What is his son's name?

Like the Psalter, the book of Proverbs is a highly edited work: an editor or editors compiled the writings of a number of authors and arranged them into the form we have today. The last two chapters of Proverbs are made up of several poetic compositions, each with a distinct authorial voice. The longest of these is Proverbs 30 (33 verses), attributed to "Agur, son of Jakeh" (Proverbs 30:1). Agur is otherwise unknown in Scripture, and as a Proverbs geek I have subscribed to, and then discarded, any number of theories as to his identity. While I no longer need to guess whether Agur is a pseudonymn for Jacob, Solomon, Hezekiah, or anyone else, I do think his description as the "son of Jakeh" offers insight into the choices made by the editors of the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 30:4 is a riddle (Proverbs 1:6), or more precisely a double riddle: "What is his name, and what is his son's name?" The first question is easily answered, as the previous 4 lines are rhetorical questions which clearly point to Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, particularly as he describes himself in Job 38-41. To the second question, the Christian will want to answer "Jesus!" but this answer is disqualified because it would be inaccessible to Proverbs' original audience. Lest any suggest this might be a prophecy of Christ, that answer is more strongly disqualified because it is heresy: the Son of God is God; he himself is Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, and thus is not his own son.

I prefer to look more closely within the context of Proverbs 30 to find "his son," especially since this is the only work of Agur which we have. The only other mention of a "son" in Proverbs 30 is in the aforementioned Proverbs 30:1: "Agur, son of Jakeh." If that's so, then Agur is the son of Proverbs 30:4 and "Jakeh" is a name for the Lord. Back in the 1970s, P. Skehan suggested "Jakeh" might be an acronymn (in the original Hebrew) for "Jahweh, blessed is He." I tend to think Skehan is correct on that; even if not, the simplest answer to Proverbs 30:4 is that Agur is a son of the Lord.

As Proverbs 30:1-9 makes clear, Agur is the Lord's son because he has learned to depend utterly and absolutely upon his God. In particular, he depends on God's every Word (Proverbs 30:5-6).

That, I think, is why Proverbs 30 was placed towards the end of the book. Even a casual glance at the preceding twenty-nine chapters indicates the book's governing metaphor is a father giving Biblically-based advice to his son. Because Proverbs is Scripture, that father, ultimately, is the Lord. Agur learned wisdom by depending entirely on God's Word, and has become a faithful son of the Lord. The editors of Proverbs suggest, in turn, that if you have learned the wisdom of the Proverbs, you too are a faithful son of God.

Chiasms in Proverbs 28:13-18

The righteous and the wicked appear in two overlapping chiasms in Proverbs 28:13-18. First, the two are contrasted in 28:13-14.

A: how the wicked dispose of their transgressions (28:13a)

  B: man repentant before Yahweh (28:13b)

  B': man with a right heart before Yahweh (28:14a)

A': what the wicked do with their hearts (28:14b)

This observation is then folded into the comparisons of Proverbs 28:13-18.

A: the righteous & the wicked receive just rewards from Yahweh (28:13-14)

  B: the righteous & the wicked as rulers (28:15-16)

A': the righteous & the wicked receive their due from fellow man (28:17-18)

The first of these chiasms is simply a neat and therefore memorable arrangement. If I am correct about the second, it suggests that 28:18 is not about eternal destiny, but how people are treated by their societies.

Man dies after cockroach-eating competition

Anecdotes and illustrations can sometimes threaten to overwhelm a sermon, but that's not why I use so few. The truth is, I can't come up with them. That's why I find preaching the Proverbs so delightful: real life provides more illustrations of folly than I could ever use in an entire homiletical career.

The central motivation (Proverbs 22:17-21)

Proverbs 22:17-21 introduces what most agree is the book's third major section. (The debates on division get interesting after that.) As Bruce Waltke observes in his NICOT commentary, the section is composed of two quatrains around a center line. The three sentences employ what he calls a main clause (MC) and subordinate clause (SC) pattern which is "stitched together" thusly (vol. 2, p. 221):

MC:SC//SC:MC//MC:SC

Neatly observed. However, those subordinate clauses give the motivations to heed the exhortations of the main clauses, which can also be patterned as a chiasm:

A: exhortation + motive (22:17-18)

  B: motive + exhortation (22:19)

A': exhortation + motive (22:20-21)

This suggests the central motive, trust in the Lord, is the most important one. Theologically, something of a given, but here also literarily.

The structure of Proverbs 17:26-18:3

Surprisingly enough, it's a chiasm.

A: an unjust society (17:26)

   B: how to prevent folly (17:27-28)

   B': how to cultivate folly (18:1-2)

A': a just society (18:3)

Interestingly, each verse in this text is synthetic (i.e., the second line repeats or emphasizes the point made in the first line), but the chiastic pairs are antithetic (i.e., one element contrasts with the other).

The structure of Proverbs 17:21-25

In terms of form, Proverbs 17:21-25 create a chiasm:

17:21- synthetic parallelism
17:22- antithetic parallelism
17:23- no parallelism
17:24- antithetic parallelism
17:25- synthetic parallelism

Given that 17:21 and 25 are thematically identical, the formal chiasm leads us to discover a thematic chiasm as well:

17:21- a father's grief over a foolish son
17:22- the effects of wisdom & folly
17:23- folly reaches its highest degree in wickedness
17:24- the choice between wisdom & folly
17:25- parents' grief over a foolish son

As the chiasm's frame, 17:21 and 25 put a strong emphasis on folly's effect on the family. However, because 17:23, the chiasm's center point, explores how wicked folly can corrupt government institution, the text's subject is the broader society, rather than the narrower family.

Solomon, it seems, was a hiker

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs
rather than a fool in his folly.
-Proverbs 17:12

So did he have little bells on his sceptre?

The structure of Proverbs 16:31-17:6

In his NICOT commentary (vol. 2, pp. 35-36), Bruce Waltke argues Proverbs 16:31-17:6 form a unit because the framing verses share the words "crown" and "glory," and both are on the theme of old age. However, 17:6 adds sons to the mix. The center verse of the text, 17:2, is the only other place we find a mention of sons. This suggests the theme is the outworking of cross-generational relationships within a family, which is confirmed when we see the text forms a chiasm:

A: the glory of the righteous aged (16:31)
B: the righteous' restraint under God's sovereignty (16:32-33)
C: man must make right spiritual judgments (17:1)
D: the true son is righteous & wise (17:2)
C': the Lord judges the spirits of men (17:3)
B': the wicked's self-indulgence under God's sovereignty (17:4-5)
A': the glory of righteous generations within a family (17:6)

The Christology of Proverbs 17:2?

A servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully
and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.

Proverbs 17:2 may have a Christological emphasis. The wise servant who replaces the foolish son calls to mind the younger son motif of Genesis, in which the younger or youngest son replaces the oldest son as the favored or designated heir (Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Reuben and Joseph). This is in turn typological of Christ, the second Adam who replaced the first Adam as covenant head of God's people and mediatorial executor of God's plans. While Christ is the Son of God, he is also the Servant of Isaiah's songs.

Thus, there may be more going on in Proverbs 17:2 than a warning against nepotism.

More or less human

There's a tendency amongst commentators, and especially Bible translators, to interpret "the heart" in the Old Testament as roughly equivalent to intellectual capacity or exercise; hence, "heart" is often translated in Proverbs as "understanding" or even "intelligence." However, a more literal rendering can allow for a more provocative reading, as in Proverbs 15:32.

He who ignores discipline rejects his soul,
but he who hears reproof acquires heart.

One might say that to reject discipline is to become less human; to embrace it is to become more so.

Tongues & eyes (Proverbs 15:1-4)

There's an interesting, albeit implicit, contrast between organs, and what they do, in Proverbs 15:1-4. This section focuses primarily on mouths and what they do; that is, how people affect and attempt to control others by the use of their tongues. In 15:3, though, the eyes of the Lord watch both the evil and the good. While the tongue is active and the eye passive, the Lord's eyes ultimately accomplish far more than do men's mouths, for his observations form the basis of his judgments.

