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God -- The True Source of Knowledge. part 1

Proverbs 30:4-6 4 Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son's name? Surely you know! 5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6 Do not add to His words Lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar.

These words struck me as I read them and want to work my way through the verses with you briefly:

1) Notice the rhetorical questions that Agur (the author of Proverbs 30) is asking: Who has ascended into heaven? The obvious answer is NO ONE except God Almighty.
2) Again, Who has gathered the wind in his fists? No one, except God Almighty. We must realize that it is God who is sovereign over all the cosmic elements -- thus the Lord has access to wisdom.

3) Who has wrapped the waters in his garment? Oftentimes we note that the sovereignty of God is often emphasized by means of his control over water (cf. Gen 1:9-10; Ps 104:6-7).

4) Who has established the ends of the earth? This obvious answer shows that there is nothing that is hidden from Yahweh in all the earth. Nothing is beyond his ability to know. He has established the furthest boundaries of the earth and the varied worlds.

Thus we find that the "answer to these questions, standing between humanity's inability to know wisdom and the presence of God's word to his people, unravels the paradox of how inaccessible wisdom becomes accessible to earthlings" (Waltke, Proverbs, 2:472).

When we respond to the end of verse 4, What is His name...and the name of His Son? The answer to the first question is Yahweh and Him alone. However, this text - I believe - is an OT reference to God having a Son (cf. Psalm 2:8). Ross notes ("Proverbs," EBC, 5:1119-20) that "This here is a reference to the Son of God (a subtle anticipation of the full revelation in the NT)."

Listen to how Waltke speaks of Jesus Christ as the Son in this passage:
In the New Testament Jesus Christ fulfills typical Israel, for a Gentile tyrant
threatened his life at birth; he, too, returned from exile in Egypt, suffered in
the wilderness, and taught on a mountain. Unlike Israel, he perfectly obeyed his
Father. But he is more than a son. He identifies himself as the Son of Man who
comes on the clouds, the biblical symbol of divine transcendence. In Luke he is
the incarnate Son of God by the virgin birth, and in John he is the eternal Son
of God. As such he speaks with an immediate authority, and through the Holy
Spirit he guided his apostles into all truth.
Okay, that's enough for today, I'll return to verses 5-6 tomorrow...

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