The Agnostic's Catechism Text: Proverbs 30:1-6
Introduction: The Necessary Confession
We live in an age that is drowning in information but starved for wisdom. Our culture is characterized by a peculiar combination of arrogance and ignorance. We have mapped the human genome and split the atom, and so we carry ourselves with the swagger of those who believe they have the measure of all things. But when it comes to the questions that truly matter, the questions of ultimate origin, meaning, and destiny, our experts fall silent, or they offer us the thin gruel of materialism, which is to say, they offer us nothing at all. They are confident about the trivial and completely bewildered by the essential.
Into this proud confusion steps a man named Agur. We know almost nothing about him, which is fitting. He is not a king like Solomon or a prophet like Isaiah. He is simply "the man." And his message, his "oracle," is a necessary demolition project. Before you can build a house of wisdom, you must first clear the ground of all the shacks and lean-tos of human pride. Before you can receive true knowledge, you must first confess your profound and abysmal ignorance. Agur's oracle is a guided tour of the limits of human reason. It is a catechism for agnostics, designed not to leave them in their doubt, but to drive them out of it and into the arms of a speaking God.
This passage is a masterclass in epistemology, the study of how we know what we know. It begins with the confession of a man who knows he knows nothing, proceeds to demonstrate why he knows nothing, and concludes by pointing to the only place where true knowledge can be found. This is not the path of modern skepticism, which delights in its own uncertainty. This is the path of holy desperation, which confesses its bankruptcy in order to receive an infinite inheritance.
The Text
The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: Surely I am more senseless than any man, And I do not have the understanding of mankind. Neither have I learned wisdom, Nor do I know the knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name? And what is His Son’s name? Surely you know! Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words Lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar.
(Proverbs 30:1-6 LSB)
The Oracle of the Ignorant (vv. 1-3)
The oracle begins not with a bold declaration of insight, but with a startling confession of incompetence.
"The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: Surely I am more senseless than any man, And I do not have the understanding of mankind. Neither have I learned wisdom, Nor do I know the knowledge of the Holy One." (Proverbs 30:1-3)
Agur's name means "collector," and what he has collected is a profound sense of his own limitations. His declaration, his oracle, is a heavy burden, a "massa." This is not casual coffee shop chatter; it is a weighty truth. He addresses it to two men, Ithiel and Ucal, whose names likely mean "God is with me" and "I am able," or perhaps "I am consumed." He is speaking to the human condition itself, a condition that can only find strength when God is with us, and which is otherwise consumed by its own futility.
His confession is shocking in its extremity. "Surely I am more senseless than any man." The word for senseless here is baar, which can be translated as "brutish" or like a beast. This is the necessary starting point for all true wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that fear begins with a right assessment of yourself in relation to God. Before the infinite, all-knowing Creator, the smartest man on earth is a drooling imbecile. This is not false humility; it is realism. Paul echoes this when he says, "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise" (1 Corinthians 3:18).
Agur makes it plain that this is not a failure of his education. "Neither have I learned wisdom." He has not been able to climb up to it through human effort. And the reason is that true wisdom is not a subject to be mastered, but a Person to be known. "Nor do I know the knowledge of the Holy One." The Creator/creature distinction is absolute. You cannot, by searching, find out God. You cannot build an intellectual tower of Babel to reach Him. He must condescend to reveal Himself to you. All attempts at autonomous human reason, all philosophies that begin with man as the measure of all things, are doomed to fail. They cannot bridge the infinite gap.
The Catechism of Creation (v. 4)
Having confessed his own ignorance, Agur now demonstrates it for his listeners by asking a series of unanswerable questions. This is a divine interrogation designed to crush human pride.
"Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name? And what is His Son’s name? Surely you know!" (Proverbs 30:4)
The first question concerns mastery over the spiritual realm. "Who has ascended into heaven and descended?" Who has gone up to the throne room of God, learned His secrets, and come back to tell us? The implied answer is "no mere man." But for us, who live on this side of the incarnation, the question rings with a glorious answer. Jesus Himself says, "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (John 3:13). Agur, under the inspiration of the Spirit, is asking a question that only Christ can answer.
