Ver. 1. The words of Agur the son of Jakeh.] The Vulgate renders, Verba Congregantis filii Vomentis, taking these proper names for appellatives, as if the penman of this chapter meant to tell us that he would here give us his sacred collectanies or miscellanies, such as he had taken up from the mouths of wisest men, who had vomited or cast them up, in a like sense as that painter in Aelian drew Homer vomiting, and all the other poets licking it up. This Agur, whether he lived in Solomon’s days or Hezekiah’s, was an excellent man, as the word Gheber here used imports; Vir bonus et prudens, minus tamen clarus (as one saith of Jesse, David’s father), a godly, wise man, though nothing be elsewhere spoken of him in Scripture. Some think that, being requested by Ithiel and Ucal, two of his disciples, to give them a lesson, Socrates-like he answered, Hoc unum scio, quod nihil scio: This one thing I know, that I know nothing: “Surely I am more brutish than any man,” sc., of myself, further than taught of God; for every man is a brute by his own understanding, as Jeremiah hath it. (Jeremiah 10:8) But I rather incline to those that take Ithiel and Ucal for Christ, whose goodness and power—those two pillars of a Christian’s faith, as Jachin and Boaz were of Solomon’s temple—are by these two names deciphered, and whom he propounds as the matter of his prophecy. Now, because sense of misery must precede sense of mercy, neither can any be welcome to Christ, but “the weary and heavy laden”; therefore he first bewails his own brutishness—fetching it up as low as Adam fallen, (Proverbs 30:2) and aggravating it in that he had not yet acquired better abilities. (Proverbs 30:3) Next he flees to Ithiel and Ucal, by the force of a particular faith—Ithiel, God with me, and Ucal, God Almighty, through whom I can do all things. This, this was the right ready way of coming to Christ; and him that thus cometh he will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37) There is a good interpreter, that, paralleling this text with Jeremiah 9:23,24, reads it thus: A gathering together of the words of Agur, the son of Jakeh. Let the excellent man say, ‘Let God be with me, let God be with me, and I shall prevail.’ Aelian, Hist. var. Muffet.
Ver. 2. Surely I am more brutish than any man.] Or, Surely I have been brutish since I was a man. See how this good man vilifies, yea, nullifies himself to the utmost. This was true humility, that like true balm ever sinks to the bottom, when hypocritical, as oil, swims on the top. Humilitas, ab humo, because it lays a man flat on the ground. Agur had seen Ithiel and Ucal; hence he seeth so little by himself: “Now mine eyes have seen thee; wherefore I abhor myself.” (Job 42:5) “Woe is me! for I am undone,” saith Isaiah; “for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Proverbs 6:5) He that looks intently upon the sun hath his eyes dazzled; so he that beholds the infinite excellencies of God, considers the distance, cannot but be sensible of his own naughtiness, nothingness. It is fit the foundation should be laid deep, where the building is so high. Agur’s humility was not more low than his aims lofty: “Who hath ascended up into heaven?” It is a high pitch that he flies, for he knew well that godliness, as it begins in the right knowledge of ourselves, so it ends in the right knowledge of God. And have not the understanding of a man.] Or, Neither is there in me the understanding that was in Adam. Man, when he came first out of God’s mint, shone most glorious in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Socinians feign him silly, and therein betray their own silliness. He had a large measure of objective knowledge, both in natural things and supernatural; which we have lost in him. (1 Corinthians 2:14) This we should, with Agur here, sit down and bewail, as those in Ezra did the burnt temple. (Ezra 3:12) Tanta fuit Adami recens conditi stupiditas, ut maior in infantes cadere non possit. -Socin.
Ver. 3. I neither learned wisdom.] As he had it not by nature, so neither had he attained unto it by any pains or skill of his own. “There is a spirit indeed in man”—a reasonable soul and a faculty of reasoning—“but the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.” (Job 32:8) Not that Agur neglected the means of knowledge, or put off the study of it (as Solomon’s fool, Proverbs 24:7), from a conceit of the impossibility of reaching to it. Neither yet was he of their mind of whom Augustine makes mention that they cast off the care of knowledge, because knowledge puffeth up; and so would be ignorant that they might be humble, and want knowledge that they might want pride. This was to do as the philosopher that plucked out his eyes to avoid the danger of uncleanness. Sed nihil aliud egit quam quod fatuitatem suam urbi manifestam fecit, saith Tertullian, wherein he proclaimed his own folly to all the country. But holy Agur here assures us that flesh and blood never revealed these high things that follow unto him, but as Paul was an apostle, so was he a prophet “not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father,” (Galatians 1:1) even “the Father of lights.” (James 1:17) In nature’s school nothing is to be learned concerning Ithiel and Ucal. St Augustine, though much taken with Cicero’s “Hortensius,” yet because he found not the name of Christ in it he could not so heartily affect it. The philosophers much magnify the mind of man as full of divine light and perspicacy, when the truth tells us that it is “ Mens oblita Dei, vitiorumque oblita caeno. ” There is nothing great in the earth but man, nothing in man but his mind. Si eousque scandis, coelum transcendis, said Favorinus the philosopher; If you get up thither you ascend beyond heaven. But Agur “had not so learned Christ.” He talks of natural blindness and other evils born with him. Erras si tecum vitia nasci putes; supervenere, ingesta sunt. You are out, Agur, saith Seneca, if you talk on that manner; blindness is not natural to you, but adventitious. Agur bewails his loss in Adam; this nature’s eye never saw, and therefore heart never rued. Those that were born in hell knew none other heaven, as the proverb is. Agur tells us here that he never learned true wisdom from any man, but must thank God for that measure thereof that he had attained to. On the contrary Cicero tells us that, inasmuch as every man acquires to himself that virtue that he hath, no wise man ever yet gave God thanks for it. And Seneca saith, It is of the gods that we live, but of ourselves that we live well and honestly. How different are the saints in Scripture from the world’s wizards! Nor have the knowledge of the holy.] That is, Of the angels (Daniel 4:13,17 8:13) whom Jacob saw ascending and descending. (Genesis 28:12, compared with Proverbs 30:4 John 1:51) Moses made them looking intently into the mercy seat. (Exodus 25:18,19) Peter sets them forth as stooping down to look wishtly and earnestly into the mystery of Christ (1 Peter 1:12) which was hid from them till the discovery, and ever since, that they are great students in it. (Ephesians 3:10) But how should Agur, or any man else that cannot tell the form and the quintessence of things, that cannot enter into the depth of the flower, or the grass he treads on, that cannot understand the nature and properties of so small a creature as an ant or bee—Pliny tells of one that spent eight and fifty years in learning out the nature of the bee, and yet had not fully attained unto it—how is it possible, I say, that the wisest naturalist should have the wit to enter into the deep things of God? “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” &c. (1 Corinthians 2:9) Nemo nascitur artifex. In Apolog. Confess., lib. iii. Quia sibi quisque virtutem acquirit, neminem e sapientibus unquam de ea gratias Deo egisse. -Lib, iii. De Nat. Deor. Deorum quidem munus est quod vivimus, &c. -Sen. παρακυψαι Lib. xi. cap. 9.