Proverbs 30:29-31

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Proverbs 30:29. Go well, rather, “are of stately walk.”

Proverbs 30:31. Delitzsch renders the last clause of this verse:—“A king with whom is the calling out of the host.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 30:29

KINGLY QUALITIES

These words seem to set forth animal qualifications needed by human leaders.

I. They must be men of courage. A cowardly man in any position in society will, at some time or other, be found wanting, but what is needed in everyday life and by men in ordinary positions, is indispensable in him who has to lead others. A king in the days of Solomon was expected to be at the head of his army in the day of battle, and if he was not then an example to all beneath him in this respect, he brought disgrace and ruin upon himself and them. A king in all ages, and under all circumstances should be to his subjects what the lion is to the other beasts of the forest—a pattern of dignity and courage.

II. They must be active and watchful. Both the greyhound and the war-horse—whichever may be here meant—are characterised by swiftness of foot and great sagacity. They are ready at any moment to set forth on any errand, and are always on the alert when danger is near. The goat, also, is agile in its movements, and as sure-footed as it is fleet. All these animal qualities are symbolic of mental qualifications which must be possessed by those who aspire to lead and rule their fellow-men successfully. They must not be behindhand when called to action, but they must at the same time take heed to the dangers which may lie in wait for them. They must be ever ready at the call of duty, but they must not be rash and hasty, and so endanger much more than their own personal safety.

On the subject of Proverbs 30:32, see on chap. Proverbs 17:14, page 513.

REMARKS ON THE CHAPTER AS A WHOLE

While it appears at the first view that the flowers and fruits from the cornucopia of Agur’s wisdom, original and in part so rarely fashioned, are heaped up wholly without order, yet they all agree in this, that they depict the glory and all sufficiency of the Word of God, dissuade from adding to it by any human supplement, and most urgently commend the fulfilling and following it by a pious life. There is hardly a single commandment of the Decalogue that is not directly or indirectly repeated and emphasised in these maxims. Observe the relation of the prayer for the hallowing of God’s name (Proverbs 30:7) to the first and third commandments; the references contained in Proverbs 30:11, and again in Proverbs 30:17 to the fifth commandment; the warnings against the transgression of the sixth commandment in Proverbs 30:14 as well as in Proverbs 30:32; the reproving and warning aim of Proverbs 30:18; Proverbs 30:23, in their bearing upon the seventh; the allusion to the eighth in Proverbs 30:9, and to the ninth in Proverbs 30:10; and finally the reference, reminding us of the tenth in Proverbs 30:15.… No one of these proverbs is wholly without an ethical value; not even the two numerical proverbs (Proverbs 30:24), which at the first view stand apart as incidental reflections on merely natural truths, but in reality hide under their ingenious physical drapery decided moral aims. For in Proverbs 30:24 four chief virtues of one’s social and political avocation are specified through an allusion to a like number of examples from the animal world, and Proverbs 30:29 run into a delineation of the high dignity and glory of a king by the grace of God in contrast with the insufferable tyranny of base upstarts (Proverbs 30:21.)—Lange’s Commentary.