Proverbs 30:2

“Surely I am more brutish than [any] man, etc.] “Every man is [become] brutish in his knowledge”; man in his original state was a knowing creature but sinning lost his knowledge, and “became like the beasts that perish”; hence we read of the “brutish among the people”: but Agur thought himself not only brutish among the rest, but more brutish than any. So Platof833 says of some souls living on earth, that they are yhriwdeiv, of a brutish nature; (see <241014>Jeremiah 10:14) (<194920>Psalm 49:20 94:8). Or I think the words may be rendered, “a brute [am] I [rather] than a man”f834; have more of the brute than of the man, especially in the sight and presence of God; a very beast before him, or…”

“brutish--stupid, a strong term to denote his lowly self-estimation; or he may speak of such as his natural condition, as contrasted with God's all-seeing comprehensive knowledge and almighty power. The questions of this clause emphatically deny the attributes mentioned to be those of any creature, thus impressively strengthening the implied reference of the former to God (compare Deu 30:12-14; Isa 40:12; Eph 4:8).”

“A confession of ignorance, with which compare the saying of Socrates that he was wise only so far as he knew that he knew nothing, or that of Asaph Psalms 73:22. return to 'Top of Page'”

“Surely - This he utters from a modest and humble apprehension of his own ignorance. Proverbs 30:3”

“I am: Job 42:3-6; Psa 73:22; Isa 6:5; Rom 11:25; Co1 3:18, Co1 8:2; Jam 1:5 brutish: Pro 5:12; Psa 92:6; Jer 10:14; Pe2 2:12-16 Proverbs 30:3”

“The כי now following confirms the fruitlessness of the long zealous search: 2 For I am without reason for a man, And a man's understanding I have not. 3 And I have not learned wisdom, That I may possess the knowledge of the All-Holy. He who cannot come to any fixed state of consecration, inasmuch as he is always driven more and more back from the goal he aims at, thereby brings guilt upon himself as a sinner so great, that every other man stands above him, and he is deep under them all. So here Agur finds the reason why in divine things he has failed to attain unto satisfying intelligence, not in the ignorance and inability common to all men - he appears to himself as not a man at all, but…”