The Fourfold Generation of Vipers Text: Proverbs 30:11-14
Introduction: The X-Ray of a Crooked Age
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a mere collection of folksy truisms for self-improvement. It is divine wisdom, showing us the skeletal structure of reality. And in this thirtieth chapter, we have the words of a man named Agur, a man who begins with a profound confession of his own limitations before the majesty of God. After establishing the absolute authority and purity of God's Word, he gives us a series of numerical sayings. "Three things are never satisfied, four never say, 'Enough.'" This is a common Hebrew poetic device, designed to make us pay close attention. It tells us that the list is not exhaustive, but the items listed are representative of a whole class of things.
In our text today, Agur gives us a fourfold description of a particular kind of "generation." Now, we must understand what is meant by "generation." This is not simply about a particular age group, the young people versus the old people. It is a description of a recurring type of humanity. It is a spiritual cohort, a class of men and women bound together by a shared character of rebellion against God. When John the Baptist saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he addressed them with this same concept: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matthew 3:7). He was identifying their spiritual ancestry, their generational type. Jesus does the same, calling them a "wicked and adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39).
Agur, then, is giving us a divine diagnostic, an X-ray of a godless culture. He shows us four cascading symptoms of a society that has slipped its moorings from the fear of God. These are not four separate problems, but four facets of the same rotten jewel. They begin with the breakdown of the most basic unit of authority, the family, and cascade outward into self-deceit, arrogant pride, and finally, predatory cruelty. This is a profile of every generation that sets its face against the Lord and against His Anointed, and it is a stark and startling picture of our own time.
The Text
There is a generation that curses its father And does not bless its mother.
There is a generation that is clean in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness.
There is a generation, oh how haughty are its eyes! And its eyelids are lifted up.
There is a generation whose teeth are like swords And its fangs like knives, To devour the afflicted from the earth And the needy from among men.
(Proverbs 30:11-14 LSB)
The Seedbed of Rebellion (v. 11)
The diagnosis begins at the foundation of all human society: the family.
"There is a generation that curses its father And does not bless its mother." (Proverbs 30:11)
All societal collapse begins here, in the home. The Fifth Commandment, to honor father and mother, is the lynchpin that connects our duty to God (commandments 1-4) with our duty to man (commandments 6-10). It is the first commandment with a promise, "that your days may be long in the land" (Exodus 20:12). The inverse is therefore also true: a society that dishonors its parents will not have long days in the land. Its lamp will be put out in utter darkness (Proverbs 20:20).
To "curse" one's father is not simply a matter of using foul language. In the Hebrew, it means to treat as insignificant, to despise, to declare as worthless. It is an active rebellion against the God-ordained authority and heritage that a father represents. And notice the corresponding sin against the mother: they do "not bless" her. A blessing is a word of honor, gratitude, and appreciation for the nurture and life she gave. The rebellion is both active and passive. It is active contempt for paternal authority and a passive, cold ingratitude for maternal love. This is the first crack in the dam.
When a generation despises its origins, it despises the God who ordained those origins. All authority flows from God. He establishes the authority of parents as a picture of His own authority. To rebel against your father is to practice for rebellion against your Father in heaven. This is why disobedience to parents is listed as a hallmark of the last days, a sign of a reprobate mind (Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:2). When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? This is the foundation, and our generation has not just cracked it; it has dynamited it with ideologies of absolute autonomy and generational resentment.
The Filth of Self-Righteousness (v. 12)
Once a generation has rejected the external standard of parental and divine authority, it must invent its own. The result is a profound self-deception.
"There is a generation that is clean in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness." (Proverbs 30:12 LSB)
This is the generation of the Pharisee, who thanks God that he is not like other men (Luke 18:11). Having thrown out God's law, they grade themselves on a curve they invented. They are "pure in their own eyes." They have their own standards of righteousness, which usually consist of a few fashionable public virtues and a complete blindness to their own deep-seated corruption. They are fastidious about recycling, but their hearts are landfills of envy and lust. They champion tolerance, but are viciously intolerant of anyone who speaks of objective truth.
The text says they are "not washed from their filthiness." This filthiness is not just a few smudges; it is the deep, systemic corruption of sin that the Bible calls depravity. It is the filth of a heart that has not been cleansed by the blood of Christ. They are like a man who has painted his sepulcher white but is still full of dead men's bones (Matthew 23:27). They have redefined sin so that their own habits are perfectly acceptable, while manufacturing new sins to condemn in others. They are spiritually blind because they have declared themselves able to see. As Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains" (John 9:41).
