Sunday, February 12, 2012

Proverbs 30:1-3 commentary; Agur's prophecy begins

1 ¶ The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal, 2 Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. 3 I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

What follows is prophecy. What is prophecy? It is foretelling as in revealing what God has revealed to the prophet and it is “forthtelling” or preaching God’s word.

Prophets preach. They are preachers.

Nehemiah 6:7 And thou hast also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah: and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.

When a modern day preacher exhorts to holiness, to obey the commands given by the Holy Spirit through Paul in the letters which are doctrine for the Christian, he is doing the work of a prophet.

Acts 15:32 And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.

Notice here how the word “even” links “the prophecy” as being “The words of Agur the son of Jakeh.” In this context these two things are the same as each other. The words that follow are then prophecy. This method of understanding easiest seen first in Genesis 6:17;

Genesis 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

…goes on to show us who the Angel of the Lord and the Angel of God were throughout the Old Testament.

Galatians 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

Judges 2:1 And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

For those who balk at this, who have been confused by the Persian definition of a winged angel as a distinct creature, brought into Christianity by the Roman church, let me point out that an angel is an appearance of someone, a representative, who is for all practical purposes that person, nation, or church. There are no angels with wings in the Bible.

Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

But back to the Proverb.

God knows what is going to happen and occasionally, for His own purposes, He reveals them.

Isaiah 42:9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.

Agur does a few things here. He humbles himself as not even having the wisdom of most men. He claims he’s more brutish than any man, that is, he is the lowest of the low in intelligence (Psalm 92:6). He claims to not have wisdom or personal knowledge of “the holy.” Here is someone who is going to deliver what he has gathered, collected, or heard. It’s not from him. He’s too common and stupid to even understand what he’s going to say. By making these claims he is focusing the reader on the message, not the messenger, as unfortunately many modern day celebrity preachers do.
What follows is nothing short of revolutionary and disturbing in its implications. Stay tuned.

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