“Surely I am the most ignorant man, and don’t have a man’s understanding.
Parallel translations
- KJV Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.
- BSB Surely I am the most ignorant of men, and I lack the understanding of a man.
- NKJV Surely I am more stupid than any man, And do not have the understanding of a man.
- NASB I am certainly more stupid than any man, And I do not have the understanding of a man;
- NLT I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Agur humbly confesses that, before God, he feels utterly without understanding.
Overview
Far from boasting in his wisdom, the sage opens with self-abasement, recognizing how small human insight is next to God's. This humility is itself the beginning of true knowledge, for the fear of the LORD requires acknowledging our limits. It echoes the posture every believer takes before the infinite God, casting us upon the One in whom all wisdom is hidden, Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 73:22I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.
- Prov 5:12and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
- 1 Cor 3:18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.
- Ps 49:10For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others.
- Ps 92:6A senseless man doesn’t know, neither does a fool understand this:
- Jer 10:14Every man has become brutish and without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
- Job 42:3–6You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.
- Jas 1:5But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.
- Rom 11:25For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
- Isa 6:5Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies!”
- 2 Pet 2:12–16But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,
- 1 Cor 8:2But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 30:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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