Proverbs 30
The book turns a corner here. After chapter on chapter of a teacher pressing wisdom on a son, a new and unfamiliar voice steps forward: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy (v. 1). We are not told much about him, and that fits, because the first thing Agur does is insist on how little he is. He opens not with credentials but with confession: Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy (vv. 2-3). It is a startling way to begin a chapter in a wisdom book - and it is exactly the posture the whole book has been driving at. The one who finally admits he does not have it figured out is the one positioned, at last, to learn.3
From that low place Agur asks the questions that put every human in his place: Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? (v. 4). And then a question that reaches further than the rest: what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? The chapter does not stop to answer. Instead it sets down the one certainty a person in Agur's position can hold onto: Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar (vv. 5-6). When your own understanding fails, the word of God does not.1
Out of that trust comes the chapter's most loved prayer - a request not for greatness but for enough: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me (v. 8). The rest of the chapter unfolds as a set of riddling lists, counted out three things… yea, four: kinds of people whose pride or cruelty unsettle the world, creatures too small to be strong yet exceeding wise, things too wonderful to be traced out, and a final warning about the man who stirs up strife. Behind all of it runs the chapter's opening note: the world is vast and full of mystery, and the beginning of wisdom is the humility to admit it.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Proverbs 30:1-6Every Word of God Is Pure
1The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal, 2Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. 3I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. 4Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? 5Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. 6Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
The chapter steps away from the long teacher-to-son speeches and gives us a man and a confession: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh… Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy (vv. 1-3). It is a stunning thing to find at the front of a wisdom collection. Agur does not open with his qualifications; he opens by emptying himself of them. He calls himself brutish - the word for an animal that lives by instinct without understanding - and says flatly that he never attained the wisdom he sought, that he has no grasp of the knowledge of the holy. This is not the false modesty that fishes for a compliment. It is the honest report of someone who has looked hard at how much there is to know and how little of it he holds. And it is, in fact, the exact posture the whole book has been working toward. Proverbs began by warning that fools despise wisdom and instruction - that the proud heart, sure it has already arrived, cannot be taught. Agur is the opposite. By admitting he does not have it figured out, he becomes, at last, a man who can actually learn.3
From that emptied place Agur asks the questions that cut every human being down to size: Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? (v. 4). The questions march outward through the whole created order - the height of heaven, the moving wind, the gathered seas, the founded earth - and each one points past every human reach. No one ascends to heaven and comes back down at will. No one holds the wind in a closed hand or ties up the waters in a cloak or lays the foundations of the world. These are not riddles waiting for a clever answer; they are a way of making a person feel, in his bones, how small he is against the scale of things. The wording deliberately echoes the great questions God Himself put to Job out of the whirlwind - Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Agur is doing to himself what God did to Job: standing under a sky too big to manage and letting it teach him his size. Then comes the question that reaches furthest of all, and we take it up on its own below: what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?
Having confessed how little he knows and asked what no one can answer, Agur lands on the one solid thing a person in his position can stand on: Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar (vv. 5-6). The logic is quietly profound. If my own understanding is this limited - if I cannot gather the wind or trace the foundations of the earth - then I dare not lean on it. But there is a word that does not fail. God's word is pure, tested and clean, and the God who speaks it is a shield, a real protection, to everyone who trusts Him. So the right response is twofold. Trust it - take cover behind it as behind a shield. And do not tamper with it: Add thou not unto his words. To pad God's word with our own additions, to bend it toward what we already wanted it to say, is to risk being found a liar - exposed when the word we leaned on turns out to be ours and not His. The man who knows he is brutish does not improve on Scripture. He shelters under it exactly as it stands.
Proverbs 30:7-9Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches
7Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: 8Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: 9Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
Now the chapter gives us one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Scripture, and it grows straight out of Agur's humility. Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die (v. 7). Notice the shape of the request. A man who has just confessed how little he understands does not ask for much. He asks for two things only, and they are modest things - the prayer of someone who has learned to want rightly because he has learned how easily he could want the wrong thing. The first request is for truth: Remove far from me vanity and lies (v. 8). Before he asks for anything about his circumstances, he asks to be kept clear of falsehood - both the lies others tell and the vanity, the empty self-deception, he is prone to tell himself. It is the same instinct as verses 5-6: having seen that his own understanding is unreliable, he begs God to keep him in what is true. A person who knows he can be fooled, most of all by himself, prays first to be kept honest.
The second request is the one the chapter is remembered for: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me (v. 8) - that is, enough food for my need, my daily portion, and no more. It is an astonishing thing to pray. Almost no one asks for the middle. We ask to be spared poverty, yes; but who prays to be spared riches? Agur does, and he tells us exactly why: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain (v. 9). He has looked honestly at his own heart and seen that both extremes are spiritually dangerous. Wealth tempts toward a proud forgetfulness - the full and self-sufficient soul that quietly decides it has no need of God and asks, Who is the LORD? Poverty tempts toward desperation - the cornered soul driven to steal, and so to dishonor the name of the God it claims. What Agur fears is not discomfort; it is being pulled away from God in either direction. So he asks for the place where trust is easiest to keep: not so much that he forgets the Giver, not so little that he is tempted to betray Him. Enough, and not too much.
