Jump to a verse
Proverbs 30:7–9, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 30:7–9
A prayer for truth and sufficient provision
Agur asks for two things before he dies: truth in the mouth and a middle portion
Two things I have required of you; do not deny me them before I die: remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny you, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
Vanity and lies are the first removal: empty show and false speech. Convenient food is the allotted portion, enough for the day, not a feast as identity and not hunger as identity. The prayer refuses both poles as spiritual hazards, not as a claim that every rich person has denied God or that every poor person is a thief.
Fullness and want are both pictured as temptations against the Name
Fullness that says Who is the LORD is the smug atheism of enough. Poverty that steals and then misuses the Name is the other cliff: crime plus blasphemy under pressure. Agur knows his own likely sins in both weathers. The request is formation through provision, not a law against wealth received or against fighting the conditions of poverty.
Before I die gives the prayer a deadline of honesty. Daily bread is asked as a guard for loyalty, still not a bargain that the middle class is the holy class.
How this should shape us
Pray for truthfulness and enough. Do not romanticize a full table as blessing if it makes you forget the LORD, and do not romanticize empty shelves as spirituality if they train you to steal. Work against both lies and crushing poverty without using this prayer to shame the rich or the poor as such.
Teach it back
Explain Proverbs 30:7–9 in your own words. Identify its form and collection, trace one line from role through contextual meaning and enduring truth to application, name one uncertainty, and reject one misuse explicitly.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful readers disagree?
Best judgment: The unit's speaker, literary form, imagery, or arrangement carries named uncertainty. The judgment follows the received sequence without inventing a biography or forcing every image into one allegory.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Proverbs 30:7–9, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 30:7-30:9
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1178-1181, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 30:7–9
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 30:7–9 and the Words of Agur and numbered observations outline
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 30:7–9
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: Proverbs 30:7–9, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 30:7-30:9
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1178-1181, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 30:7–9
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 30:7–9 and the Words of Agur and numbered observations outline
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
The situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth in the Book of Proverbs
G. H. Wittenberg
Scriptura 21, 1987; open archive 2020
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Exact location: Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 30:7–9
Open source ↗