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Whoever Agur may have been, it is certain that he was a sage who could express his thoughts in strong and trenchant language. If, as seems probable, these opening words had reference to the compliments or the questions of his disciples, we may glean, before we proceed further, three lessons by the way.

1. That rightful acknowledgment too easily passes into adulation.

2. That it is a very easy thing for the uninstructed to ask questions which the most enlightened cannot answer.

3. That true genius is modest, and knows well the hounds of its capacity. The main lessons are -

I. OUR DUTY TO DISCLAIM WHAT IS NOT TRUE CONCERNING US. Agur, using the language of hyperbole, energetically disclaims any such elevation as he was imagined to have attained (vers. 2, 3). Men will sometimes deny us the virtue or the wisdom which we may claim; but they will often offer us an honour which is not our due. We may be taken to be wealthier, or wiser, or stronger, or more generous, or more devout than we know ourselves to be. We should then distinctly and determinately decline to receive what does not belong to us. To accept it

(1) is dishonest, and any kind of dishonesty is sinful;

(2) is likely to inflate our minds with fond and vain conceptions, hurtful if not fatal to our humility;

(3) will sooner or later end in exposure and humiliation.

II. THE GREAT OBLIGATION TO REVERENCE. (Ver. 4.) We may know many things, but, when it is all told, what an infinitesimal fraction is this when compared with all that is unknown! What vast, what inexhaustible treasures of truth and wisdom are hidden, and must remain hidden, in the air, in the earth, in the sea! How little, then, can we understand of him, the Eternal and Infinite One, who reigns in the heavens! How unfathomable the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God" (Romans 11:33)!

1. How foolish to expect to understand his purpose, whilst he is outworking it, either concerning our individual life or the destiny of our race!

2. How prepared we should be to accept what God has taught us respecting our nature, or our duty, or our prospects, or respecting his own nature and his will!

3. How unwise to attempt to add to his teaching by any inventions of our own! Not, indeed, that we are not to make new applications, and find out truer interpretations of his Word; but that we are not to think and speak as if we had sources of wisdom apart from his Divine communication.

III. THE REWARD OF DOCILITY. (Ver. 5.) To learn of God is:

1. To repair to the fountain of purity. Everything God has said to us tends to purity, to Freedom from a degrading selfishness, from a corrupting worldliness, and from an enslaving and a shameful sensuality. To fill our minds and hearts with his holy truth lifts us up into an atmosphere where our whole nature is elevated and refined, where we are capacitated for the vision and fitted for the presence and the home of God (Matthew 5:8; Hebrews 12:14).

2. To learn of God and to connect ourselves with him by faith in Jesus Christ is to be well shielded in the battle of our life. For it is to have

(1) strong, sustaining principles within us, and

(2) the active and efficient guardianship of God around us as we pass through the sorrows of our life, and mingle in its many conflicts, and discharge its varied and weighty duties. - C.

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

WEB: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle: the man says to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: