Proverbs 30:7 to 9 · Passage · Money and Want
Neither Poverty nor Riches
The prayer belongs to the words of Agur son of Jakeh, which follow the proverbs of Solomon copied by the men of Hezekiah.
A man who asks God for bread also asks Him to keep riches away.
Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God.
- The passage
- Proverbs 30:7 to 9, Proverbs 30:1, Deuteronomy 8:12 to 14, Hosea 13:6
- Books
- Proverbs, Deuteronomy, Hosea
- Hold in memory
- Proverbs 30:8
Summary
Proverbs 30:7 to 9 is a prayer for a measured life. Agur asks God for truth and for a portion that lies between want and wealth, and he gives his reason: each state carries its own temptation. The Hebrew word behind his portion names an amount that God appoints. The prayer treats wealth and want alike as tests of faithfulness to God.
- Scripture names Agur son of Jakeh only in the heading of Proverbs 30.
- Other texts tie want to sloth (Proverbs 6:10 to 11) and to oppression (Amos 2:6 to 7), so Scripture gives poverty more than one cause.
- Readers differ on whether Agur was Solomon under another name or a sage of Massa, and on whether the prayer commends a middle estate.
Two Things Before I Die
Agur names the number of his requests and the time in which he wants them answered.
This study takes up Proverbs 30:7 to 9, a passage of the trial of money and want. It asks what Agur requests of God and why he gives the reason he gives. Agur speaks to God in the first person, so the passage is a prayer that a reader can pray with him.
The study reads the prayer with the Hebrew of its key words. It sets the dangers of Proverbs 30:9 beside the Law and the Prophets, and it closes with the commentators' readings, each with the objection to it.
Agur's prayer opens, “Two things I ask of You” (Proverbs 30:7). He asks God not to refuse him before he dies.
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), read the words as a wish for the answer now, “that he may live the rest of his life in the state he describes”.
The first request asks God to keep falsehood far from him, and the study of the lying tongue in Proverbs teaches it.
Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the bread that is my portion.It carries the two requests that Proverbs 30:7 announces, and Proverbs 30:9 gives the reason for the second.
The bread Agur asks for is in Hebrew lechem chuqqi, the food of my allotment. Its second word comes from choq, which Strong's dictionary defines as “an enactment; hence, an appointment (of time, space, quantity, labor or usage)”.
The Two Dangers in the Law and the Prophets
Deuteronomy, Hosea, Proverbs and Amos speak of the same two states that Agur fears.
The Law and the Prophets name pride and the forgetting of God as the danger of plenty, and Proverbs and Amos name sloth and oppression among the causes of want.
| The text | The Berean words | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Plenty | ||
| Deuteronomy 8:12 to 14 | “your heart will become proud, and you will forget the LORD your God” | The warning given before Israel entered the land |
| Hosea 13:6 | “when they were satisfied, their hearts became proud, and as a result they forgot Me” | The warning come true in Israel's history |
| Exodus 5:2 | “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice” | Pharaoh's question, the one Agur fears to ask |
| Want | ||
| Proverbs 6:10 to 11 | “poverty will come upon you like a robber” | Want that follows sloth |
| Amos 2:6 | “they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” | Want that others impose by oppression |
The Danger in Plenty and the Danger in Want
Proverbs 30:9 names the sin to which each state of life can lead.
The first danger is to be full. The verb sava means “to sate, i.e. fill to satisfaction”, and the verb after it, kachash, means to be untrue in word, to lie or to disown.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), wrote, “Wealth tempts to pride, unbelief, and a scorn like that of Pharaoh”.
The second danger is theft in want. The verb rendered “profaning” is taphas, which Strong's dictionary defines as “to manipulate, i.e. seize” and, figuratively, “to use unwarrantably”. Barnes read the line as dishonesty that leads on to perjury.
The Words of Agur
Proverbs 30 stands as a collection of its own under its own heading.
Proverbs 30:1 calls what follows “the burden that this man declared to Ithiel”. Agur begins with a confession, “I have not learned wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One” (Proverbs 30:3), and he holds to the word of God, which is “flawless” (Proverbs 30:5).
After the prayer, the chapter gathers sayings by number, and the first of them (Proverbs 30:15) speaks of “three things that are never satisfied”.
Daily Bread and Contentment
The Lord's Prayer and the counsel of Paul carry Agur's measure into the New Testament.
The petition for daily bread in Matthew 6:11 asks for a portion of the kind Agur asked for.
Paul wrote, “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these” (1 Timothy 6:8), and the study of Godliness with Contentment sets Agur's prayer beside Paul's words.
The debate on the prosperity message weighs the teaching that God promises riches to the faithful.
Who Agur Was and What the Prayer Commends
Two readings answer who Agur was, and two answer what the prayer asks of a believer.
Agur is Solomon under another nameBede; the old synagogue
Keil and Delitzsch, in their Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, report that the old synagogue “interpreted the words, ‘Agur the son of Jakeh,’ as an allegorical designation of Solomon”. Bede, in his Commentary on Proverbs, read the chapter as “the words of Solomon” once more.
The objection: Proverbs 1:1 names “Solomon son of David”, while Proverbs 30:1 names Agur with another father, Jakeh.
Agur was a sage of Massa, a people descended from IshmaelKeil and Delitzsch
Keil and Delitzsch read the word that the Berean text renders “the burden” as the name of a people, and wrote, “We therefore hold by the Ishmaelite Massa”. Genesis 25:14 names Massa among the sons of Ishmael.
The objection: the Berean text renders the word “the burden” here and in Proverbs 31:1, the heading of the words of King Lemuel.
The prayer commends the middle way of lifeCharles Spurgeon; Basil of Caesarea
Charles Spurgeon preached The House of Mourning and The House of Feasting (1908). He said, “Agur, an Inspired writer, prayed to God that He would give him "neither poverty nor riches," that he might walk in the middle way of life.”
Basil of Caesarea, in The Long Rules, described sufficiency “as a state both free from want and without superfluity”.
The objection: Paul wrote, “I am accustomed to any and every situation”, and he named those situations, “to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need” (Philippians 4:12).
The prayer asks to be kept from sin in any estateMatthew Henry
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), heard Agur pray, “Lest I be rich and sin, or poor and sin.”
Henry added, “Sin is that which a good man is afraid of in every condition and under every event”.
The objection: Agur still asks for an allotted portion of bread, so his prayer names a measure as well as a sin.
The Portion God Sets
Agur leaves the size of his portion to God.
His prayer ends on the name of God, and the portion he asks for is the one that keeps him true to that name.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament, the tagged text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, with its dictionary of the Hebrew words (1890)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Proverbs 30:7.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Proverbs 30:9.
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, Proverbs, on Proverbs 30:1 (the page prints no year)
- Bede, Commentary on Proverbs, on Proverbs 30:1.
- Charles Spurgeon, The House of Mourning and The House of Feasting, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3108 (1908)
- Basil of Caesarea, The Long Rules, Question 20.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Proverbs 30:9.
Keep Studying
Studies4
In this trial5
People and groups11
Values1