A Dream Deferred

I attended eighth grade at Langston Hughes Junior High, which may have been why I was particularly alert to the work of the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance whilst in college. Thus, when I read "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" in Proverbs 13:12, I inevitably think of Hughes' ominous masterpiece, "A Dream Deferred." Try as I might, I couldn't work it into my sermon on Proverbs 13:12-19 (other than the reference in the title, "What Happens to a Desire Fulfilled?"), but I can at least post it here.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Just desserts

Proverbs 13:20-21 form a thematic chiasm:

A- Wise companions make wise (13:20a)
B- Foolish companions bring harm (13:20b)
B'- Sinners suffer evil/trouble (13:21a)
A'- Righteous receive good (13:21b)

By connecting wisdom and foolishness with, respectively, sin and righteousness, the poet helps the reader see that the former categories have a strong moral and ethical dimension.

Grace & mercy

In Proverbs 11:16, we encounter the gracious woman, and in its thematic partner, 11:17, the man of lovingkindness. By pointing to both a man and a woman, the Proverbs indicate that the fruit of the Spirit are accessible to all people, and implicitly point to the whole of the new humanity renewed in Christ.

To lack heart

The phrase "one who lacks heart" to describe a class of fool first shows up about two-thirds of the way through the prologue to Proverbs (Proverbs 1-9), and then occasionally through the rest of the book. I find the phrase particularly evocative, if somewhat elusive. It suggests the fool is lacking some essential component of personality, or even humanity. If "heart, soul, strength" refers to the whole person (Deuteronomy 6:5), then the fool, by his wicked choices, has rendered himself incapable of loving the Lord.

Make of that suggestion what you like, but I think you'll agree the expression is challenging and provokes reflection and meditation, as the Proverbs are intended to do. I'm disappointed, then, to turn to the standard English versions and find they choose to translate "one who lacks heart" as "one without understanding." I think that's true, to be sure, but I also think that unnecessarily limits the range of meaning and association possible in the original choice of words.

This is an excellent illustration of my major complaint against paraphrase in Bible translations (especially those claiming to be literal, "essentially" or otherwise). The practice shuts out legitimate interpretive options and deprives the reader of the Scriptures' literary richness.

The NT reads the OT

As I work through the Proverbs, commentators are quick to note that the eschatological expectations of the Jews before the time of Christ are not well understood, and that we ought not read the New Testament expectations of life after death into the Old Testament. Reading Hebrews and 1 Corinthians, however, it seems to me the New Testament reads its expectations of life after death out of the Old Testament.

The Lord's soul

The Hebrew text of Proverbs 6:16 is quite clear: there are seven things which are abominations to the Lord's soul. The text is not in dispute: there are no other manuscripts with variant readings, nor is there any tradition of reading the Hebrew text in a different way. However, every English version I've consulted, including the "allegedly literal" ones, read that they are abominations "to Him."

Why? Is there some theological nicety here I'm just too dumb to grasp? Or is this another case of "the KJV guys did it that way, so we will too"?

A Perverted Sacrament

"For they eat the bread of wickedness,
and drink the wine of violence." - Proverbs 4:17

Strictly applied, the canons of grammatical-historical exegesis forbid us to find in Proverbs 4:17 any allusion to the Lord's Supper because the original writer and readers could not have found it. However, we ought also read all of Scripture as part of the Christian canon and, because of the Bible's unitary Spiritual authorship, can find intertextual references which look forward as well as back.

Proverbs 4:17, then, describes a perverted sacrament. The wicked's religion is not faith in the Cross and does not include the faith-filled act of receiving and participating in the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection. Instead, their religion is worship of self, to whom they sacrifice the lives (literally and figuratively) of those around them.

The righteous receive the blood of Christ by faith and through the Spirit. The wicked shed the blood of others and would, if they could, crucify the Lord of glory.

Trust the Lord

From Bruce Waltke's commentary on Proverbs: "...Solomon calls on the son to trust the LORD, not his sayings per se, because his sayings are only as good as the LORD who revealed them and who inspired him."

Lord of the wing

Hebrew Biblical poetry is most notable for its (sometimes brutal) economy: the ideal verse has only six words, three for each line. Why, then, does Proverbs 1:17 refer to the "lord of the wing" (two words in Hebrew) rather than the "bird" (one word, which would have kept the line at three words)?

I could spin a couple theories, but I don't know. On the other hand, I do know this is how poetry works in general: work within established rules so they can be broken for effect.