Is the question, "What is the name of His son?" in Proverbs 30:4 referring to Jesus?

Though Agur speaks of himself as being more stupid than any man (Prov. 30:2), he asks questions that should have profoundly stirred the intelligence of any Israelite who read them: "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in His fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is His name, and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?" (Prov. 30:4). But let us remember that this is Scripture, and therefore God is asking us these questions. We are faced with the great glory of the Creator, then we are asked, "what is His name, and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?" He does not ask, "what will be the name of one who becomes God's Son in the future," but "what is His name, and what is His Son's name?" Was Christ the Son of God at the time Agur wrote? Absolutely! There is no escape from this certainty.

One word of God outweighs all other words. "Every word of God is pure." It is noteworthy that the passage which precedes these words bears explicit witness to Sonship in the Godhead. We have here the remarkable sevenfold question of Agur as to Creation and then as to the names of Creator and His Son. "What is His name, and what is His Son's name if thou canst tell" (Prov. 30:4). This is evaded in the usual way, it is prophetical. Are we not told as much? Well at any rate it is not a prophecy that the Creator should have a Son: that is taken for granted, but as to that Son's name. There is nothing really prophetical in the passage. As a matter of fact the word translated here "prophecy," is only so translated in one other of its 70 occurrences in the Old Testament, and that is in the following chapter 31:1, "the prophecy that his mother taught him," where again there is nothing prophetical in the whole context, but rather a weighty warning against vice and strong drink. The root meaning is really "a burden" or something of weight. Gesenius translates in Prov. 32:1, "sentences": the Revised Version in both places "burden" or "oracle." It is what we would call a "weighty statement." Surely to affirm then that Sonship in the Godhead is unknown in the Old Testament is to deny what is plainly written. Agur had no pretension, as he tells us himself, to be highly educated or gifted or deeply taught in divine truth, but he knew more than some who make these claims to-day, and yet have let go what he knew. May the Lord give us more Agurs, simple men who hold the truth tenaciously, and enquire for more!

This agrees too with what devout students of the Word have learnt of the Divine Wisdom (Prov. 8). This has been held from time immemorial by Christian and Jewish interpreters, as revealing a mysterious plurality in the Divine Being. But these men brush it all on one side, on some tiny pretext which proves their point, as they assert. One wonders at their facile logic Only those already persuaded could attach weight to it. How could a mere attribute, reprove, demand obedience, counsel, rejoice before God, be sinned against? How strikingly reminiscent of the statements of John 1 are such words as, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of old." "I was set up from everlasting or ever the earth was." "When there were no depths I was brought forth!" (vv. 22, 25). Here we have twice the thought of "generation" - "I was brought forth," "I was brought forth" (Heb. chul. see Job 15:7, "Wast thou made before the hills?" Ps. 51:5, "shapen in iniquity"). How can we avoid the conclusion that it is the Eternal Son who was then brought forth? Clearly eternal filiation and eternal existence in the past are not incompatible, however much human reason may stumble.

Solomon's wisdom was greater than that of all men, but its brightness pales before the excellence of the divine wisdom manifested in the Son of God. All the hard questions that the queen of Sheba asked were answered by Solomon, but there were questions asked, both in the Old and New Testaments that could not have been answered by Solomon, but which were answered by the Lord Jesus Christ. The question asked by Agur the son of Jakeh in Proverbs 30:4, "What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?" is answered in the Person of Jesus, who revealed the Father's Name.

In the prologue he takes the low place, and in his confession manifests the deepest humility, with no taint of pride, thus illustrating the true humility enjoined in the proverbs of Solomon. Because he confessed that he had no understanding nor knowledge of the holy, the Lord gave him all what he lacked.

The questions he asks are concerning the Creator. "Who is He that hath ascended up into heaven and descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?" He knows there is a Creator. He cannot question the eternal power and Godhead, 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 there is a God; there must be an intelligence abled to conceive, coupled with power able to release 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? (Expositor's Bible) By searching God cannot be found out; the fullest answer is given in the New Testament. We are reminded of John 3:13. We know Him who has ascended, because He descended from heaven; Who is the Lord and Creator of all, now in God's presence as the glorified man, and some day He who ascended into heaven will descend again.

"Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? who has bound the waters in a garment? who has established all the ends of the earth? what is His name, and WHAT IS HIS SON'S NAME, if thou canst tell? (Proverbs 30:4)

Here we get a most remarkable foreshadowing of the Lord in the Old Testament, and an affirmation in an indirect way, and its very indirectness making it all the more forcible, of the Eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ. The teachers of the "new light" are fond of drawing attention to the tense of the verb. Will they note particularly it says here, "What IS His Son's name?"

Let us begin by reading one verse from the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. Proverbs 30 verse 4 in the middle, where it says according to the JND translation: “Who hath established all the ends of the earth, what is his name and what is his son's name if Thou knowest?” The verse I just read is a rather mysterious verse in the Old Testament. Mysterious not in the sense that it cannot be understood, but that it expresses an ignorance, in a way, of men at that time concerning God and His Son. Evidently Solomon here speaks of God and His Son, but he puts it in the form of a question. “What is His name?” How many names of God do we not find in the Old Testament: the Almighty, Jehovah, the Lord etc. How many titles of the Lord Jesus, His beloved Son, do we not find in the Old Testament: The Anointed, The King, etc. But this is not our subject.

"Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His Name, and what is His San's Name, if thou canst tell?"

Is this verse not intended to show the complete ignorance of man apart from a revelation from God? It is indisputable that the heavens are there - above us, - and they have drawn the interest of man from time immemorial; but who has ascended there to fathom its mysteries? or who has descended to reveal its mysteries? While man's excursion to the moon shows his thirst for this knowledge, yet he knows he has barely touched the fringes of space: to ascend to heaven is how different a matter! There is a realm of things transcendently beyond him, and he knows it.

But coming lower than space, who controls the invisible wind in fists of awesome strength? Certainly man does not. Or who binds the water within bounds, water which by its very nature is unbound, unstable, the seas the very symbol of unrestrained lawlessness? Or who has given the solid earth its stability? In these three, all that is observable around us is comprehended, atmospheric, liquid, or solid. What real control does man have over these? Yet who can deny they are controlled? Let atheism, or science, or philosophy tell us, what is the name of this great Controller, and what is His Son's Name? But human investigation is impossible here: intellect, intuition, education must confess in this their hopeless inability to supply an answer.

But there is the sixth question. "What is His Son's name? if thou canst tell? Is this only a stage question, asked for dramatic effect? The very next sentence in our Bibles says, "Every word of God is pure." Are we to decide the matter, and to say that such a disclosure is not a matter of revelation, … and could not be? Should we not humbly renounce with Agur all idea of scholarship or human reasoning, and with him learn that not all that is in the Godhead was at that time revealed; that there existed in the eternal Godhead relationships which had still to be brought to light?

In passing, I turn to Proverbs 30. The words of Agur are a prophecy, the utterance of an oracle. There is little doubt that we have therein a broad survey of the generations of mankind, of the developments of good and evil on the earth, and of the incoming of the Ruler Who will subdue all to God. But ere the writer unfolds his theme, and with a humble confession that what he writes is no fruit of earthly scholarship, he asks six questions in v. 4 which refer to the invisible and eternal God. The first embraces the wonders of the heavens above, a region inaccessible to man. The second is concerning the air, invisible and uncontrollable by man. The third relates to the waters no man can manage, the fourth to the earth, the establishment and maintenance of which could only be the work of God. That there must be a God is clear; yet can a man by searching find out the Almighty? If God did not give a revelation, the questions Who? Who? would have to travel round the world unanswered.

This inability of the human mind by its own effort to discover and know God was clearly recognised by men of intelligence in ancient times. Zophar the Naamathite challenged Job as to it, when he asked, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" (Job 11:7). And Agur the son of Jakeh appealed to Ithiel (whose name meant, There is a God) for help when he confessed his ignorance of God. "I have neither learned wisdom," said he, "nor have I the knowledge of the holy. Who has ascended up into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists; Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?" As far as we know Ithiel had no answer to that appeal.