I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.
Ver. 3. I neither learned wisdom.] As he had it not by nature, a so neither had he attained unto it by any pains or skill of his own. "There is a spirit indeed in man" - a reasonable soul and a faculty of reasoning - "but the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding." Job 32:8 Not that Agur neglected the means of knowledge, or put off the study of it (as Solomon's fool, Pro 24:7), from a conceit of the impossibility of reaching to it. Neither yet was he of their mind of whom Augustine makes mention that they cast off the care of knowledge, because knowledge puffeth up; and so would be ignorant that they might be humble, and want knowledge that they might want pride. This was to do as the philosopher that plucked out his eyes to avoid the danger of uncleanness. Sed nihil aliud egit quam quod fatuitatem suam urbi manifestam fecit, saith Tertullian, b wherein he proclaimed his own folly to all the country. But holy Agur here assures us that flesh and blood never revealed these high things that follow unto him, but as Paul was an apostle, so was he a prophet "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father," Gal 1:1 even "the Father of lights." Jam 1:17 In nature's school nothing is to be learned concerning Ithiel and Ucal. St Augustine, though much taken with Cicero's "Hortensius," yet because he found not the name of Christ in it he could not so heartily affect it. c The philosophers much magnify the mind of man as full of divine light and perspicacy, when the truth tells us that it is
“ Mens oblita Dei, vitiorumque oblita caeno. ”
There is nothing great in the earth but man, nothing in man but his mind. Si eousque scandis, coelum transcendis, said Favorinus the philosopher; If you get up thither you ascend beyond heaven. But Agur "had not so learned Christ." He talks of natural blindness and other evils born with him. Erras si tecum vitia nasci putes; supervenere, ingesta sunt. You are out, Agur, saith Seneca, if you talk on that manner; blindness is not natural to you, but adventitious. Agur bewails his loss in Adam; this nature's eye never saw, and therefore heart never rued. Those that were born in hell knew none other heaven, as the proverb is. Agur tells us here that he never learned true wisdom from any man, but must thank God for that measure thereof that he had attained to. On the contrary Cicero d tells us that, inasmuch as every man acquires to himself that virtue that he hath, no wise man ever yet gave God thanks for it. And Seneca saith, It is of the gods that we live, but of ourselves that we live well and honestly. e How different are the saints in Scripture from the world's wizards!
Nor have the knowledge of the holy.] That is, Of the angels Daniel 4:13 ; Daniel 4:17 ; Dan 8:13 whom Jacob saw ascending and descending. Genesis 28:12 , compared with Pro 30:4 Joh 1:51 Moses made them looking intently into the mercy seat. Exo 25:18-19 Peter sets them forth as stooping down to look wishtly and earnestly f into the mystery of Christ 1Pe 1:12 which was hid from them till the discovery, and ever since, that they are great students in it. Eph 3:10 But how should Agur, or any man else that cannot tell the form and the quintessence of things, that cannot enter into the depth of the flower, or the grass he treads on, that cannot understand the nature and properties of so small a creature as an ant or bee - Pliny g tells of one that spent eight and fifty years in learning out the nature of the bee, and yet had not fully attained unto it - how is it possible, I say, that the wisest naturalist should have the wit to enter into the deep things of God? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," &c. 1Co 2:9
a Nemo nascitur artifex.
b In Apolog.
c Confess., lib. iii.
d Quia sibi quisque virtutem acquirit, neminem e sapientibus unquam de ea gratias Deo egisse. - Lib, iii. De Nat. Deor.
e Deorum quidem munus est quod vivimus, &c. - Sen.
f παρακυψαι
g Lib. xi. cap. 9.