Proverbschapter 30
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Speaks with:Proverbs 30×5Proverbs 6×3Proverbs 5×2Daniel 3×2Proverbs 20×2Proverbs 16×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The words of Agur, wisdom that begins in creaturely smallness: 'Surely I am more brutish than any man… Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended?… what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?' Every word of God is tried; add thou not unto his words. The two-request prayer: 'Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me.' Then the numerical sayings, four things never satisfied; four too wonderful ('the way of an eagle… the way of a man with a maiden'); four little things exceeding wise: ants, conies, locusts, the lizard in kings' palaces.
Context
Poetry · Solomon, Agur, Lemuel — Proverbs overview
- A. 1–9 Agur's Confession: Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches
- B. 10–23 Three Things, Yea Four, That Are Never Satisfied
- C. 24–33 Four Things Little Upon the Earth but Exceeding Wise
The outline
A.Agur's Confession: Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Richesvv. 1 to 9
Read vv. 1 to 9 →B.Three Things, Yea Four, That Are Never Satisfiedvv. 10 to 23
Read vv. 10 to 23 →C.Four Things Little Upon the Earth but Exceeding Wisevv. 24 to 33
Read vv. 24 to 33 →
The world behind this chapter
Proverbs 30The history
The chapter is signed by someone other than Solomon: "the words of Agur the son of Jakeh." Nothing else is known about him. The Hebrew word rendered "the prophecy" or "the burden" can also be read as a place name, Massa — a north Arabian tribe listed among Ishmael's sons — which would make Agur a wise man from outside Israel whose words Israel recognised as true and preserved. The traditional Jewish reading takes Agur as another name for Solomon himself. The text does not settle it, and honesty is better than a guess.
The numbered sayings — "three things… yea, four" — use a form found across the ancient Near East, including in the Ugaritic poems from Ras Shamra. The count is a teaching hook: you listen through the list waiting for the last item, which carries the weight.
The four small creatures are observed, not invented. Harvester ants really do stockpile seed through the summer. The conies are rock hyraxes, rabbit-sized animals that live in colonies in cliff crevices and bolt into the rock at any shadow. Locusts have no king yet swarm in a front that can strip a region — Israel had seen it. The lizard runs on walls and turns up inside palaces.
"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me" is a prayer with two named dangers: a full man says "who is the LORD?" and a starving man steals and drags God's name into court with a false oath.
What it meant to them
Agur opens by confessing he is too stupid to have figured God out — "who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended?" — and then points at the book instead: "every word of God is pure… add thou not unto his words."
For the first hearers, the effect of the animal lists was humbling in a specific way. The ants, the hyraxes, the locusts, and the lizard are all weak, and all of them manage. The proverb makes strength look less impressive than it did an hour ago.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Proverbs 30. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.