箴言 30:2

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

“我比眾人更愚頑，也沒有聰明。

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
我 比 众 人 更 蠢 笨 ， 也 没 有 人 的 聪 明 。

Contextual Overview

¹ These are the words of Agur son of Jakeh. This is his message to Ithiel and Ucal: ² "I am the most stupid person there is, and I have no understanding. ³ I have not learned to be wise, and I don't know much about God, the Holy One. ⁴ Who has gone up to heaven and come back down? Who can hold the wind in his hand? Who can gather up the waters in his coat? Who has set in place the ends of the earth? What is his name or his son's name? Tell me, if you know! ⁵ "Every word of God is true. He guards those who come to him for safety. ⁶ Do not add to his words, or he will correct you and prove you are a liar.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

I am: Job 42:3-6, Psalms 73:22, Isaiah 6:5, Romans 11:25, 1 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 8:2, James 1:5

brutish: Proverbs 5:12, Psalms 92:6, Jeremiah 10:14, 2 Peter 2:12-16

Reciprocal: Job 11:12 - would Job 37:19 - we Psalms 49:10 - fool Psalms 73:16 - When Psalms 139:6 - knowledge Isaiah 19:11 - brutish Acts 8:31 - How Romans 7:14 - but Ephesians 3:8 - who am

Cross-References

Genesis 16:2
Sarai said to Abram, "Look, the Lord has not allowed me to have children, so have sexual relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her." Abram did what Sarai said.

Genesis 20:18
The Lord had kept all the women in Abimelech's house from having children as a punishment on Abimelech for taking Abraham's wife Sarah.

Genesis 25:21
Isaac's wife could not have children, so Isaac prayed to the Lord for her. The Lord heard Isaac's prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant.

Genesis 29:31
When the Lord saw that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, he made it possible for Leah to have children, but not Rachel.

Genesis 30:5
She became pregnant and gave Jacob a son.

Genesis 30:6
Rachel said, "God has judged me innocent. He has listened to my prayer and has given me a son," so she named him Dan.

Genesis 30:13
and Leah said, "I am very happy! Now women will call me happy," so she named him Asher.

Genesis 30:14
During the wheat harvest Reuben went into the field and found some mandrake plants and brought them to his mother Leah. But Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."

Genesis 31:36
Then Jacob became very angry and said, "What wrong have I done? What law have I broken to cause you to chase me?

Genesis 50:19
Then Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Can I do what only God can do?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Surely I am more brutish than [any] man,.... "Every man is [become] brutish in his knowledge"; man in his original state was a knowing creature but sinning lost his knowledge, and "became like the beasts that perish"; hence we read of the "brutish among the people": but Agur thought himself not only brutish among the rest, but more brutish than any. So Plato o says of some souls living on earth, that they are θηριωδεις, of a brutish nature; see Jeremiah 10:14. Or I think the words may be rendered, "a brute [am] I [rather] than a man" p; have more of the brute than of the man, especially in the sight and presence of God; a very beast before him, or in comparison of other wise, holy, and good men; or with respect to the knowledge of spiritual, divine, and heavenly things, Psalms 73:22; or "a brute [was] I from [the time]", or "[ever since I was] a man" q; as soon as be was born, being born in sin, and like a wild ass's colt, Job 11:12;

and have not the understanding of a man; or "of Adam" r; who was made after the image of God, which consisted in knowledge as well as holiness; who knew much of God, his nature, perfections, and persons; of the creatures, and the works of his hands and of all things in nature; but affecting more knowledge than he should lost in a great measure what he had, and brought his posterity in and left them in a state of blindness and ignorance, one of whose sons Agur was: or his meaning is, that he had not the understanding, as not of Adam in innocence, and of prophets and other eminent men of God, so not of ordinary men of those who had, he least share of the knowledge of divine things. Aben Ezra, who takes Ithiel and Ucal to be scholars or companions of Agur, supposes, that they asked him questions concerning the divine Being, nature, and perfections, to which he answers in this strain; showing his insufficiency to give them any instruction or satisfaction in such matters, or to discourse on such sublime subjects: or rather his view was to show the blindness and ignorance of human nature with respect to divine things he was about to treat of; and particularly to observe, that the knowledge of a Saviour, and salvation by him, were not from nature, and attainable by that; and that a man must first know himself, his own folly and ignorance, before he can have any true knowledge of Ithiel and Ucal, the mighty Saviour and Redeemer; of the need of him, and of interest in him. Some think his view is to prove that his words, his prophecy, or what he was about to say, or did say, must be owing entirely to divine inspiration; since he was of himself; and without a divine revelation, so very blind, dark, and ignorant; it could not be owing to any natural sagacity of his, who was more brutish than any; nor to any acquired knowledge, or the instruction of men, since he had none, as follows; and so כי, with which the words begin, may be rendered "for" or "because" s, as it usually is, "for I am more brutish, than any man", c.

o De Leg. l. 10. p, 959. p בער אנכי מאיש "bardus sum prae viro", Mercerus "brutus ego prae viro", Cocceius, Schultens. q "Nam brutus sum ex quo vir sum", Junius Tremellius, so Cartwright. r "Nec est mihi intelligentia Adami", Cartwright. s כי "nam", Junius Tremellius "quia", Pagninus, Montanus "quoniam", Michaelis.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A confession of ignorance, with which compare the saying of Socrates that he was wise only so far as he knew that he knew nothing, or that of Asaph Psalms 73:22.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 30:2. Surely I am more brutish — These words can in no sense, nor by any mode of speech, be true of Solomon: for while he was the wisest of men, he could not have said that he was more brutish than any man, and had not the understanding of a man. It is saying nothing to the purpose, to say he was so independently of the Divine teaching. Had he put this in, even by innuendo, it might be legitimate: but he does not; nor is it by fair implication to be understood. Solomon is not supposed to have written the Proverbs after he fell from God. Then indeed he might have said he had been more brutish than any man. But Agur might have used these words with strict propriety, for aught we know; for it is very probable that he was a rustic, without education, and without any human help, as was the prophet Amos; and that all that he knew now was by the inspiration of the Almighty, independently of which he was rustic and uneducated.