Proverbs 30:3

I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) The knowledge of the holy—i.e., the Holy One, God. (Comp. Proverbs 9:10.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:1-6 Agur speaks of himself as wanting a righteousness, and having done very foolishly. And it becomes us all to have low thoughts of ourselves. He speaks of himself as wanting revelation to guide him in the ways of truth and wisdom. The more enlightened people are, the more they lament their ignorance; the more they pray for clearer, still clearer discoveries of God, and his rich grace in Christ Jesus. In ver.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He found, when he looked within, that all his learning was as nothing. He had heard of God only "by the hearing of the ear" Job 42:5, and now he discovered how little that availed.

The holy - The Holy One. Compare Proverbs 9:10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2-4. brutish—stupid, a strong term to denote his lowly self-estimation; or he may speak of such as his natural condition, as contrasted with God's all-seeing comprehensive knowledge and almighty power. The questions of this clause emphatically deny the attributes mentioned to be those of any creature, thus impressively strengthening the implied reference of the former to God (compare De 30:12-14; Isa 40:12; Eph 4:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I neither learned wisdom; I have not been taught in the schools of wisdom, as the sons of prophets were, but must own myself to be an unlearned man, as the prophet Amos was, Amos 7:14,15. Or, I have not learned it, neither by my own understanding and study, nor by the help of other men.

Of the holy; either,

1. Of the holy angels, who are called holy by way of eminency, as Deu 33:2 Job 15:15 Daniel 4:13,17,23 8:13. But it was vain to deny that angelical knowledge to be in him, which no man imagined to be in him, and which was not in Adam fix the state of innocency. Or,

2. Of the holy prophets. So the sense is, I have not such Divine inspirations as prophets strictly so called have received, whereby I should be enabled to know or explain those great mysteries wherein you desire information from me. Or,

3. Of holy things, of the mind and will of God concerning man’s salvation, and the way which leads to it; not that he denieth that he had any knowledge of these things, but only a full, and comprehensive, and perfect knowledge, which they falsely supposed to be in him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I neither learned wisdom,.... Natural wisdom or philosophy, so as to understand the nature of things, and reason about them in a philosophical manner; or political wisdom, so as to know how to govern states, and manage the affairs of kingdoms; or in a lower sphere to transact the affairs of life to any peculiar advantage; he had not a polite or liberal education: or spiritual and evangelical wisdom; that is, not of himself through the mere strength and force of his genius and natural capacity, or of others; he was not the son of a prophet, nor brought up in the schools of the prophets; he did not learn it, nor was he taught it by men; for this is not acquired by human teaching; it is what comes from above, from heaven, and by the revelation of God;

nor have the knowledge of the holy; or "holies" (s); either of holy persons, such knowledge as holy men of God had; or of the holy angels, not of their nature, capacities, influence and operations; nor such as they have: or rather of the holy Persons in the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit; their nature modes of subsisting, perfections, purposes, and the like; at least not a full and comprehensive one: or of holy things, of the holy Scriptures, and the holy doctrines of them; however, not what is perfect and complete. It may be rendered, "but I have the knowledge of the holy" (t), though he had not the advantage of human literature, nor had ever been under the instructions of men on one account or another, and therefore what he knew, or was about to discourse of, was from God. Some understand this verse and Proverbs 30:2 of Ithiel, or Christ (u), as in the esteem of men, 1 Corinthians 1:23.

(s) "sanctorum", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus, Gejerus, Cocceius, Schultens. (t) "ad cognitionem sanctorum novi", Michaelis; "expers sum humanarnm artium, et divinarum guarus sum", Vatablus in Gejerus. (u) Teelman. Specimen. Explicat. Parabol. p. 391.

Geneva Study Bible

I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. the holy] Rather, the Holy One. See Proverbs 9:10 note.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - I neither learned wisdom. With all my eager longing and striving I did not attain to such wisdom, that I should have the knowledge of the Holy One (Revised Version margin); k'doshim, plural of "excellence," like elohim (Proverbs 9:10; Hosea 12:1 (Hebrew); see note on Proverbs 1:20; and comp. Ecclesiastes 5:8; Ecclesiastes 12:1). The knowledge of the all holy God was beyond his grasp (Job 11:7, etc.). Theology is a higher science than metaphysics, and cannot be reached by that ladder. The LXX. gives an affirmative sense to this verse, "God hath taught me wisdom, and I know the knowledge of the holy (ἁγίων)." Proverbs 30:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The כי now following confirms the fruitlessness of the long zealous search:

2 For I am without reason for a man,

   And a man's understanding I have not.

3 And I have not learned wisdom,

   That I may possess the knowledge of the All-Holy.

He who cannot come to any fixed state of consecration, inasmuch as he is always driven more and more back from the goal he aims at, thereby brings guilt upon himself as a sinner so great, that every other man stands above him, and he is deep under them all. So here Agur finds the reason why in divine things he has failed to attain unto satisfying intelligence, not in the ignorance and inability common to all men - he appears to himself as not a man at all, but as an irrational beast, and he misses in himself the understanding which a man properly might have and ought to have. The מן of מאישׁ is not the partitive, like Isaiah 44:11, not the usual comparative: than any one (Bttcher), which ought to be expressed by מכּל־אישׁ, but it is the negative, as Isaiah 52:14; Fleischer: rudior ego sum quam ut homo appeller, or: brutus ego, hominis non similis. Regarding בּער, vid., under Proverbs 12:1.

(Note: According to the Arab. בעיר is not a beast as grazing, but as dropping stercus (ba'r, camel's or sheep's droppings); to the R. בר, Mhlau rightly gives the meanings of separating, whence are derived the meanings of grazing as well as of removing (cleansing) (cf. Pers. thak karadn, to make clean equals to make clean house, tabula rasa).)

Proverbs 30:3 now says that he went into no school of wisdom, and for that reason in his wrestling after knowledge could attain to nothing, because the necessary conditions to this were wanting to him. But then the question arises: Why this complaint? He must first go to school in order to obtain, according to the word "To him who hath is given," that for which he strove. Thus למדתּי refers to learning in the midst of wrestling; but למד, spiritually understood, signifies the acquiring of a kennens [knowledge] or knnens [knowledge equals ability]: he has not brought it out from the deep point of his condition of knowledge to make wisdom his own, so that he cannot adjudge to himself knowledge of the all-holy God (for this knowledge is the kernel and the star of true wisdom). If we read 3b לא אדע, this would be synchronistic, nesciebam, with למדתי standing on the same line. On the contrary, the positive אדע subordinates itself to ולא־למדתי, as the Arab. fâa' lama, in the sense of (ita) ut scirem scientiam Sanctissimi, thus of a conclusion, like Lamentations 1:19, a clause expressive of the intention, Ewald, 347a. קדשׁים is, as at Proverbs 9:10, the name of God in a superlative sense, like the Arab. el-kuddûs.