The next three questions concern mastery over the physical realm. Who controls the atmosphere, the weather systems of the entire planet? Who controls the vast oceans, holding them in place as if in a cloak? Who established the very foundations and boundaries of the world? This is the God of Job 38, the sovereign Lord who commands creation with effortless power. This is not an impersonal force, but a personal agent who gathers, wraps, and establishes.
And then, the interrogation reaches its breathtaking climax. It moves from God's power to His personal identity. "What is His name? And what is His Son’s name?" This is the central question of existence. It is not enough to believe in a generic "higher power." You must know His name. And here, centuries before Bethlehem, the Holy Spirit places on Agur's lips a stunning question about the Son. The unity and plurality of the Godhead, hinted at in Genesis 1, is made explicit here. The God who created and sustains all things has a Son. This is not a later Christian invention; it is woven into the fabric of the Old Testament.
The final phrase, "Surely you know!" is a thunderclap of divine irony. It is a challenge to all human pretension. You who are so wise in your own eyes, you who have mastered your little fields of study, answer me this. Tell me His name. Tell me His Son's name. You cannot. Your wisdom is foolishness. Your knowledge is ignorance.
The Tested Word and the Divine Shield (v. 5)
After Agur has systematically dismantled every basis for human intellectual pride, he does not leave us in the rubble of skepticism. He pivots from what man cannot know on his own to what God has made known through revelation.
"Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him." (Proverbs 30:5)
Here is the answer. How do we know the knowledge of the Holy One? How do we learn His name and His Son's name? We know because He has spoken. And His speech is not like man's speech. "Every word of God is tested." The Hebrew word is tsaraph, which means to be refined or purified in a furnace, like gold or silver. God's Word has been put through the fire and has come out pure, without any dross, without any error, without any falsehood. It is utterly trustworthy and completely reliable. It is not a collection of human speculations about God; it is God's own testimony about Himself.
And this tested Word is not given to us for academic curiosity. It has a saving purpose. "He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him." The Word reveals the God who saves. Doctrine is not an end in itself; it is a signpost that points us to the God who is our shield, our protector, our fortress. We do not merely give intellectual assent to the propositions of Scripture; we run to the Person revealed in Scripture. We hide ourselves in Him. The objective, tested truth of the Word is the basis for our subjective, desperate trust in the God of the Word.
The Great Prohibition (v. 6)
Because God's Word is perfect, pure, and sufficient, the final logical conclusion is a solemn warning against tampering with it.
"Do not add to His words Lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar." (Proverbs 30:6)
This is the principle of Sola Scriptura in the heart of the Old Testament. To add to God's words is to commit an act of cosmic arrogance. It is to imply that God's revelation is insufficient, that He left something important out, that His perfect Word needs our imperfect help. Whether it is the traditions of the Pharisees, the decrees of a Pope, the visions of a prophet, or the "insights" of a liberal theologian, any addition to the Word of God is a rebellion against the God of the Word.
The consequences are not trivial. First, God Himself will "reprove you." He will personally step in to correct and rebuke the one who presumes to speak for Him. Second, you will be "proved a liar." When you place your words alongside the tested and true Word of God, you are setting yourself up for a devastating contrast. Your falsehood will be exposed by the light of His truth. This is a bookend to the entire Bible, from Moses in Deuteronomy 4:2, "You shall not add to the word that I command you," to John in Revelation 22:18, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book."
Conclusion: Knowing the Son's Name
Agur's journey is the journey every believer must take. We begin with the humble confession that we are brutish and ignorant, that we do not have the answers. We survey the majesty of creation and the transcendence of God and realize we cannot reach Him on our own. This epistemological humility drives us to the only place where answers can be found: the pure, tested, sufficient Word of God.
And in that Word, the great question of verse 4 is answered with glorious clarity. What is His Son's name? His name is Jesus. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). He is the one who descended from heaven and ascended back again. He is the one by whom and for whom all things were created, who holds the wind and the waters in His hand. He is the perfect revelation of the Father, "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:3).
We no longer have to ask the question with Agur's ironic despair. We can answer it with apostolic confidence. We know the name of the Son. And because we know His name, we can take refuge in Him, our shield and our salvation. Let us therefore receive His Word with gratitude, trust it without reservation, and refuse to add to it or subtract from it, for in it alone is the knowledge of the Holy One, which is eternal life.