Proverbs 30:11

30:10 Slander not a servant to his master, accuse him not in small matters, to make mischief. 11-14. In every age there are monsters of ingratitude who ill-treat their parents. Many persuade themselves they are holy persons, whose hearts are full of sin, and who practise secret wickedness. There are others whose lofty pride is manifest. There have also been cruel monsters in every age. 15-17. Cruelty and covetousness are two daughters of the horseleech, that still cry, Give, give, and they are continually uneasy to themselves. Four things never are satisfied, to which these devourers are compared. Those are never rich that are always coveting. And many who have come to a bad end, have owned that their wicked courses began by despising their parents' authority. 18-20. Four things cannot be fully known. The kingdom of nature is full of marvels. The fourth is a mystery of iniquity; the cursed arts by which a vile seducer gains the affections of a female; and the arts which a vile woman uses to conceal her wickedness. 21-23 Four sorts of persons are very troublesome. Men of low origin and base spirit, who, getting authority, become tyrants. Foolish and violent men indulging in excesses. A woman of a contentious spirit and vicious habits. A servant who has obtained undue influence. Let those whom Providence has advanced from low beginnings, carefully watch against that sin which most easily besets them.

There is a generation that curseth their father,.... A sort of men that neither fear God nor regard men; and are so inhuman as to be without natural affections to their parents; have no reverence of them, love to them, nor give them any honour or obedience; so far from it, that they curse their father that begot them; imprecate on him all the evils in life they can think of, and wish him out of the world; and doth not bless their mother; cannot give her a good word, who bore them, and brought them up in the most tender and indulgent manner; yea, so unnatural as to curse her also, for that is intended by this way of speaking; see Proverbs 30:17.

Proverbs 30:11-14 . There is a generation — A sort of men, abominable both to God and men, which is implied concerning these and the following kind of sinners, mentioned in these verses; that curseth their father — And mother too, as it follows; ungrateful and unnatural children. There are those that are pure in their own eyes — Who not only pretend to others, but sincerely think within themselves, that they are truly religious persons, and in all respects such as they should be; and yet are not washed from their filthiness — Not delivered from the guilt or power of their sins; not saved by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, Titus 3:5 ; not justified, not sanctified, in the name of the Lord, the Messiah, and by the Spirit of our God, 1 Corinthians 6:11 . Reader, is this thy case? There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! — With what disdain do they look upon their neighbours! At what a distance do they expect every body to keep! A sort of men that are proud and insolent, advancing themselves, and despising all others in comparison of themselves, and showing the pride of their hearts in their countenances and behaviour. There is a generation whose teeth, &c. — Extortioners, and cruel oppressors, who grind the faces of the poor.

(11) There is a generation . . .—The words “ there is” are not in the Hebrew, so it is left in doubt what is the predicate of these four evil “generations,” whether Agur means by them to describe the men of his own time, or to say that such are unbearable. (Comp. Proverbs 30:21 .) The same characters are to be found in the description of men of the “last days” ( 2Timothy 3:1 sqq ) .

11-14. Four kinds of hateful persons—(1) graceless children, (2) hypocrites, (3) the proud, (4) cruel oppressors (compare on Pr 30:14; Ps 14:4; 52:2)—are now illustrated; (1) Pr 30:15, 16, the insatiability of prodigal children and their fate; (2) Pr 30:17, hypocrisy, or the concealment of real character; (3 and 4) Pr 30:18-20, various examples of pride and oppression.

Verses 11-31 contain six groups of four sentences each, each quaternion having a certain connection in language and concinnity of idea. First (vers. 11-14) come four generations that are evil - four being taken as the symbol of universality. The sins herein specified had become so general that they affected the whole generation. Verse 11. - There is a generation that eurseth their father. The words, "there is," are not found in the Hebrew, and the four subjects are without a predicate. Delitzsch calls the group "a mutilated priamel," which is explained to be a kind of gnomic poetry containing a series of antecedents or subjects followed by an epigrammatic conclusion applicable to all the antecedents. In the present ease the conclusion is wanting, so that we are left in doubt whether the author meant merely to de. scribe classes of men in his own time or to affirm that such are abominable. Septuagint, "A wicked generation curseth its father ( ἔκγονον κακόν )," which expression is repeated at each of the four verses. The first sin is that which offends against the commandment to honour and obey parents. This was judged worthy of death under the old Law ( Exodus 21:17 ; see Proverbs 20:20 , and note there). And doth not bless their mother. This is a litotes , "not to bless" being equivalent to "to curse." Proverbs 30:11

There now follows a Priamel, (Note: Cf. vol. i. p. 13. The name (from praeambulum) given to a peculiar form of popular gnomic poetry which prevailed in Germany from the 12th (e.g., the Meistersinger or Minstrel Sparvogel) to the 16th century, but was especially cultivated during the 14th and 15th centuries. Its peculiarity consisted in this, that after a series of antecedents or subjects, a briefly-expressed consequent or predicate was introduced as the epigrammatic point applicable to all these antecedents together. Vid., Erschenburg's Denkmlern altdeutscher Dichtkinst, Bremen 1799.) the first line of which is, by יקלל, connected with the יקללך of the preceding distich: 11 A generation that curseth their father, And doth not bless their mother; 12 A generation pure in their own eyes, And yet not washed from their filthiness; 13 A generation - how haughty their eyes, And their eyelids lift themselves up; 14 A generation whose teeth are swords and their jaw teeth knives To devour the poor from the earth and the needy from the midst of men. Ewald translates: O generation! but that would have required the word, 13a, הדּור (Jeremiah 2:31), and one would have expected to have found something mentioned which the generation addressed were to take heed to; but it is not so. But if "O generation!" should be equivalent to "O regarding the generation!" then הוי ought to have introduced the sentence.

And if we translate, with Luther: There is a generation, etc., then ישׁ is supplied, which might drop out, but could not be omitted. The lxx inserts after ἔκγονον the word κακόν, and then renders what follows as pred. - a simple expedient, but worthless. The Venet. does not need this expedient, for it renders γενεὰ τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ βλασφημέσει; but then the order of the words in 11a would have been דור יקלל אביו; and in 12a, after the manner of a subst. clause, דור טהור בעיניו הוא, one sees distinctly, from Proverbs 30:13 and Proverbs 30:14, that what follows דור is to be understood, not as a pred., but as an attributive clause. As little can we interpret Proverbs 30:14, with Lwenstein, as pred. of the three subj., "it is a generation whose teeth are swords;" that would at least have required the words דור הוא; but Proverbs 30:14 is not at all a judgment valid for all the three subjects. The Targ. and Jerome translate correctly, as we above; (Note: The Syr. begins 11a as if הוי were to be supplied.) but by this rendering there are four subjects in the preamble, and the whole appears, since the common pred. is wanting, as a mutilated Priamel.