Proverbs 30

These are the words of Agur son of Jakeh. This is the message he spoke. The man said this to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal:

1The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal,

NoteAgur son of Jakeh appears nowhere else in the Bible and nothing else is known about him. The word translated "prophecy" or "message" is Hebrew *massa*, meaning an oracle or a burden laid on a speaker; it is also the name of a north Arabian tribe, so the line can equally be read "Agur son of Jakeh of Massa," which would make him a foreigner. The following words are among the most uncertain in the Hebrew Bible: the consonants read as the names "Ithiel and Ucal" can also be divided to mean "I am weary, God, and worn out," which is why modern translations differ so sharply here.

2I am surely more like an animal than any man is. I do not have the understanding a person should have.

2Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.

3I never learned wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.

3I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

Note"The Holy One" translates a Hebrew plural, literally "holy ones," which is used elsewhere both as a title for God and for heavenly beings. The plural form is a normal Hebrew way of speaking of God with emphasis.

4Who has gone up to heaven and come back down? Who has gathered the wind in his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who set up all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Tell me, if you know.

4Who 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?

NoteThese are riddle questions of a kind common in ancient Near Eastern wisdom writing: they are phrased so that the hearer cannot supply a human name in answer. The last question, about a son's name, is the hardest part of the riddle, and its sense has been debated since antiquity.

5Every word God speaks is pure and proven true. He is a shield to everyone who takes shelter in him.

5Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

Note"Pure" translates a Hebrew word taken from metalworking: metal refined in a furnace until the impurities are burned off. "Shield" is likewise a battlefield image, the small round shield a soldier carried on his arm.

6Do not add anything to his words. If you do, he will correct you, and you will be shown to be a liar.

6Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

NoteWarnings against adding to or subtracting from a text were a standard formula attached to ancient documents (treaties, law codes, letters) to protect them from being altered by copyists or by people quoting them.

7I am asking you for two things. Do not refuse me them before I die.

7Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die:

8Keep worthless talk and lies far away from me. Do not give me poverty, and do not give me riches. Give me just the food I need.

8Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:

NoteThe Hebrew is literally "feed me the bread of my portion", the fixed ration allotted to a household servant or a soldier, neither a feast nor a scarcity.

9If I have too much, I might turn away from you and say, "Who is the LORD?" And if I am poor, I might steal and dishonor the name of my God.

9Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.

Note"The LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants that Jewish readers traditionally do not pronounce, substituting the word for "Lord" instead. Where you see "Lord" in ordinary type, a different Hebrew word, meaning master, lies behind it. "Dishonor the name" (King James "take the name in vain") refers to a specific act: swearing an oath by God's name and lying, here, a thief denying his theft under oath.

10Do not tell lies about a servant to his master. If you do, he will call down a curse on you, and you will be the guilty one.

10Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.

NoteThe "servant" is a slave, who had no standing to answer an accusation made to his owner. A curse in this world was not merely angry words but was thought to release real harm against its target, so the powerless man's curse is treated as a genuine danger to the informer.

11There are people who curse their fathers and never speak well of their mothers.

11There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.

NoteCursing a parent was not simply rudeness: in Israelite law it was a capital offense, ranked with striking a parent. Saying that someone does not "bless" a mother means they never speak a good word over her, the ordinary duty of a grown child toward a parent.

12There are people who think they are clean, and yet they have never been washed from their filth.

12There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

Note"Clean" and "filth" here use the vocabulary of ritual purity. Being clean or unclean was a formal status, not a matter of hygiene, and it was removed by prescribed washings. The saying turns that language against people who assume the status without ever undergoing the washing.

13There are people who look down on everyone. Their eyes are proud and their glances are full of self-importance.

13There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.

14There are people whose teeth are like swords and whose jaws are like knives. They eat up the poor of the land and swallow the needy among us.

14There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.

15The leech has two daughters, and they cry, "Give! Give!" There are three things that are never satisfied, and four that never say, "That is enough":

15The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:

NoteThe leech was a familiar blood-sucking creature, used in ancient medicine and proverbial for never letting go. Verses 15–31 are built as numbered sayings ("three things, yes four") a standard form in Hebrew and other Near Eastern wisdom writing. The rising count is a device for holding attention, and the weight of the saying usually falls on the last item in the list.

