Two [things] have I required of thee; deny me [them] not before I die:
Ver. 7. Two things have I required of thee.] Two special requests he had among many, for our present condition is a condition of singular vanity and indigence. We get our living by begging, and are never without somewhat to be required of God; never without our wants and ailments and suits for supplies.
Deny me them not.] See here both his familiarity with God in prayer and his importunity; for a lazy suitor begs a denial. Agur therefore re-enforceth his request: it was honest, else he would never have begun it; but being so, he is resolved to follow it. So doth David with his "one thing" which he did desire, and he would desire, Psa 27:4 he would never give it over. So Jacob would have a blessing, and therefore wrestles with might and slight; and this he doth in the night and alone, and when God was leaving him, and upon one leg. He had a hard pull of it, and yet he prevailed. "Let me go," saith God: no, thou shalt not go, saith Jacob, till I have my request. It is not unlawful for us to be unmannerly in prayer, to be importunate, and after a sort impudent. Luk 18:8 a Was not the woman of Canaan so? Mat 15:22 She came for a cure, and a cure she would have; and had it too, with a high commendation of her heroic faith. Christ was no penny father; he had more blessings than one, even the abundance of the Spirit for them that ask it. When poor men make requests to us, we usually answer them as the echo doth the voice, the answer cuts off half the petition: if they ask us two things, we think we deal well if we grant them one. Few Naamans, that when you beg one talent will force you to take two. But God heaps mercies upon his suppliants, and blames them for their modesty in asking. "Hitherto you have asked me nothing"; nothing to what you might have done, and should have had. "Ask, that your joy may be full." "Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times," said the prophet to the king of Israel, that smote thrice only - "then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." 2Ki 13:18-19
Before I die,] q.d., I intend to be a daily suitor for them while I live; and when I die I shall have no more to do in this kind. Every one as he hath some special grace or gift above others, and as he is dogged with some special temptation or violent corruption, so he hath some great request. And God holds him haply in hand about it all his lifelong, that he may daily hear from him, and that a constant intercourse may be maintained. Thus it was with David, Psa 27:4 and with Paul. 2Co 12:8-9 In this case we must resolve to give God no rest, never to stand before him but ply this petition; and yet take heed of prescribing to him, of "limiting the holy one of Israel." Say with Luther, Fiat voluntas mea: Let my will be done; but then he sweetly falls off with, mea voluntas, Domine, quia tua: My will, Lord, but because it is, and no further than it is, thy will too.
a δια γε την αναιδειαν, Luk 11:8 Propter improbitatem.