Agur's Confession Streamlined

Introduction

Everyone has that drawer at home.

A busted tape measure. Batteries from 2006. Gift cards no one knows are still good. A few paper clips and a dog leash.

We lovingly call it the junk drawer.

If you don't have one, you probably have an engineer or military man or woman in your family!

This week I read a commentator who said Proverbs 30 looks like that drawer at first glance.

There are a lot of words, and you're not sure how they connect. It seems like wisdom thrown together in a hodge-podge.

But of course, it's not. This is God's Word, and none of it is aimless.

Proverbs 30 shows us the confession of a man who wants a right heart before God.

Then it shows us how a man with a heart of wisdom sees the world.

Today we look at the first nine verses, where we meet a man named Agur who asks God for the right things, so that he can have a right heart posture before Him.

Big Idea

The wise man understands his knowledge is insufficient, so he trusts in God for wisdom and contentment.

Outline

1. Confess With Humility (v. 1–4)

2. Trust in the Truth (v. 5–6)

3. Pursue Contentment in God (v. 7–9)

BACKGROUND

Author

So far in Proverbs we've seen:

Solomon write.

Solomon compile wise sayings from the surrounding Ancient Near East, especially Egypt.

Hezekiah's men compile Solomon's words years after his death.

This is the first time we have a completely different author: Agur.

We know very little about him, and the same is true of King Lemuel in chapter 31.

Verse 1 tells us he is the son of Jakeh.

His name suggests he probably isn't Jewish, and his writing shows he is wise.

Verse 1 also calls this an oracle: an authoritative, divinely inspired pronouncement.

So we have a wise man, likely a Gentile, inspired by the Spirit of God to give us truth.

A Translation Note

The end of verse 1 reads differently depending on your Bible.

ESV: "I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out." CSB: "The man's oration to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal."

Why the difference? ‘]

Ancient Hebrew was written in consonants without vowels.

Usually that causes no problem.

Here, scholars disagree on where the words break and where the vowels go.

The ESV reads it as a lament about human insufficiency.

The KJV and CSB read it as addressing two men, Ithiel and Ucal.

We'll stick with the ESV today, but the meaning of Agur's confession doesn't change either way.

It begins with humility.

1. CONFESS WITH HUMILITY (v. 1–4)

Worn Out by Human Insufficiency (v. 1)

If the ESV is right, this passage begins with a lament, and confessions often do.

We come to God groaning about what we haven't grown out of.

We come honest that we're out of ideas.

Agur is weary, and he says it twice.

Why?

Verses 2–3 tell us: he lacks knowledge, especially personal knowledge of the Holy One.

He's tired of his own inadequacy.

Maybe you have been there—Maybe you are there today!

Sub-Human (v. 2)

His lack of wisdom makes him feel like something less than a man, like a brutish animal.

It sounds like Asaph in Psalm 73.

Asaph envied the wicked, and that unwise thinking made him brutish before God.

Psalm 73:21–22 ESV

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

Agur isn't embittered, but he is exhausted...

...and he confesses the same brutish state.

The language is extreme on purpose.

It's hyperbole meant to make his point before God.

Education Has Failed Him (v. 3)

"I have not learned wisdom…" Education has failed him.

Was it bad teachers?

Was it that he didn't grasp it?

Maybe both.

Either way, he lacks what he needs most: an intimate knowledge of the Holy One, the God of Israel.

The First Sign of Humility: Honest Self-Examination (v. 1–3)

In these first three verses, Agur’s humility is on display.

Agur doesn't pray, "I'm glad I'm not like other people."

He prays the opposite: "I'm worse than other people. I'm like an animal!"

If we're going to be humble people, we have to be honest about the state of our lives.

We aren't aware of every way we need to grow...

...and God is kind to show us over time rather than all at once.

But if we examine ourselves honestly, we can all name a handful of places where we should pursue wisdom and holiness with more zeal.

Don't bury your head in the sand.

Look those places in the eye, call them what they are, and bring them to the Lord.

The door frame of humility is a low one. You have to stoop before God, or you'll never walk through it.

The Second Sign of Humility: Honestly Examining God (v. 4)

Agur doesn't only look within. He looks up.

Verse 4 asks five rhetorical questions: (READ THEM CORRESPONDINGLY WITH VERSE)

Who can bridge heaven and earth?

Who controls the wind?

Who moves the waters to accomplish His will?

Who established the earth?

