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These are the words, probably, of a believer in Jehovah who was a stranger in a foreign land. Among the sworn foes of Israel and her faith, we have in him an example of Puritan rectitude, of unflinching fidelity to conscience, that is highly instructive. The purity of God's eternal truth, and the safety of all believers in him (ver. 5), - this is his simple and sublime leading theme.

I. THE BEING OF GOD AN UNUTTERABLE MYSTERY. (Ver. 1.) In vain had he sought to explore the unfathomable secret of his essence, by searching to find out the Almighty unto perfection. It was higher than heaven - what could he do? deeper than Hades - what could he know? This was substantially the confession, expressed in different forms, of all the great prophets. Compare the accounts of Isaiah's consecration, Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's. True religion is rooted in this sense of the Divine mystery. All piety is shallow without it. In every conscious feeling, thought, aspiration, we are but travelling on the edge of a great abyss, moving towards an horizon which still recedes. In our deeper moments we are all mystics, and there are times when all talk about God seems babble, and we would fain take refuge in the "sacred silence of the mind."

II. THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAN DULL AND INADEQUATE IN RELATION TO DIVINE THINGS. (Vers. 2, 3.) No words are too self-contemptuous to express the sense of the immense gulf which separates our thought from God. Applied to definable objects, our intelligence scents bright and piercing; applied to the Infinite Might and Wisdom and Purity, no better than the vacant gaze of the ox in the pasture. Look into those beautiful brown eyes; there is a depth of pathos in them, but no "speculation," no power to grasp the unity and law of things that print themselves in pictures on the retina. And what are we, though raised above the "creatures that lead a blind life within the brain," but helpless gazers into infinity? Well did Sir Isaac Newton and all the great seers of science realize this feeling. Their consummate knowledge was, viewed on another side, consummate ignorance. They had not thereby attained absolute wisdom, nor "won the knowledge of the Holy." There have been, indeed, modern philosophers who have proposed an "absolute philosophy;" but time has discovered the idleness of their "o'er-vaulting ambition," and made a fable of their folly.

III. THE INACCESSIBLE IN NATURE RECOGNIZED. (Ver. 4.) One of the first principles laid down by the great Goethe was - Learn to distinguish between the accessible and the inaccessible in nature to your thought. For want of this, theologians on the one hand, scientists on the other, have rushed into presumption in seeking to wrest the inscrutable secrets of nature from the hand of God. The unknowableness of the first beginnings of things was recognized by the ancient thinker. The height of heaven, the movements of winds and waves, the changes of the earth's surface, - all may be brought under law; but the word "law" conceals the greater mystery - the nature of the Lawgiver himself. God is not identical with law, any more than we are identical with speech. Law is but the partially understood speech of God to our intelligence. Examine all the sublime names which have been given to God in the course of revelation, in the process of religious thought; behind them all ties the unutterable and unthinkable Somewhat.

IV. THE SELF-REVELATION OF GOD RECOGNIZED. (Ver. 5.)

1. To say that God is utterly unknowable is as great an error as to say that he is perfectly knowable by the human understanding: Such an admission must cut at the root of religion. On the contrary, religion implies revelation. Because God has spoken to us, we may speak to him; because he has stooped to us, we may rise towards him. In manifold ways - through nature, through inspired men, through the Son, through the conscience - God "has spoken to the world." If this be denied, religion is an entire illusion.

2. The quality of his oral revelation. The writer is thinking of the oral and written Law. Because definite, articulate, it may be spoken of as the Word of God par excellence; but by no means are the indefinable and inarticulate revelations through nature to our spirit excluded. From every sight of beauty and every sound of music in the world we may derive unspoken messages of him "whose nature and whose name is Love." And God's Word is pure. The refined silver of the furnace is a favourite image of this, its quality. From the alloy of duplicity, flattery, hypocrisy, it is free. God deals sincerely with us. And, therefore, it is purifying. We behold the true life of the soul in its mirror.

3. The practical blessing of trust in him. He who speaks to us is to be trusted. And in this trust in One who is eternal and infallible, pure arid true, we have security. The Law or Word which declares his will is like a broad hand stretched above us to command, and, in commanding, to protect, reward, and bless.

4. The duty of strict reverence and loyalty towards his words. (Ver. 6.) Much they leave unsaid, which it is not for us to supply. The general lesson seems to be respect for that element of reserve and mystery which lies behind all that is or may be known. We may "lie" against God by saying more than he has actually said to us by any channel of knowledge. To exceed or exaggerate seems ever a readier temptation than to keep within the modest bounds of positive declaration. And certain penalties await all distortions of the truth of every kind; they work themselves out in the conscience and the course of history. - J.

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KJV: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal,

WEB: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle: the man says to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: