Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 30:8 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 8. 8Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse opens with “Remove far from me vanity and lies” and develops the line through “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food…”.
Agur asks for two things before he dies: truth in the mouth and a middle portion
This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 30:7–9. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Proverbs 30:7–9
Read Proverbs 30:8 with 30:7–9. Read alone, “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: uses two-part parallelism to place “Two things have I required of thee” beside “deny me them not before I die”; by 30:9, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my…”. Together the unit concentrates on wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, truthful testimony, honest measures, and integrity, reverent accountability before the LORD within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 30:7–9 continues “Agur confesses knowledge's limits” by carrying “A prayer for truth and sufficient provision” within the same sustained discourse, admonition, numbered form, or poem. Within that relationship, this verse opens with “Remove far from me vanity and lies” and develops the line through “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food…”.
Follow the Context
- Opening (30:7): the unit uses two-part parallelism to place “Two things have I required of thee” beside “deny me them not before I die”.
- Development (30:7–9): adjacent lines test wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, truthful testimony, honest measures, and integrity, reverent accountability before the LORD through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (30:9): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my…”, creating the next supported pause.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
Proverbs 30:8 does not allow “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor…” to become a universal promise, complete policy, diagnosis, insult, or authorization detached from Proverbs 30:7–9. The verse does not romanticize poverty, condemn all wealth, promise a fixed middle-class standard, or blame people whose necessities are unmet.
What Remains True
Reliable testimony, honest measurement, and integrity protect relationships and public life from manipulation. In Proverbs 30:8, that bounded truth is expressed through “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Seek truthful sufficiency, meet real needs, resist deceptive gain and status consumption, and avoid imposing one economic level as God's standard for everyone.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 30:8's exact role in Proverbs 30:7–9. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give…,” name one uncertainty, and explicitly reject one harmful use.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read Proverbs 30:7–9 — A prayer for truth and sufficient provisionSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The prayer asks for truthful sufficiency between poverty and riches; it is not a universal income formula and acknowledges temptations associated with both extremes.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
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 ↗