16the place of the dead, a womb that has no child, dry ground that never gets enough water, and fire, which never says, "That is enough."

16The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.

Note"The place of the dead" is Sheol, the underworld where the Hebrew Bible pictures all the dead as going, pictured here as a mouth that swallows and never fills. A childless womb is listed beside it because in this society children were a household's survival, labor force and inheritance, so childlessness was experienced as a permanent unfilled hunger.

17As for the eye that laughs at a father and refuses to obey a mother, the ravens of the valley will peck it out, and the young vultures will eat it.

17The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.

NoteA corpse left in the open for scavenging birds instead of being buried was the worst disgrace imaginable in this culture; proper burial in the family tomb was owed to every person. The punishment fits the crime by wording: the eye that mocked is the eye that is taken.

18There are three things that are too wonderful for me, four that I do not understand:

18There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

19the way an eagle moves through the sky, the way a snake moves over a rock, the way a ship moves through the middle of the sea, and the way a man is with a young woman.

19The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

NoteThe Hebrew word translated "young woman" (*almah*) means a girl of marriageable age; it says nothing directly about whether she is married. The line is deliberately open: readers have taken "the way of a man with a young woman" as a fourth harmless wonder, and also as a first hint of the seduction described in the next verse.

20This is how a woman who is unfaithful to her husband acts: she eats, wipes her mouth, and says, "I have done nothing wrong."

20Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.

NoteEating and wiping the mouth is a euphemism for sexual intercourse, and the joke is in the gesture: the meal leaves no trace once the mouth is wiped, so the woman can claim nothing happened.

21There are three things that make the earth shake, and four it cannot put up with:

21For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:

22a servant who becomes king, a fool who has all the food he wants,

22For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat;

Note"Servant" here means a slave. The four items in this list are all reversals of the fixed social order of the ancient world, in which a slave, a fool, an unwanted wife and a household maid each had a settled place beneath someone else.

23a woman nobody loves who gets married, and a servant girl who takes her mistress's place.

23For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.

Note"A woman nobody loves" translates a Hebrew word meaning "hated," which in marriage law was a technical term for the less-favored of a man's wives rather than a description of active hatred. The maid "taking her mistress's place" describes a slave woman who supplants the wife in the household, the situation of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis.

24There are four things on earth that are small, and yet they are extremely wise:

24There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:

25ants are creatures with little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;

25The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;

26rock badgers are creatures with little power, yet they make their homes in the rocks;

26The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;

NoteThe rock badger, or hyrax, is a small thick-furred animal roughly the size of a rabbit that lives in colonies among cliffs and boulders in Israel and Sinai. The King James "cony" was an old English word for a rabbit, which is not the animal meant.

27locusts have no king, yet they all move out in ranks;

27The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;

28the lizard you can catch in your hands, yet it is found in kings' palaces.

28The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

NoteThe Hebrew name of this creature occurs only here and its identity is uncertain; ancient and modern translators have guessed at a lizard or gecko, while the King James translators guessed a spider. Either way the point is a small creature easily caught by hand that nevertheless lives in royal buildings.

29There are three things that walk with a proud step, and four that move well:

29There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely in going:

30the lion, the strongest of the animals, which backs away from nothing;

30A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any;

31the strutting rooster, the male goat, and a king with his army around him.

31A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up.

NoteThe Hebrew of the first item is literally "girded of loins" and no one knows for certain what animal is meant: the King James guessed a greyhound, most modern translations a strutting rooster, and some a war horse. The last phrase is also obscure; it can mean a king with his troops around him, or a king no one dares rise up against.

32If you have acted like a fool by making yourself out to be great, or if you have planned something evil, put your hand over your mouth.

32If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth.

NotePutting a hand over the mouth was a recognized gesture of enforced silence, made by someone who has been outargued, shamed, or is in the presence of a superior.

33Churning milk produces butter, and twisting the nose produces blood. In the same way, stirring up anger produces fighting.

33Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.

NoteThe Hebrew makes a pun that English cannot carry: the same word for pressing or squeezing is used three times, press milk and you get butter, press the nose and you get blood, press anger and you get a fight.