What is His name, and His son's name?

In context, the "son" is Israel, God's son, something even a Gentile can see. It is not a direct reference to Jesus.

Then Agur adds: "Surely you know!" —> RHETORICAL

Surely we all know how big the gap is between humanity and the sovereign God.

These are the same kind of questions God asked Job:

Job 38:3–4 ESV

Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

Job wasn't there when the foundations were laid, any more than Agur can hold the wind in his fist.

Like them—We are finite, and so is our wisdom.

Agur's questions are truly more confession: he is not God, and it isn't close.

None of us are.

A Humble Confession

So then Agur shows us two signs of true humility:

He honestly examines himself and brings his weakness to God (v. 1–3).

He honestly examines God and rightly sees Him as Creator, Sustainer, and Father (v. 4).

We should want these same identifiers of humility to be found in us.

YOU MUST Get low before God, and

get honest with Him about HIM

and about YOURSELF.

SPURGEON: Only then will we properly fear God and stand on the doorstep of the temple of His wisdom.

2. TRUST IN THE TRUTH (v. 5–6)

Every Word of God Proves True (v. 5a)

Agur turns from man's insufficient knowledge to the fixed, sufficient knowledge of God revealed in His Word.

Unlike man's shaky wisdom, God's Word proves true.

We understand what it means for something to be proven true. It's why we check reviews online before we buy. We want to know three things:

Has its quality been tested?

Is it authentic, or a knock-off?

Will it do what it promises?

Well, the reviews are in on God's Word.

Its quality has been tested by fulfilled prophecy.

Isaiah, 700 years before Christ, foretold the virgin birth and the Lamb led to slaughter.

David, a millennium before the cross, described the crucifixion, down to soldiers gambling for His clothes.

Its authenticity is backed by the evidence.

There are thousands of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, dated remarkably close to the events.

They show incredible consistency across copies and centuries.

You may not believe the Bible, but you can't call it inaccurate to what the authors wrote.

If you do, you have to throw out every ancient book, because they all have far less manuscript evidence.

It does what it promises, which we see in changed lives.

Sinners have turned from sin and trusted Christ.

The blood of Jesus has washed them, and the Spirit has come to dwell in them.

Churches have been planted, provision has come, prayers have been answered, and saints have stayed faithful to the end.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 ESV

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

The Word is a product of God and it is proven and trustworthy for every soul who would lean on it!

The True Word Shows Us True Refuge (v. 5b)

Agur has just admitted the limits of his own understanding.

He is weary, vulnerable, and aware that his own wisdom cannot give him the answers or security he needs.

Then he turns from what he does not know to what he can trust:

“Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” (Prov. 30:5)

Our knowledge cannot be our refuge. 

We will never know enough to understand everything God is doing or to navigate life on our own wisdom.

But we can trust the God who does know everything. When our understanding runs out, His Word does not.

The refuge isn't knowing everything; it's trusting the God who does.

Verse 5 pictures God as a warrior on the battlefield holding out an impenetrable shield: “Get behind it. You're safe with Me.”

By faith, Agur can stop trying to find security in his own understanding and take refuge in the God who has spoken.

And that same refuge is available to every exhausted soul.

When we don't understand, we have God's Word.

When we feel vulnerable, we have God's protection.

When our wisdom fails, we have a God whose Word has proven true.

The answer to our limitations is not to pretend we know more than we do. It is to trust the One who does.

And ultimately, the Scriptures point us to the God who has made Himself known through His Son.

Jesus says that the Scriptures “bear witness about me” (John 5:39).

The God whose Word is true is the God we can trust completely.

He points you to the One who saves you from your own folly

You can see: Man's wisdom leaves us weary. God's Word leaves us well-guarded.

Man's wisdom leaves us unsure, making bad decisions, exposing our relationships to foolishness, suffering without hope, and distant from God.

God's wisdom guards us with concrete wisdom to live by, righteous thinking and action, godly ways of treating others, hope in hard seasons, and nearness to God.

No Adding to the Words (v. 6)

If God's Word is perfect and proven, there's no room for improvement.

Why would we use our insufficient wisdom to "fix" His?

Scripture warns against this in both testaments:

Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Revelation 22:18–19 ESV

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Tampering with God's truth brings His discipline and exposes us as liars who don't love the truth.

We add to God's Word when we:

Treat personal convictions and preferences as divine law and bind others' consciences with them.

