성경 주석서

The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, [even] the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal,

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. Aelian, Hist. var. 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, Muffet. 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.’

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Surely I [am] more brutish than [any] man, and have not the understanding of a man.

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. Tanta fuit Adami recens conditi stupiditas, ut maior in infantes cadere non possit. - Socin. 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

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I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

I neither learned wisdom. — As he had it not by nature, Nemo nascitur artifex. 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, In Apolog. 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. Confess., lib. iii. 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 Quia sibi quisque virtutem acquirit, neminem e sapientibus unquam de ea gratias Deo egisse. - Lib, iii. De Nat. Deor. 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. Deorum quidem munus est quod vivimus, … - Sen. 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 ; Daniel 4:17 ; Daniel 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 παρακυψαι 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 Lib. xi. cap. 9. 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," … 1 Corinthians 2:9

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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? what [is] his name, and what [is] his son’s name, if thou canst tell?

Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? — Who but the Son of man which is in heaven? John 3:13 who but the holy angels upon that Son of man, the ladder of life? John 1:51 who but those that have, in some measure, the knowledge of those holy ones, Proverbs 30:3 the knowledge of God in Christ, which is life eternal, John 17:3 heaven aforehand? Holy Agur holds it out to us here that to "know heavenly things" is to "ascend into heaven." Even Aristotle De Coelo, text. 99. saith that a little knowledge, though but conjectural, about heavenly things, is to be preferred above much knowledge, though certain, about inferior things, and yet he knew no heaven beyond the moveable heavens, neither acknowledged any body, or time, or place, or vacuum there. The truth is, no natural knowledge can be had of the third heaven, nor any help by human arts, for it is neither aspectable nor moveable. As no man hath seen God at any time, so, nor heaven, the throne of God, only "the only begotten Son of God which is in the bosom of the Father," he hath declared both him and heaven, John 1:18 as that there are many mansions, crowns, sceptres, kingdoms, glories, beauties, angelical entertainments, beatific visions, sweetest varieties, felicities, eternities. And yet all this, or whatsoever more can be said of heaven’s happiness, is not the one half, as she said of Solomon’s magnificence, of what we shall find in that city of pearl. To express it is as impossible as to compass the heavens with a span, or contain the ocean in a nutshell. Let there be continual ascensions thither in our hearts; let us lift up hearts and hands to God in the heavens, and he will shortly send his chariots for us, as Joseph did for his father, fetch us riding upon the clouds, convoy us by his angels through the air, as through the enemy’s country, and puts us into that panegyries, that general assembly, and solemn celebrity of holy and happy souls. Hebrews 12:23 As in the mean space, how should we every day take a turn or two with Christ upon Mount Tabor? - get up to the top of Pisgah with Moses, and take a prospect of heaven? - turn every solemnity into a school of divinity? Say, as Fulgentius, when he saw the nobility of Rome sit mounted in their bravery, Si talis est Roma terrestris qualis est Roma coelestis? If Rome be such a glorious place, what is heaven? What music may we think there is in heaven? said another good soul, when he sat and heard a good concert of music. This, this is the principal end and most profitable use of all creatures, Cum scalae nobis et alae fiant, When they become ladders and wings to us to mount up to heaven.

Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? … — None but God, the great wonder worker, the right Aeolus, that "bringeth the winds out of his treasures," Psalms 135:7 and bids them at his pleasure "Peace, be still." We read of a whirlwind raised by the devil, Job 1:19 and of a tempest, laid by the magicians (Herodotus, in Polymnia). But it cannot be said as 1 Kings 19:11 that "God was not in that wind"; for he hath the royalty of all the creatures, though he suffer the devil to play rex sometimes, for ends best known to himself.

Who hath bound the waters in a garment? — Those above the firmament, in clouds - through which they distil and drop down, as water would do if bound up in a garment - those below, in channels and bottles, as the Psalmist hath it. Water is naturally above the earth, as the garment above the body, and would, but for the providence of God, prove as the shirt made for the murdering of Agamemnon, where the head had no issue out, … See Trapp on " Genesis 1:7 "

What is his name? — God is above all name, to speak properly. When Manoah inquires after his name, the answer is, "It is Wonderful"; that is, I am called as I am called; but such is thy weakness that it passeth thy conception; this ocean will not be measured by thy musselshell. Multa nomina et lumina sibi finxerunt infideles. The heathens had many names for their dunghill deities; but the Africans called an "unknown god" whom they worshipped, Amen, that is, Heus tu quis est? Hark, who art thou? as Plutarch relateth. Lib. de Isid. et Osirid.

And what is his son’s name? — Christ hath many names in Holy Scripture, as Isaiah 9:6-7 . So "Jehovah, our righteousness"; "Messiah the Prince," Daniel 9:25 whereunto answereth in the New Testament, "the Lord Christ"; but "who can declare his generation?" Isaiah 53:8 whether that eternal generation, or that in the fulness of time, the mystery whereof was beyond words? Our safest eloquence here will be our silence, our greatest knowledge a learned ignorance. Only we have here a clear testimony of the distinction of the persons, and that the Son is coequal and consubstantial with the Father, since he is also, as the Father, above all name and notion.

