels in a clock seem to move against one another, yet they push the clock forward and make the alarm strike. God's providence works in the same way: its wheels seem crossed, but they will still carry forward the good of the elect… God is not like a builder who puts up a house and then leaves it. Like a pilot, He steers the ship of the whole creation.
His control extends to those who never consult Him
The verse is not limited to lots cast in faith. Haman, the enemy who plotted to wipe out the Jews, cast his own lot to fix the date of the massacre.
The Amalekite and his company cast the lot, the Pur, only to decide the day on which this act of extermination was to be carried out. But, as we know, the lot may be "cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord" (Prov. 16:33). And so it was here. Eleven long months — from the casting of the lot to the day set for the slaughter — are given, so that God might ripen His purposes towards both His people and their adversaries.
The lot appears again at the crucifixion:
The Roman soldiers also used the lot when they divided the Lord's garments (Psalm 22:18; Mark 15:24).
Where a decision is beyond human judgment
Because the outcome was God's, the lot ended disputes that argument could not.
There are cases, however, where both sides have so much to plead that a fair decision is beyond men. Stubborn men then give themselves over to quarrelling, and others outside the dispute have a sad interest in keeping it going. The Israelite had the resource of the lot, no matter how powerful the opponents might be. Jehovah did not fail to decide by it. But the Christian is entitled to look to his Father in Christ's name. He never lacks an answer of grace if he waits on Him.
Why Christians no longer cast lots
The lot belonged to an earlier stage of God's dealings. Two changes ended it.
The Jew used the lot (v. 33), until the Spirit was given to the believer in the gospel. But he was reminded that Jehovah directed. Christianity in this, as in everything, shows God providing some "better thing," faithful though God was of old, and is still, now that in Christ He is far more intimately revealed and known.
The turning point is datable — the choice of Matthias to replace Judas, before the Spirit was given.
Scripture's last mention of the lot is the appointment of Matthias to fill Judas' place among the apostles (Acts 1:26). The Scriptures are now complete, and the Holy Spirit lives in the Church on earth. So the lot has no place any longer in the ways of God.
Summary
- Lap. The lot was ordinary material — marked wood or pottery, shaken in a fold of clothing until one came out.
- Lord. What looks like dice is not luck. God disposes the outcome, and leaves nothing to chance, whim, or the will of the majority.
- Reach. His disposing runs past His own people to His enemies. Haman's lot set a date eleven months off, and God used the delay to ripen His purposes.
- Rest. Where a fair decision lay beyond men, the lot ended the dispute, because the deciding was never human.
- Replaced. The lot ends with Matthias. With the Scriptures complete and the Spirit in the Church, the Christian has something better: a Father who answers those who wait on Him.