Proverbs 30:32

These are the last two verses of Proverbs 30, “the words of Agur the son of Jakeh” (Proverbs 30:1). Agur’s collection follows the proverbs of Solomon and has a character of its own. Much of it is made of numbered sayings (Proverbs 30:15–31) and of observations about the created world and about people. With verse 32 he turns from what he has observed to a direct word about the reader’s own conduct, especially in the moment after he has done wrong, and with verse 33 he gives the reason for it. So the chapter closes with a warning against strife: stop at the mouth, because pressure on anger always ends in a quarrel.

Verse 32 names two failures. The first is to have “done foolishly in lifting up thyself”. The verb for doing foolishly, nâbêl, means “to wilt”, and figuratively “to be foolish or (morally) wicked”. The folly in view is a moral one, a disgraceful act that brings dishonour on the one who does it. “Lifting up” is nâsâʼ, the common word to lift, bear or exalt, and with “thyself” it means self-exaltation: boasting, pushing oneself forward, carrying an inflated sense of one’s own importance, and setting oneself above one’s proper place. Proverbs has already said where this leads: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

The second failure is to have “thought evil”. The verb zâmam means to plan, devise or imagine, and it is usually used of plans to do harm. Here it is a wrong that has been thought through, an intention to hurt someone, deceive them or treat them unjustly. Between them the two clauses cover pride that shows outwardly in what we do and wickedness that is planned inwardly before anyone sees it. Sin begins in the heart and mind before it comes out in word or deed. Jesus said that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34), and Agur’s remedy reaches the heart’s wrong at the point where it would come out, the mouth.

A hand laid over the mouth is the plain sign of silence, and Agur’s command means: stop speaking. In Israel, where honour, reputation and peace in the community were highly valued, the gesture was widely understood as a mark of silence, shame or deep respect. It showed that a person was holding his tongue, either to keep from doing more damage or to acknowledge someone above him. Humility and self-control in public were counted as wisdom, and arrogant or careless speech brought disgrace and conflict.

So the person who sees that he has been proud, or catches himself planning harm, is told to go quiet at once. The right answer to having exalted yourself is humble silence, which owns the fault and stops the self-justifying. Silence also keeps the evil plan from being spoken, and it keeps more words from adding to the folly or wounding someone else. In this way the hand on the mouth is a picture of repentance, the first step in turning back. “Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (Proverbs 21:23). James says the same thing sharply: the man who claims to be religious while leaving his tongue unbridled deceives his own heart, and his religion is vain (James 1:26). Wisdom includes knowing what to say, and it also includes knowing when to be silent.

Verse 33 is built on one Hebrew word used three times. mîyts means pressure, and the KJV renders it three ways, as “churning”, “wringing” and “forcing”. The same pressing that turns milk into butter, and draws blood from a nose, draws strife out of wrath. The word speaks of active pressing, the agitation and provocation that someone carries out, so the result in each line comes from force applied.

The first two pictures came from daily life. Making butter and cheese from milk was common household work in Israel, and everyone knew that milk worked long enough would yield butter. Everyone also knew that a nose squeezed hard will bleed. The first result is useful and the second painful, and the move from one to the other prepares the way for the third line, which brings the lesson home to people. The verse opens with “Surely”, and the comparison is meant to be as certain as the kitchen and the body: press on anger and strife will come.

Most of Proverbs is written in pairs of lines. This verse stretches to three clauses that line up as one comparison, two from the physical world and one from human life, and that makes it easy to remember.

To force wrath is to press anger on: to stir it up on purpose, to keep it going, or to push it higher. It happens when we hold on to a grievance, provoke someone deliberately, let resentment fester, or refuse to let a quarrel go. Much of the strife between people comes this way, as the fruit of anger that someone chose to keep or to push. Proverbs says so more than once: “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife” (Proverbs 15:18), and “An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression” (Proverbs 29:22). It also tells us to stop before the quarrel starts: “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with” (Proverbs 17:14). And it shows how to lower the pressure: “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).

God has made a world in which actions bring their results, in the body and in our dealings with one another. Butter, blood and strife follow from pressure as surely as a harvest follows sowing: “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7–8). The New Testament speaks just as plainly about anger. “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20), and “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).

Jesus is the perfect example of the wisdom of these two verses. He had all authority, and still he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). His thoughts were always in step with his Father’s will, for he was tempted as we are, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). When he was falsely accused he answered with silence, as Isaiah foretold: “he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). He held his peace before the chief priests and before Pilate, so that the governor marvelled (Matthew 27:12–14). His silence was strength, self-control and humble submission to his Father’s plan.

He is also the answer to the strife of verse 33. “When he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). At the cross he bore the righteous wrath of God against our sin, and so he became our peace, breaking down the wall of hostility and reconciling Jew and Gentile to God in one body (Ephesians 2:14–16). By his Spirit we can put off “anger, wrath, malice” (Colossians 3:8) and bear the fruit of the Spirit, which includes peace, longsuffering, gentleness and temperance (Galatians 5:22–23). Where forced wrath brings strife, Christ brings reconciliation and healing, and he calls those who follow him to make peace: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

These verses give us two places to stop. When we see that we have been proud, or catch our minds planning harm, we can close our mouths, admit the fault before God, and let the matter go no further. When anger rises, we can lower the pressure by letting go of the grievance, forgiving, and seeking to understand the other person. James gives the same counsel: “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19–20). Strife comes from pressure, so peace grows when the pressing stops, and God gives his people the grace to stop.