Proverbs 30:10-17Things That Never Say, It Is Enough
10Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. 11There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. 12There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. 13There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up. 14There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
After the prayer, the chapter turns to a gallery of portraits, and the first is a single warning that sets the moral tone: Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty (v. 10). Do not stir up trouble for the lowly by slandering a servant to the one with power over him; such cruelty rebounds on the head of the one who does it. Then comes a striking fourfold portrait of a single kind of people - a generation repeated four times like a drumbeat (vv. 11-14). It is a study of pride curdled into harm. First, those who curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother - contempt for the very ones to whom they owe their life. Second, those pure in their own eyes, and yet… not washed from their filthiness - self-deceived, congratulating themselves on a cleanness they do not have. Third, those whose eyes are unbearably lofty - arrogance you can read on the face. And fourth, the cruelest turn of all: those whose teeth are as swords… to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men. The progression is no accident. It moves from contempt for parents, to self-righteousness, to naked arrogance, and finally to devouring the weak - pride following its own logic all the way down to violence against those least able to defend themselves.
15The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: 16The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough. 17The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
Now the chapter shifts into the riddling, counted-out form that will carry it the rest of the way: The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough (v. 15). The leech is a perfect emblem of a craving that can never be filled - it fastens on and only ever says Give, give. Then four images of the unfillable: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough (v. 16). The grave swallows the dead and is never full. The barren womb aches and is never satisfied. Dry ground drinks rain and thirsts again. Fire devours and only roars for more. Each is a picture of an appetite that grows by feeding rather than being filled - and set just after the prayer of verse 8, the contrast is sharp. Agur asked for enough; these four never know the word. They are a mirror held up to every craving in us that more only enlarges. Then verse 17 returns, grimly, to the theme of contempt for parents from verse 11: The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out. It is vivid and severe - the scornful eye left exposed to the carrion birds - a proverb's blunt way of saying that contempt for those who gave you life does not go unanswered; it ends in ruin and shame.
Proverbs 30:18-33Three Things… Yea, Four
18There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: 19The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. 20Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness. 21For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: 22For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat; 23For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.
The chapter now gathers into a series of numbered sayings, each counted three… yea, four - a poetic form that names a short list and then adds a climactic fourth. The first is a meditation on mystery: There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid (vv. 18-19). Notice what unites the four - each leaves no track. The eagle cuts through the sky and the air closes behind it. The serpent glides over bare rock without a trail. The ship parts the sea and the waters seal up after it. And the way of a man with a maid - the mysterious drawing of love between a man and a woman - is, to Agur, of the same order: wonderful, untraceable, beyond his power to chart. This is the man who already confessed I am more brutish than any man (v. 2) speaking again in character. He is not solving the mysteries; he is standing before them in wonder. Then verse 20 sets a dark counterpart beside the beauty of verse 19: Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness. Here too is a way that leaves no track - but now the tracklessness is sinister: a conscience so seared it treats betrayal as casually as wiping crumbs from the mouth, denying any wrong was done at all.
The next saying turns to the things that throw the world out of joint: For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress (vv. 21-23). The four share a common thread - each is someone lifted into a place they are not fit to hold, and the result is misery for everyone around them. The servant suddenly given rule, with no wisdom for power, becomes a petty tyrant. The fool stuffed full and prosperous grows only more insufferable in his folly. The unbearable woman who finally marries, and the maid who supplants the mistress whose place she takes - in each case a station has been seized without the character to match it, and the earth itself, Agur says, can hardly bear it. The observation is shrewd about human life: it is not power or plenty or position in themselves that unsettle things, but power and plenty handed to those with no wisdom to carry them. It quietly underwrites the chapter's whole argument for humility. Wisdom, not status, is what fits a person to hold any weight well - and the one who knows he is brutish is, paradoxically, far safer with a little authority than the fool who is sure he deserves it all.
24There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: 25The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; 26The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; 27The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; 28The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.
Then comes the loveliest of the lists, and the one that most rewards a slow read: There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise (v. 24). Agur, who has spent the chapter on humility, now finds his own theme written into the small creatures of the world. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in summer against the winter - weakness redeemed by foresight. The conies (the rock badgers) are a feeble folk, yet they make their homes in the cliffs where no predator can reach - vulnerability redeemed by wisely chosen refuge. The locusts have no king, yet they move in perfect ordered ranks - smallness redeemed by unity. And the spider (or lizard) taketh hold with her hands, and for all her insignificance is found in kings' palaces - lowliness that nonetheless reaches the highest rooms. The whole list is a quiet rebuke to the gallery of the proud in verses 11-14. There the strong and lofty devoured the weak; here the weak flourish - not by becoming strong, but by being wise: provident, well-sheltered, united, persistent. It is the chapter's argument in miniature. Agur called himself the most brutish of men; these little creatures show that smallness, joined to wisdom, is no barrier to thriving. What undoes a life is not weakness but folly - and what saves it is not strength but the humble wisdom even an ant has.
