Providentialism is shared by several philosophical schools, but it also reflects the traditional theological conception, expressed especially by mythic poetry. By rejecting it Lucretius addresses a plurality of targets; he overturns vocabulary and imagery of his opponents, ironically assuming their point of view. This paper deals with this rhetorical strategy by analysing two verbs, guberno and rego, which express the gods’ control over the universe. The aim is to demonstrate that Lucretius’ poem offers a sample of thematic vocabulary related to divine providence. This is consolidated in coeval Latin philosophy, but also after Lucretius, and becomes common in Christian Latin. This paper also investigates the fortune of guberno and rego and their semantic development up to Late antiquity.