If thou canst tell. — But so can none: "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither doth any man know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Matthew 11:27 The Son is so like the Father here, that if you know the one, ye cannot but know the other. John 14:7-9 Milk is not so like milk. Non tam ovum ovo simile. He is "the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person." Hebrews 1:3 See Trapp on "Hebrews 1:1-14 ; Hebrews 3:1-19 " And if we desire a glass wherein to behold the face of God the Father, and of his Son, here is one held forth in the next verse.

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Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield. — Albeit all the sacred sentences contained in this blessed book are pure, precious, and profitable; yet as one star in heaven outshineth another, so doth one proverb another, and this is among the rest, velut inter stellas luna minores, an eminent sentence often recorded in Scripture, and far better worthy than ever Pindar’s seventh ode was to be written in letters of gold. Oda septima Pind. tantae fuit admirationis apud Rhodios ut fuerit scripta in templo aureis literis, … - Joh. Manl., Loc. Com., 414. Every word of God is pure, purer than "gold tried in the fire," Revelation 3:18 purer than "silver tried in a furnace, and seven times purified." Psalms 12:6 Julian, therefore, that odious apostate, is not to be hearkened to, who said there was as good stuff in Phocylides as in Solomon, in Pindar’s odes as in David’s psalms. Nor is that brawling dog Porphyry to be regarded, who blasphemously accuseth Daniel the prophet, and Matthew the evangelist, as writers of lies, Os durum! harsh speech. The Jesuits, some of them, say little less of St Paul’s epistles, which they could wish by some means censured and reformed, as dangerous to be read, and savouring of heresy in some places. Spec. Europae. Traditions they commonly account the touchstone of doctrine and foundation of faith; the Scriptures to be rather a Commonitorium , as Bellarmine calls it, a kind of storehouse for advice, than cor et animam Dei, the heart and soul of God, as Gregory Greg., in iii. Reg. calls them, - a fortress against errors, as Augustine. Firmamentum contra errores. - Aug. in Johan., i. Tract. 2. The apostle calleth concupiscence sin - at non licet nobis ita loqui; but we may not call it so, saith Possevine, the Jesuit Possevin, Appar. sac. Verbo Pat. Antiq. The author to the Hebrews saith, "Marriage is honourable among all men"; but the Rhemists, on 1 Corinthians 7:9 , say that the marriage of priests is the worst sort of incontinence. Christ saith the sin against the Holy Ghost hath no remission. Bellarmine Lib. ii. De Poenit., cap. 16. saith that it may be forgiven. The Council of Constance comes in with a non obstante against Christ’s institution, withholding the cup from the people at the sacrament. And a Parisian doctor Montan. in 1 Cor. xiv. tells us, that although the apostle would have sermons and service celebrated in a known tongue, yet the Church, for very good cause, hath otherwise ordered it. Bishop Bonner’s chaplain called the Bible, in scorn, ‘his little pretty God’s book,’ and judged it worthy to be burnt, tanquam doctrina peregrina, as strange doctrine. Gilford and Raynolds said it contained some things profane and apocryphal. Others have styled it the ‘mother of heresy,’ and therefore not fit to be read by the common people, lest they suck poison out of it. Prodigious blasphemy! Of the purity and perennity of the holy Scriptures, see more in my True Treasure, pp. 85, 139.

He is a shield to them that put their trust in him. — See Genesis 15:1 See Trapp on " Genesis 15:1 " Proverbs 29:25 .

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Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

Add thou not unto his words. — As the Jews at this day do by their traditions, which they arrogantly call mashlamnutha, completio, perfectio, Buxtorf., Tiberius. because they think that thereby the law is completed and perfected, as the Artemonites, and after them the schoolmen, corrupted the Scripture out of Aristotle and Theophrastus, turning all into questions and quillets. Brightm. upon Rev., p. 292. As Mahomet joined his Alfurta, his service book, a horrible heap of all blasphemies, to the three parts of holy Scripture, as he divides them, the law, psalms, and gospel. As the Papists add their human inventions and unwritten verities, which they equalise unto, if not prefer before, the book of God, as appears by that heathenish decree of the Council of Trent. And when at the Council of Basil the Hussites denied to receive any doctrine that could not be proven by Scripture, Cardinal Cusan answered that Scriptures were not of the being of the Church, but of the well being, and that they were to be expounded according to the current rite of the Church, which, if it change its mind, the judgment of God is also changed. Jacob Revius, Hist. Pontiff, p. 235. Lastly, Such add to God’s word as wrest it and rack it; making it speak that which it never thought; causing it to go two miles where it would go but one; gnawing and tawing it to their own purposes, as the shoemaker taws To make (skins) into leather by steeping them, after suitable preparation, in a solution of alum and salt; the product is white and pliant, and is known as alum, white , or Hungarian leather. upper leather with his teeth. Tertullian calls Marcion the heretic, Mus Ponticus, of [from] his arroding and gnawing the Scripture, to make it serviceable to his errors.

