Proverbs 30:4

ascended … descended That he should go there and learn, and come back again to earth and tell what is done there. Comp. John 3:13: "No man hath risen into the region of absolute and eternal truth, so as to look upon it face to face, and in the possession of that knowledge declare it to men." Bp Westcott. It is something of this conviction that calls forth the deeply humble confession of Proverbs 30:2; but it leads not to agnosticism, but to the reverent yet trustful acknowledgement of "the Holy One" who knows all. Comp. for the following questions, Isaiah 40:12-17; Job 38:41.

a garment "The wonder of the clouds, floating reservoirs of water, which do not burst underneath the weight of waters which they contain. Men bind up water in skins or bottles; God binds up the rain-floods in the thin, gauzy texture of the changing cloud, which yet by His power does not rend under its burden of waters." Job 26:8, note in this Series.

his name … his son's name Can you describe Him, and can you tell whether He is absolutely alone, or has He imparted His nature and attributes to any other, who may in any sense be called His "Son"? The question is of deep interest, betokening the early yearnings, awakened by the Divine Spirit in the spirit of man, which were to find "when the fulness of the time came" their complete satisfaction in the great revelation of Sonship in the Gospel.

The wise Teacher "has meditated on the wonderful facts of the physical world; he has watched the great trees sway under the touch of the invisible wind, and the waves rise up in their might, lashing the shores, but vainly essaying to pass their appointed boundaries; he has considered the vast expanse of the earth, and enquired on what foundations does it rest, and where are its limits? He cannot question the -eternal power and divinity," which alone can account for this ordered universe. He has not, like many thinkers, ancient and modern, -dropped a plummet down the broad deep universe, and cried, No God." He knows that there is a God; there must be an intelligence able to conceive, coupled with a power able to realise, this mighty mechanism. But Who is it? What is His name, or His Son's name? Here are the footsteps of the Creator; but where is the Creator Himself?" Horton.

Proverbs 30:5. From the uncertainty of human speculation he finds relief in the certainty of Divine revelation.