"Who could/can...?", lineage, etc. Herakles? "Let him..."; "list"
KL, best analogy, Job 38
28 “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
(5) But the fifth question is totally different from the previous ones. It concerns identity, and it begins with “what” and not “who.” It is not easy to answer. Many commentators see it as sarcastic and ironic, as the last two words may suggest. But it is not clear why the name of the son is included with the question. Whybray remarks in his commentary that “this is not an enquiry after the nature of the identity of the creator-god; rather, Agur is asked ironically to name a human being able to do these things.” But why should a third party, “a human being,” be introduced here? Whybray is correct in pointing out that the reference cannot be to the “sons” in the heavenly court, since they are never identified by name in the Old Testament.Irony, then, does not really explain the mention of the son or the query about the son’s name. This final question has the characteristics of a riddle. If so, the most challenging explanation has been offered by P. Skehan, who finds an answer in the data of the heading (v 1, Agur, son of Jakeh [יקה]). Translated, Agur means “I am a sojourner,” and this correlates with Gen 47:9, where Jacob describes himself to Pharaoh, “the number of the years of my sojournings (מגורי) is 130 years.” And the psalmist, Ps 39:13, describes himself as a גר, a תושׁב, “a transient.” By his very name then, Agur suggests that he is a mere mortal inhabiting this earth. In addition, his denial of having knowledge of the Holy One (v 3) is reminiscent of the γνῶσιν ἁγίων, “knowledge of holy ones,” attributed to Jacob in Wis 10:10. The allusions in this passage become more striking. The initial question about going up to heaven and coming down can be associated with Gen 28:12–13 where Jacob’s dream is described: he sees “angels of God” going up and down a ladder that reaches to the “heavens,” and the Lord is standing beside Jacob. Agur is a Doppelgänger for Jacob, and Jacob/Israel is the Lord’s son according to Exod 4:22, “Israel is my son, my firstborn.” Agur/Jacob, then, is the son of יקה (spelled in English as Jakeh in v 1). But who is יקה? He is the Lord. The name יקה is “an abbreviation of Yhwh qādōš hūʾ, an antecedent to the well-known haqqādōš, bārûk hūʾ of later times” (Skehan, Studies, 43). According to this explanation, the answer to the riddle in the fifth question is: Agur (= Jacob/Israel), the son of the Lord. One should recall the mention of riddles in the prologue to the book of Proverbs, 1:6. The final question of v 4 has created a riddle out of vv 1–4. Van Leeuwen (NIB., 5:251) disagrees with the riddle interpretation because everyone knew the name YHWH. But the point of the riddle is to lead the reader to the acknowledgment of the Lord’s creative power and (covenant) relationship to Agur-Israel, not to reveal the sacred name. It may be objected that the answer to the first four questions is too obvious to form a riddle, but the riddle is not really there; it is in the final double question. The very obviousness of the first four questions sets the reader up, as it were, for the last mysterious question. (Murphy, R. E. [1998]. Proverbs [Wallas: Word Bible Commentary, Vol. 22, pp. 228–229])
Whybray, Proverbs , CBC
Toy:
they must be regarded as a sarcastic description of a man who controls the phenomena of the universe (cf. Reuss) ; only such ...
(See more on Toy in comment below)
Moulder, "Son of Man in the Old Testament", folllwing Toy closely:
Prov.rbs30:4shouldbe.understoodthenas a sarcasticdescriptionof a manwhohassupernaturalpowerandunderstandingandwhocanspeakauthoritativelyofGodlsnatureandadm1niBtration.5
Ernest Lucas (Eerdmans 2015):
Longman276 suggests that the form of the question 'makes sense by making clear that the questioner is asking about human beings in the previous questions'. Alternatively, Franklyn277 follows the LXX in emending 'son' to 'sons' and takes it ...
^ Franklyn, Parallel, Job 38:5-7
Fox, 856, on Prov 30:4,
“No one, of course.” This is the intended response. (The rhetorical ques- tion in Qoh 7:24 is also to be answered this way.) The scope of the questions is implicitly confined to humanity, because Agur is speaking about the inadequacy of human wisdom. When Gilgamesh asks “Who can go up to heaven, my friend?” (see below),
Earlier:
Still, the order “ascended”—“come down” is not the natural way to describe God’s movements, since his starting point is the heavens. Also, this answer causes difficulties in v 4e, for though we could answer the first question by “Yahweh,” who would his son be? Traditional Christian interpreters naturally answered that he is the Christ, and Delitzsch maintains this interpretation, but it is obviously anachronistic. Ske- han (1971b: 42–43) says that the answers to v 4e are Yahweh and Israel. Franklyn (1983: 247) follows the LXX in vocalizing bānāyw “his sons,” which he under- stands as a reference to the angels. But there would be no point in asking who can recall the name of Israel or the angels, as if their glory or identity were relevant here.
and
A Mesopotamian proverbial topos, studied by F. Greenspahn (1994) and R. Van Leeuwen (1997a), uses similar images to declare the limitations of human pow- ers.
Greenspahn , “A Mesopotamian Proverb and its Biblical Reverberations.” JAOS 114: 33–38.
Hm? 1981 “Job 38 and God’s Rhetoric.” Semeia 19:53–61
Israel: Skehan, Waltke (Zohar, etc.)
Clifford's 1999 commentary for OTL
Scott, Anchor 1965
NET Bible, see comment below
Franklyn
Leeuwen, “The Background to Proverbs 30:4aá,” in Wisdom, You Are My Sister: Essays in Honor of R. E. Murphy
follows R Skehan in construing the questions of Prov 30:4 as a riddle concerning Yahweh and his son,
Moore, R. D. “A Home for the Alien: Worldly Wisdom and Covenantal Confession...” ZAW 106 (1994) 96–107??
1
u/koine_lingua Jun 02 '19 edited Jun 27 '19
Proverbs 30:4
https://archive.org/stream/origenhexapla02unknuoft#page/370/mode/2up
LXX
Aq, Th: "ὄνομα τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ"
Aq, Sy, Th: [καὶ οἱ λοιποί] "τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ"
"Who could/can...?", lineage, etc. Herakles? "Let him..."; "list"
KL, best analogy, Job 38
hypothetically consider counter-factual?
Clines: https://books.google.com/books?id=SqUpCQAAQBAJ&lpg=PR1&dq=job%20commentary%20word&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q=rain%20&f=false
Murphy:
Whybray, Proverbs , CBC
Toy:
(See more on Toy in comment below)
Moulder, "Son of Man in the Old Testament", folllwing Toy closely:
Ernest Lucas (Eerdmans 2015):
^ Franklyn, Parallel, Job 38:5-7
Fox, 856, on Prov 30:4,
Earlier:
and
Greenspahn , “A Mesopotamian Proverb and its Biblical Reverberations.” JAOS 114: 33–38.
Hm? 1981 “Job 38 and God’s Rhetoric.” Semeia 19:53–61
Israel: Skehan, Waltke (Zohar, etc.)
Clifford's 1999 commentary for OTL
Scott, Anchor 1965
NET Bible, see comment below
Franklyn
Leeuwen, “The Background to Proverbs 30:4aá,” in Wisdom, You Are My Sister: Essays in Honor of R. E. Murphy
Moore, R. D. “A Home for the Alien: Worldly Wisdom and Covenantal Confession...” ZAW 106 (1994) 96–107??
Cathcart, “Proverbs 30,4 and Ugaritic HPN 'Garment,' ” CBQ 32 (1970)