Promise what God never promised, like prosperity preachers who turn God into a vending machine.

We take away from God's Word when we:

Soften commands that are personally or culturally inconvenient.

Treat some passages as outdated.

Instead of standing over the Word, we get low before it:

"Lord, I trust Your Book as it is. Every proven word. Let me find my refuge in You by finding You in the Word."

3. PURSUE CONTENTMENT IN GOD (v. 7–9)

Two Urgent Requests

"Two things I ask of you…"

Agur loves this pattern: two things, two daughters, three things, four things, things too wonderful, things that make the earth tremble. [Prompt: point to v. 15, 18, 21, 24.]

Here he has two urgent requests, and he wants them answered before he dies.

He's chasing something in this life.

Request 1: To Live in the Truth (v. 8a)

He wants falsehood and lying out of his life.

He wants a life whose integrity matches the proven Word he has just praised.

This is how intimacy with God is kept. Those who live in the truth live with God.

Psalm 15:1–2 ESV

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart;

Agur is done living in the slums of human wisdom. He wants to dwell on God's holy hill.

Request 2: To Live Content in God (v. 8b–9)

He asks for neither extreme.

Not riches: He might ask"Who is the Lord?"

because fullness would make him proud

Abundance could trick him into trusting riches instead of God.

Not Poverty: because WANT would tempt him to steal and profane God's name.

Lack could trick him into taking matters into his own hands.

Instead he prays: "Feed me with the food that is needful for me."

That means no surplus to coast on and no lack to scramble over.

Just enough, which means depending on God again every day.

This is how Jesus taught us to pray!

"Give us this day our daily bread."

Daily dependence teaches us to trust Him, and to learn that He is all we really need.

Watson in The Art of Divine Contentment

The poor are prone to cast a jealous eye on the prosperous, and a jealous eye is an evil eye.

The prosperous are prone to eye everything they don't yet have and ask, "Could it be mine?"

God has supplied our wants; must He satisfy our lusts too?

Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment

Israel in the Wilderness (Exodus 16)

God gave manna for daily provision.

When people hoarded it, it rotted.

Exodus 16:20 ESV

But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.

Those who gathered what they needed had neither surplus nor lack.

Exodus 16:18 ESV

But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.

That was by design.

God wanted them content in Him, not in the bread.

Nothing Has Changed

God doesn't want us trusting money, houses, clothes, or any scheme to get the world's goods.

He may give us those things, even in abundance.

But we can't let them undo what His grace and His Word have done in us by trusting in Him.

God has saved us to separate us from idols—not to trust in them.

God wants us to come to the end of ourselves and trust in Him.

Agur IS at the end of himself:

He confesses what he cannot do.

He trusts what God's Word can do.

Now he says, "I just want You."

"Give me just enough to keep me from being prideful or profaning, and to keep me depending on You daily."

That's the heart God wants in you, whatever your bank account looks like.

CONTENT IN HIM!

Philippians 4:11–13 ESV

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

How did Paul learn contentment? By depending on the strength of the great Sustainer.

Diagnostic questions:

Are you content in the Lord and in what He provides day by day—trusting in Him and His Word as your refuge?

Well—Does the idea of abundance make you feel safe and happy?

And—Does the idea of lack bring fear and dread?

And would you do just about anything to have abundance so that fear will never, ever come.

These may be signs that your heart trusts in what God provides more than in God Himself.

This is less than what God wants for you

He wants you to get low before Him—owning your insufficiencies

He wants you to trust in His Word

And He wants you to be satisfied in Him day by day

Is this what your relationship with God looks like?

Is this how you walk with Him?

GOSPEL CONCLUSION

Maybe today the Word has exposed something in you:

Pride.

An assumption that you can live without God's wisdom.

An obsession with what you have.

For freedom from these things, we need a better sage than Agur.

We need Christ, who is the Wisdom of God.

In verse 4, Israel is God's son.

But Israel was a son who failed: p

prideful, untrusting, complaining instead of content.

They were sinners, just like us.

How will sinners be saved?

If we will be wise like Agur, we must bring our hearts to Jesus.

He lived a perfect life.

He died on a sinner's cross.

He rose from a rich man's grave.

He is the humble Champion over sin and the grave.

He is the greatest proof that God's Word is true.

Come to Him confessing your sin and asking for a new heart, and He will be your contentment, now and forever.

Human knowledge will fail, but Christ our wisdom is more than enough for our weary souls.