29There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely in going: 30A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any; 31A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up. 32If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. 33Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
The last numbered saying admires four things comely in going - stately and dignified in the way they carry themselves: A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any; a greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up (vv. 29-31). The lion that yields to nothing, the striding hound, the he-goat leading the flock, the king secure at the head of his people - each moves with an unforced authority, a bearing that fits its place. It is the right counterpart to verses 21-23: there, those unfit for their stations threw the world into misery; here are creatures whose dignity genuinely belongs to them. And then, after all the lists, the chapter ends not with another marvel but with a hand laid over a mouth: If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife (vv. 32-33). If pride has carried you into folly - if you have schemed evil - stop. Put your hand on your mouth before another word makes it worse. The closing image is homely and exact: churn milk hard enough and you get butter; twist a nose and you get blood; press and press at anger and you will surely get a fight. Some pressures yield a fixed result. Keep forcing wrath and strife comes out, every time. The book that began by exalting wisdom ends this chapter where Agur began - in humility: silence the proud word, do not press the quarrel, and trust the God whose word is pure.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Proverbs 30 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the verb tsaraph (v. 5, “pure,” the refining of metal in fire), for the counted-saying form three… yea, four (vv. 15, 18, 21, 29), and for the much-discussed questions of verse 4.
- Proverbs 30 ↔ John 3 · Hebrews 1 & 4 · Matthew 4 & 6Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Proverbs 30 to the rest of Scripture - the ascending-and-descending question of verse 4 read beside he that came down from heaven (John 3:13), the purity of God's word (v. 5) beside the word of God is quick, and powerful (Heb. 4:12), and the prayer for daily bread (v. 8) beside Give us this day our daily bread (Matt. 6:11).
- Proverbs 30 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Proverbs 30 - the difficult superscription of verse 1, the force of Agur's self-abasement in verses 2-3, the numerical-saying pattern that organizes verses 15 through 31, and the natural history behind the four small but wise creatures of verses 24-28.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Every Word of God Is Pure
- Psalm 12:6The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.The same image as verse 5 - God’s word refined in the fire, proven and without impurity.
- John 3:13No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.Laid beside the open question of verse 4 - One who speaks of descending from heaven and ascending to it.
- Job 38:4-5Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?... who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest?The pattern Agur borrows in verse 4 - unanswerable questions about creation that cut a person down to size.
- Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.The living force of the word Agur calls pure in verse 5 - tested, potent, not to be tampered with.
- Deuteronomy 4:2Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it.The command echoed in verse 6 - do not add to God’s words; shelter under them as they stand.
Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches
- Matthew 6:11Give us this day our daily bread.The same trust as verse 8 - asking the Father for the day’s portion, no more and no less.
- Luke 12:20-21Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee... So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.The danger of verse 9 - the full heart that forgets the Giver and says, in effect, Who is the LORD?
- 1 Timothy 6:8-9And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.Agur’s prayer for enough (v. 8) carried into the New Testament - contentment over the snare of wanting riches.
- Deuteronomy 8:12-14Lest when thou hast eaten and art full... then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God.Exactly the peril of verse 9 - fullness breeding the proud forgetfulness that no longer reckons with God.
- Philippians 4:11-12I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content... both to be full and to be hungry.The settled heart Agur prays toward in verses 8-9 - kept steady by God whether in plenty or in want.
Things That Never Say, It Is Enough
- Proverbs 27:20Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.The same truth as verses 15-16 - the unfillable grave as a mirror for the unsatisfied human heart.
- Ecclesiastes 5:10He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase.The leech’s Give, give (v. 15) in another key - an appetite that feeding only enlarges.
- Luke 18:11-12God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are... I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.The generation pure in its own eyes (v. 12) - self-congratulation blind to its own need of washing.
- Exodus 20:12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land.The command despised by the generation of verse 11 and the scornful eye of verse 17.
- James 4:6God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.The lofty eyes of verse 13 weighed - the arrogance God sets Himself against, over against Agur’s humility.
Three Things… Yea, Four
- Job 42:3I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.The very words of verse 18 on Job’s lips - a man humbled before mysteries beyond his grasp.
- Proverbs 6:6-8Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise... provideth her meat in the summer.The ant of verse 25 held up elsewhere in the book - the small creature whose foresight schools the proud.
- Isaiah 53:7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth... as a sheep before her shearers is dumb.The hand laid on the mouth of verse 32 lived to the full - silence under the worst provocation.
- James 1:19Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.The counsel of verses 32-33 in the New Testament - restrain the tongue before forced wrath breeds strife.
- Matthew 5:9Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.The blessing on the one who refuses to force the quarrel of verse 33 - making peace rather than strife.