066. Prayer Of Agur.
Prayer Of Agur. The Prayer as recorded.—Proverbs 30:1-9.
Among the writings of one who was fall of sublime devotion as well as practical piety, the “extemporizer of the loftiest litany in existence,” as he has been called—in the midst of his pungent proverbs, we find this prayer of Agur. It is placed in this brilliant setting, that the most careless may be attracted to it, and that the Bible student may read and examine the prayer of an humble follower of God. Agur was a teacher of Israel, and the names of his two pupils, Ithiel, (God with us,) and Ucal, (a mighty one,) lead us to suppose them both remarkable for learning and piety.
It is not unreasonable to us to infer that he to whom they came for lessons in wisdom, should have excelled them, and was himself a man of eminent learning and piety. His prayer is full of that humility which marks the Christian, and is the offspring of true love to God. Agur seems to have been contemplating the works of the Creator, and we feel satisfied he had looked from Nature up to Nature’s God; he feels his littleness and dependence, and from the depths of his heart pours out his prayers. His reflections have left in his soul two great desires, one regarding his temporal interests the other his spiritual, both involving the earnest wish to become a humble follower of God, by walking in the path the righteous have chosen—one equally removed from the alluring vanities of life, and from the temptations incident to the path of extreme poverty. Agur asks not the “flagon of oil or the widow’s cruse,” neither does he canonize want into a Christian grace, or debase wealth to a bitter evil. We suppose him a man of observation; he had probably seen but few of God’s devoted followers among the very wealthy, and perhaps quite as few among the extremely poor—both situations bringing an attendant train of evils tending to lead the soul away from the path of life. In much wealth there is much, danger, and though it may become a great blessing, it may be “kept by the owner to his hurt,” and become a curse to wither the brain, and turn to ice a heart that once may have been the home of love and charity. Agur had seen a crown, “golden in show, yet but a wreath of thorns, bring trouble, care, and sleepless nights.” The desires in his prayer came from the heart, and were the result of his reflections; with his eye fixed on that safe resting spot midway on the road to fortune, and beyond which one loses the capacity for enjoyment, he asks a moderate amount of temporal good, so that in the gift he may not forget the Giver, and with Pharaoh ask, “Who is the Lord?” So on the other hand, he would be delivered from the anxieties, toils, and temptations incident to a state of extreme poverty, and chooses that middle path from which he may the better lay up his treasures in heaven, and fix his affections there.
“Give me enough, saith Wisdom; For he feareth to ask for more;
Give me enough, and not less, For want is leagued with the tempter.”
We would have the reader ponder over this prayer, for in this gold-seeking, gold-loving age, it is seldom brought to the throne of grace. If God in his providence has given us wealth, may the petition of Agur warn us of danger, and may we become, by the blessing of him who has bestowed it, the honored instrument of relieving many who are in that state of poverty from which the teacher of Israel prayed to be delivered.