This self-justification is a spiritual anesthetic. It allows a culture to slide deeper into depravity while congratulating itself on its progress. It is a profound and damning blindness, because the one who does not know he is sick will never seek a physician. This generation is terminally ill with sin, but has declared itself healthy.
The Posture of Pride (v. 13)
From the internal condition of self-righteousness, Agur moves to its outward expression: insolent pride.
"There is a generation, oh how haughty are its eyes! And its eyelids are lifted up." (Proverbs 30:13 LSB)
The eyes are the window to the soul, and these eyes are haughty. The Hebrew picture is of a person walking with their nose in the air, looking down on everyone else. The "lifted up eyelids" convey a sense of disdainful dismissal. This is the posture of a people who believe they are superior, not just to their parents (v. 11), but to everyone. They are wiser, more enlightened, and more sophisticated than all who have gone before.
This is the pride that God hates above all else. In Proverbs 6, the first of the seven things that are an abomination to the Lord is "haughty eyes" (Proverbs 6:17). Why? Because pride is the original sin. It is the creature attempting to usurp the place of the Creator. It is a declaration of self-sufficiency. It says, "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
This generation looks down on the wisdom of the past, scoffs at the moral law of God, and sneers at the simple faith of believers. Their eyelids are lifted in contempt. But the Scriptures are clear: "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). And, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). This generation, so confident in its own superiority, is standing on the brink of a precipice, entirely unaware of the abyss below.
The Teeth of Predation (v. 14)
The final characteristic reveals where this generational rebellion inevitably leads. Contempt for God's authority, combined with self-righteous pride, does not create a peaceful utopia. It creates a slaughterhouse.
"There is a generation whose teeth are like swords And its fangs like knives, To devour the afflicted from the earth And the needy from among men." (Proverbs 30:14 LSB)
The imagery is brutal and animalistic. This generation has become a pack of wolves. Their teeth are weapons. Their goal is to "devour." And who are their victims? The "afflicted" and the "needy." The very people that God's law commands us to protect and care for (Deuteronomy 15:11), this generation consumes.
This devouring takes many forms. It can be the economic oppression of the poor through unjust systems and predatory lending. It can be the political oppression where the powerful crush the weak for their own gain. It is the abortion industry, which literally devours the most afflicted and needy among us in the womb. It is the sexual revolution, which devours the innocence of children and treats people as objects for consumption. When a society loses the fear of God, it loses its compassion for man. The strong will always consume the weak. That is the law of the jungle, and it is the law of any society that rejects the law of God.
This is the logical endpoint of the first three characteristics. If you curse your father, you have rejected God's authority. If you are pure in your own eyes, you have rejected God's standard of righteousness. If your eyes are haughty, you have rejected God's humility. What is left? Nothing but your own ravenous appetite. You have become your own god, and you will devour anyone who gets in your way.
Conclusion: The Only Cleansing
So Agur gives us this four-part portrait of a generation at war with God. It begins with rebellion in the home, moves to self-delusion in the heart, manifests as arrogance in the eyes, and ends with brutality in the hands. This is not just an ancient problem; it is the spirit of our age.
What, then, is the solution? The problem is a generation that is filthy but sees itself as clean. The solution cannot be more self-help, more education, or more legislation. The only solution is to be washed. This generation "is not washed from its filthiness."
There is only one washing that can cleanse this kind of filth. It is not the water of baptism alone, but the reality to which it points: the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which "cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). The gospel is the answer to every one of these generational sins. To the generation that curses its father, the gospel gives us a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). To the generation that is clean in its own eyes, the gospel strips us of our self-righteousness and clothes us in the perfect righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). To the generation with haughty eyes, the gospel shows us a King who humbled Himself, even to death on a cross, and calls us to do the same (Philippians 2:5-8). And to the generation whose teeth are swords, the gospel transforms us from wolves into sheep, and even into shepherds who lay down their lives for the afflicted and needy.
We are all, by nature, members of this generation of vipers. Left to ourselves, this is our portrait. The only escape is to be born into a new generation, a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9). This happens when we abandon all pretense of being clean in our own eyes and plead with God to wash us from our filthiness. He is faithful and just to do it, for the sake of His Son.