Lest he reprove thee. — Both verbally and penally - both with words and blows. Lest he severely punish thee, as one that adds to his will, or imbaseth his coin.

And thou be found a liar. — As all Popish forgers and roisters at this day are found to be. God hath ever raised up such as have detected their impostures, and vindicated the purity and perfection of the sacred Scriptures.

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Two [things] have I required of thee; deny me [them] not before I die:

Two things have I required of thee. — Two special requests he had among many, for our present condition is a condition of singular vanity and indigence. We get our living by begging, and are never without somewhat to be required of God; never without our wants and ailments and suits for supplies.

Deny me them not. — See here both his familiarity with God in prayer and his importunity; for a lazy suitor begs a denial. Agur therefore re-enforceth his request: it was honest, else he would never have begun it; but being so, he is resolved to follow it. So doth David with his "one thing" which he did desire, and he would desire, Psalms 27:4 he would never give it over. So Jacob would have a blessing, and therefore wrestles with might and slight; and this he doth in the night and alone, and when God was leaving him, and upon one leg. He had a hard pull of it, and yet he prevailed. "Let me go," saith God: no, thou shalt not go, saith Jacob, till I have my request. It is not unlawful for us to be unmannerly in prayer, to be importunate, and after a sort impudent. Luke 18:8 δια γε την αναιδειαν , Luke 11:8 Propter improbitatem. Was not the woman of Canaan so? Matthew 15:22 She came for a cure, and a cure she would have; and had it too, with a high commendation of her heroic faith. Christ was no penny father; he had more blessings than one, even the abundance of the Spirit for them that ask it. When poor men make requests to us, we usually answer them as the echo doth the voice, the answer cuts off half the petition: if they ask us two things, we think we deal well if we grant them one. Few Naamans, that when you beg one talent will force you to take two. But God heaps mercies upon his suppliants, and blames them for their modesty in asking. "Hitherto you have asked me nothing"; nothing to what you might have done, and should have had. "Ask, that your joy may be full." "Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times," said the prophet to the king of Israel, that smote thrice only - "then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." 2 Kings 13:18-19

Before I die, — q.d., I intend to be a daily suitor for them while I live; and when I die I shall have no more to do in this kind. Every one as he hath some special grace or gift above others, and as he is dogged with some special temptation or violent corruption, so he hath some great request. And God holds him haply in hand about it all his lifelong, that he may daily hear from him, and that a constant intercourse may be maintained. Thus it was with David, Psalms 27:4 and with Paul. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 In this case we must resolve to give God no rest, never to stand before him but ply this petition; and yet take heed of prescribing to him, of "limiting the holy one of Israel." Say with Luther, Fiat voluntas mea: Let my will be done; but then he sweetly falls off with, mea voluntas, Domine, quia tua: My will, Lord, but because it is, and no further than it is, thy will too.

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Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:

Remove far from me vanity and lies, — i.e., All sorts of sins, those lying vanities that promise much happiness to those that pursue them, but perform little enough; "shame" at the best, but usually "death." Romans 6:21 ; Romans 6:23 Free me both from the damning and from the domineering power of sin; both from the sting and stain of it; from the guilt and filth; from the crime and curse; from the power and punishment. Let my person be justified, and my lusts mortified. "Forgive me my trespasses, and deliver me from evil."

Give me neither poverty nor riches. — So that God must give to be poor as well as to be rich. He makes holes in the money bag, Haggai 1:6 and he stops the secret issues and drains of expense at which men’s estates run out, they know not how nor when. Agur would have neither poverty, for the many inconveniences and discomforts that attend it, nor yet riches, for the many cares, cumbers, and other evils not a few that follow them; but a mediocrity, a competence, a sufficiency without superfluity. A state too big, he knew, is troublesome, as well as a shoe too big for the foot. They say it is not the great cage that makes the bird sing; sure we are it is not the great estate that brings always the inward joy, the cordial contentment. Glass keeps out wind and rain, but lets in the light, and is therefore useful in building. A moderate estate is neither so mean as to expose a man to the injuries, nor so great as to exclude a man from the influence of heaven. A staff may help a traveller, but a bundle of staves may be a burden to him; so may too great an estate to a godly man.

Feed me with food convenient for me. — Heb., With food of mine allowance, or which thou seest fit to allow me: so much as my demensum comes to; the piece that thou hast cut for me; the portion that belongs unto me; the bread of the day for the day; give me daily bread that I may in diem vivere, live on today, as Quintilian saith the birds do, the little birds, that have their meal brought in every day by their dams without defeatment. And hereunto the original here seems to allude. Pomponius Atticus thus defineth riches, Divitiae sunt, ad legem naturae composita paupertas, Riches are such a poverty or mediocrity as hath enough for nature’s uses. If I may have but offam et aquam, a morsel of meat, a mouthful of water, and convenient clothing, I shall not envy the richest Croesus or Crassus upon earth. See Trapp on " Matthew 6:11 " See Trapp on " 1 Timothy 6:8 "

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