Proverbs30chapter 30

Proverbs 30:1-3

The words of Agur the son of Jakeh: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh open with a header naming an otherwise unknown sage, one voice among the wise the book of Proverbs gathers rather than an appendix to Solomon's own collections. Jewish tradition identifies Agur with Solomon under an assumed name, a reading the older rabbinic sources carry and the text itself never states. Agur's own confession runs opposite to a claim of wisdom: more brutish than any man, he says, without the understanding of a man, neither learned wisdom nor the knowledge of the holy. The opening posture is itself instructive, since Proverbs elsewhere makes the fear of the Lord, not self-assessed wisdom, the beginning of knowledge.

Proverbs 30:4

Who hath ascended up into heaven: Agur's four questions describe acts only God can do, gathering the wind, binding the waters, fixing the earth's ends, and the string builds toward the two names asked at the end: what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell. The plain reading holds the question as rhetorical, driving home that no creature can answer for God's works, which is how much of the bench states it. The older writers hear more in the second question, a son named specifically inside a book that otherwise never puts the word on God's lips, and read it as pointing toward Christ; that reading is theirs, named, and the text itself only asks.

Proverbs 30:5-6

Every word of God is pure: Every word of God is pure states a doctrine of Scripture inside Scripture, tried like silver, and Agur's own confessed ignorance in the verses before makes the claim a confession of trust rather than a boast. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him ties the purity of the word to its use, not a subject for admiration only. The warning that follows, add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar, states the same caution Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18 state at the Bible's two ends, against supplementing revelation with a man's own additions.

Proverbs 30:7-9

Two things have I required of thee: Agur asks two things before he dies, and the second unfolds into the chapter's best known prayer: give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me. The reasoning is stated rather than assumed, full and denying the Lord on one side, poor and stealing and taking God's name in vain on the other, so the prayer asks to be spared both temptations rather than only the uncomfortable one. The bench reads it beside the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread, the same request for a measured portion rather than abundance or want.

Proverbs 30:10

Accuse not a servant: A single proverb interrupts the numerical sayings to warn against slandering a servant to his master, lest the servant curse the accuser and the accuser be found guilty. The placement is deliberate, the commentators note, coming right after a prayer against theft and false swearing: unjust accusation is its own form of the dishonesty Agur has just prayed to avoid. The servant here has no standing to answer back, which is exactly why the proverb protects him.

Proverbs 30:11-14

There is a generation that curseth their father: Four times the sentence there is a generation opens a verse, and together they describe one kind of corruption from the inside out: cursing father and mother, counting themselves pure while unwashed from their own filthiness, eyes lofty with self-regard, and teeth like swords and knives that devour the poor and needy. The form carries no numeral count attached, but the fourfold repetition of there is a generation does the same rhetorical work the numbered sayings use elsewhere in the chapter. The devouring image in verse 14 gives the portrait its edge: pride and irreverence toward parents end, in Agur's arrangement, in violence against the defenseless.

Proverbs 30:15-17

The horseleach hath two daughters: The horseleach's two daughters crying give, give open the chapter's numerical form proper, three things that are never satisfied, yea four things say not, it is enough, and Agur names them: the grave, the barren womb, dry earth, and fire. The form itself, stated once here for the sayings that follow, counts up to a fixed number and then lands one item past it, so the last item carries the saying's point. Verse 17 closes the unit on the same appetite theme from the other direction, the eye that mocks a father and despises a mother's authority given over to the birds of prey, an image the bench reads as fitting punishment, the eye that scorned handed to the eyes that will eat it.

Proverbs 30:18-20

There be three things which are too wonderful for me: The second numerical saying names three things too wonderful for Agur, yea four he does not know: the way of an eagle in the air, a serpent on a rock, a ship in the sea, and a man with a maid, four paths that leave no trace behind them. Verse 20 turns the saying against the adulterous woman, whose way is just as untraceable to her, eating and wiping her mouth and saying she has done no wickedness. The bench reads the pairing as deliberate: what is wonder in nature becomes moral evasion in a woman who treats sin as leaving no mark, the way itself the same, the guilt entirely different.

Proverbs 30:21-23

For three things the earth is disquieted: The third numerical saying names disturbances to the social order rather than nature: a servant when he reigns, a fool filled with meat, an odious woman when she marries, and a handmaid who becomes heir to her mistress. Each item is a reversal of the position a person is fitted for, prosperity or power arriving without the character to carry it, which the commentators read as the saying's single point stated four ways. The earth itself is disquieted, the text says, as though the created order registers the wrongness before anyone else does.

Proverbs 30:24-28

There be four things which are little upon the earth: The fourth numerical saying turns from disorder to a gallery of small creatures exceeding wise: ants preparing their food without strength, conies making houses in the rocks without power, locusts marching in ranks without a king, and the spider that takes hold with her hands in king's palaces. Each creature compensates for one lack, strength, safety, leadership, or standing, with a single skill used well, and the bench reads the list as instruction by observation rather than allegory forced onto nature. The spider's presence in a king's palace closes the list on the same reversal theme running through the chapter, the small and unregarded reaching the great house by its own diligence.

Proverbs 30:29-31

There be three things which go well: The last numerical saying names four things stately in their walk: a lion that turns away from nothing, a greyhound, a goat, and a king against whom none can rise up. The list moves from the animal kingdom to the human, closing the chapter's numerical form on kingship, the picture Agur, an otherwise obscure sage, uses to describe the confidence proper to rightful authority. The bench notes the Hebrew of the second and third items is uncertain in identification, greyhound and he goat among the possible renderings, without the uncertainty touching the saying's point.

Proverbs 30:32-33

If thou hast done foolishly: The chapter's numerical sayings give way to a closing warning: if thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, silence as the remedy for pride already indulged. The proverb that follows argues from three kinds of forcing to a fourth: churning milk brings forth butter, wringing the nose brings forth blood, so the forcing of wrath brings forth strife. The chapter that opened on a confession of ignorance ends on the same restraint, agitation producing exactly the result its own force guarantees, and the wise course is not to start it.