Too Stupid
Perhaps you sometimes feel like this, as I do sometimes:
The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. (Proverbs 30:1-3)
The chapter opens with a title: “The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle.” We don’t know anything else about Agur. There are several unconnected bits of wisdom from this Agur conveyed in this chapter, and then chapter 31 shifts to, “The words of King Lemuel.”
It’s fairly straightforward figuring out where one bit ends and the next begins. Verses 5-6 are one bit, then 7-9, then verse 10, then 11-14 and so on. But it’s not perfectly clear whether verse 4 is part of the bit quoted from verses 1-3, or if it’s a separate bit. Here it is:
Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:4)
The series of questions are very reminiscent of God’s questions to Job, when He confronts him in Job 38-41. I have to think that Agur is deliberately evoking God’s challenge of Job. So we should take note of Job’s response to God:
“Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5)
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted… I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know… I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6)
What Job has to say seems to be very much in line with Agur’s confession of his own weariness, stupidity and foolishness. So it seems to me that verse 4 belongs with the bit in verses 1-3.
Okay, then what’s here for us to learn? Maybe first of all, that if we have foolishly mouthed off, that’s not necessarily the end. We may be confronted by God with a, “Who do you think you are?” As Job was, and as Agur seems to pick up and apply to himself. If we are confronted in that way, I think Agur is saying, that’s a good thing. It shows God hasn’t given up on us, is still working with us, even if we are (spiritually) stupid.
How might the confrontation come to us? It’s unlikely to be a voice from a whirlwind as it was for Job. I think the way it comes to us is reading the insight expressed by Agur—and then applying it to ourselves. Where did Agur get it? He read Job.
Yes, I’m too stupid to be a man. I’m worn out, I’m far more ignorant that I like to think of myself, I’m foolish. But Agur points us in the right direction: humbling ourselves and remembering who’s truly in charge, the one “who has established all the ends of the earth.” And look how he closes this bit of wisdom: “What is his name, and what is his son's name?”
Where does the mention of “his son’s name” come into it? Agur was looking forward, and apparently grasped the role “his son” would play. The role of the Savior, the High Priest. The one who can redeem us even from our stupidity and foolishness.
Love, Paul