Proverbs 30:4

4. Ascended up The object of this passage is, probably, like that of many similar ones, to impress the mind with the incomprehensible greatness of the divine Author of all existence, his majesty, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his inscrutable perfections, and his unapproachable glory. So in Job 11:7-8: “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” So, also, Paul, in Romans 11:33-35: “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” There are also many similar passages in the Psalms. It is the language of the emotions, of poetry, labouring to express rather, feeling utterly incompetent to express the glory of the divine character, and giving up in despair. Compare Job 15:8; also the whole of Job 37, 41, and Job 38:4; Psalms 104:3; Isaiah 40:12; Jer 23:18 ; 1 Corinthians 2:16.

Bound the waters in a garment Some expositors understand this of the waters “above the firmament,” (Genesis 1:7;) that is, in the atmosphere. Others, with more plausibility, of the waters of the ocean, which are in sundry places presented under the idea of being straitened, confined within their appropriate limits, by divine statute. Compare Proverbs 8:39. The assertion is gratuitous, that the inspired Hebrew writers regarded the רקיע , ( rakia’h,) the expanse, improperly rendered by the Greek στερεωμα , stereoma, and the Latin, firmamentum, as a solid pavement by which the waters were held up. Figurative expressions, such as “the windows of heaven,” do not prove it, any more than similar forms found in our own literature would prove to a reader a thousand years hence that we had the same idea.

Established all the ends of the earth אפסי ארצ , ( aphse-arets,) ends, extremities, or boundaries of the earth, that is, of the land as distinguished from the waters. The two clauses may be translated thus: Who hath folded up (compressed) the waters in the mantle? Who hath constituted (ordered, ordained) all the boundaries of the land? An allusion, probably, to Genesis 1:9; “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.” It is remarkable that יקוו , ( yikkavu,) gathered together, has the same radical meaning as the above, namely, that of being bound up or folded together. (See Gesenius on the word קוה , ( kavah.) There is a reference in the verse, first, to the visible heavens, or what the Hebrews called the second heavens the place of the heavenly bodies, sun and stars; secondly, to the first heavens the atmosphere, the region of the air, wind, which he gathers in his hand, or controls; thirdly, to the water and land as being adjusted and bounded by his ordinance the sea, to which be has given its decree that the waters should not pass his commandment, limit.

The earth Land, to which he has appointed the foundations. Now follows the great question,

What is his name Tell me, that is, according to a well-known Hebraism, What is He, who is He, what must He be, who performeth such wonders in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, and in the waters that are under or within the earth? Or, if thou canst declare to me nothing of himself, knowest thou the name of any one related to him, as for instance, a son, of whom we may inquire? As if he had said, If thou knowest any way or means by which we may attain to a knowledge of this ineffably glorious Being, tell me, O tell me!

Thus the majority of expositors understand this remarkable language. The sense is a good one, and yet, perhaps, it is scarcely satisfactory. A mind having somewhat the same yearnings as are here expressed may still ask: Is there not something more in it? May there not be also under these anxious interrogations, made under the divine afflatus, a foreshadowing of the glorious Son of God, the יהוה , or יהוה , ( Yehovah, or Yahveh,) the coming one, for whose appearing, as the revealer of God, (John 1:18,) so many prophets and righteous men of ancient times intensely looked as the hope of humanity: “Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” Thus much, at least, the passage may show; that the idea of divine relations I will not say persons, but relations of paternity and filiation, does not seem to have been altogether foreign, nor appeared wholly absurd, to the mind of ancient sages like Agur, who is nevertheless clearly monotheistic in his conceptions of the great Author of our being. And if the expression should mean all that some interpreters, both ancient and modern, believe, it would seem to find a corresponding voice in the words of the Deliverer himself. Compare a few passages: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” John 3:13. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”

Matthew 11:27. To the same purport are the words of the Baptist: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” John 1:18. Nor should it be forgotten that David had, probably before Agur, in an ode unquestionably Messianic, used the word, בן , ( ben,) son, and its equivalent, בר , ( bar,) “Thou art my Son.” Psalms 2:7. “Kiss the Son.” Psalms 2:12. His son’s name Most of the ancient Versions correspond to the Hebrew here; but the Septuagint has the plural sons, and the Arabic has, “What is the name of his father.”