The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, [even] the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal,
Ver. 1. The words of Agur the son of Jakeh.] The Vulgate renders, Verba Congregantis filii Vomentis, taking these proper names for appellatives, as if the penman of this chapter meant to tell us that he would here give us his sacred collectanies or miscellanies, such as he had taken up from the mouths of wisest men, who had vomited or cast them up, in a like sense as that painter in Aelian drew Homer vomiting, and all the other poets licking it up. a This Agur, whether he lived in Solomon's days or Hezekiah's, was an excellent man, as the word Gheber here used imports; Vir bonus et prudens, minus tamen clarus (as one saith of Jesse, David's father), a godly, wise man, though nothing be elsewhere spoken of him in Scripture. Some think that, being requested by Ithiel and Ucal, two of his disciples, to give them a lesson, Socrates-like he answered, Hoc unum scio, quod nihil scio: This one thing I know, that I know nothing: "Surely I am more brutish than any man," sc., of myself, further than taught of God; for every man is a brute by his own understanding, as Jeremiah hath it. Jer 10:8 But I rather incline to those that take Ithiel and Ucal for Christ, whose goodness and power - those two pillars of a Christian's faith, as Jachin and Boaz were of Solomon's temple - are by these two names deciphered, and whom he propounds as the matter of his prophecy. Now, because sense of misery must precede sense of mercy, neither can any be welcome to Christ, but "the weary and heavy laden"; therefore he first bewails his own brutishness - fetching it up as low as Adam fallen, Pro 30:2 and aggravating it in that he had not yet acquired better abilities. Pro 30:3 Next he flees to Ithiel and Ucal, by the force of a particular faith - Ithiel, God with me, and Ucal, God Almighty, through whom I can do all things. This, this was the right ready way of coming to Christ; and him that thus cometh he will in no wise cast out. Joh 6:37 There is a good interpreter, b that, paralleling this text with Jeremiah 9:23,24, reads it thus: A gathering together of the words of Agur, the son of Jakeh. Let the excellent man say, ‘Let God be with me, let God be with me, and I shall prevail.'
a Aelian, Hist. var.
b Muffet.