Near the end of Proverbs, in an appendix headed "the words of Agur son of Jakeh" — a collection attributed to somebody nobody can identify, and unlike anything in the chapters before it. Agur opens by announcing that he is stupid and has not learned wisdom, which is not how the rest of the book talks.
What happens
"Every word of Theos is tested; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Add nothing to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be exposed as a deceiver. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die: Put falsehood and lying far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; provide me only with the food I need; lest, being full, I deny you, saying, 'Who is Yahweh?' Or, being in want, I steal, and profane the name of my Theos."
What to notice
This is the only prayer in the book of Proverbs. Thirty-one chapters of instruction, observation and warning, and exactly one passage addressed to Theos rather than to a student — and what it asks for is a moderate income. The reasoning is what makes it remarkable, because it is entirely psychological and not at all moral. Agur does not say riches are wicked or poverty holy. He says each would turn him into a particular kind of liar, and names both: full, he would say "Who is Yahweh?"; destitute, he would steal and drag the name through it. He knows his own failure modes on both sides and asks for the narrow band in which he could stay honest. Lechem chuqqi — literally "the bread of my allotment", my prescribed portion, the ration — is the idea standing behind "give us this day our daily bread." And tzerufah, "tested," is a metalworker's word: refined in a crucible, impurities burned off. The word of Theos is described as an assayed metal.
A second day of Psalm 119, again a selection from across the poem rather than a single stanza, and again every verse chosen for one theme.
The selected verses
Psalm 119:29."Remove from me the way of falsehood, and favor me with your law." Psalm 119:72."The law of your mouth is to me more precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces." Psalm 119:89."Your word, Yahweh, endures forever; it is firm as the heavens." Psalm 119:101."From every evil way I withhold my feet, that I may keep your words." Psalm 119:104."Through your precepts I gain discernment; therefore I hate every false way." Psalm 119:163."Falsehood I hate and abhor; your law I love."
What to notice
Four of the six verses namesheqer, falsehood — and the lectionary has clearly assembled them around Agur's first petition, "put falsehood and lying far from me."Psalm 119:72 then supplies the second petition in the psalm's own terms: the law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver. Not better than poverty, and not better than moderation — better than the pile Agur has just asked not to be given. The psalmist is not renouncing wealth. He is reporting an exchange rate.
The first time the Twelve are sent out on their own. Everything up to now they have watched; this is where they are handed the work.
What happens
"Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the reign of Theos and to heal the sick. He said to them, 'Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.'"
What to notice
The prohibitions are the instruction. Not a staff, which every traveller on those roads carried and which cost nothing; not a pēra, the leather bag a beggar or travelling philosopher used; not bread; not money; not a change of clothes. Luke is stricter than Mark, who permits a staff and sandals (Mark 6:8–9) — and the effect is unmistakable: men sent to heal the sick and cast out demons are dispatched without the means to feed themselves for one day. The mission is designed to make them dependent. They will eat only if somebody takes them in, which means the first thing that happens in every village is that they have to receive something. Then a rule that sounds administrative and is not: "whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there." First offer accepted; no moving to better lodging if a wealthier host turns up. And the dust: shaking a place's dust off your feet was a gesture Jews performed on re-entering the land after travelling through Gentileterritory. Performed on leaving a Jewish village, it says something very sharp.
Less than enough: no bread, no money, no second shirt
Agur's prayer and Jesus's instruction look like the same counsel and are not, and the difference is worth sitting with.
Agur asks for the middle. His argument is a sober piece of self-knowledge: wealth would make him forget who Theos is, and destitution would make him a thief, so he asks to be kept in the band where honesty is available to him. It is the most realistic prayer in the Old Testament, and it assumes a person's circumstances shape what they are capable of being. Nobody in the wisdom tradition thinks virtue is independent of the household budget.
Then Luke's Jesus sends the Twelve out below Agur's floor. Not the daily ration — no bread at all. Not moderate provision — no purse. The men who go out under those terms will be, by the end of the first afternoon, in exactly the condition Agur prayed to be spared.
The resolution is in what the instruction is for, and it is not asceticism. Nothing in Luke 9 praises hunger or commends going without as a discipline. What the empty hands produce is a particular kind of arrival. A man with a bag and money can enter a village, do his work, and leave without needing anyone; a man with nothing has to be taken in before he can do anything at all. The gospel is thereby prevented from being deliveredfrom above — every proclamation in that chapter happens in somebody's house, at somebody's table, on somebody else's provision. Which is why the follow-up rule matters. Stay in the house you first enter.The point is not the poverty; it is the relationship it forces, and moving to a better host would undo it.
And Psalm 119 supplies the accounting that makes sense of both. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver. The psalmist has not been asked to have nothing; he has been given something against which the pile can be measured — and once you can price it, the difference between Agur's careful ration and the Twelve's empty hands stops being a contradiction. Both men are describing what they would not trade.
A Question to Sit With
Agur does not ask to be made stronger. He asks to be kept out of the two situations in which he already knows he would fail — and he names the specific lie he would tell in each. That is a far more honest prayer than any I usually make, because mine tend to assume I would behave well if circumstances improved. If I had to write Agur's sentence about myself, what are the two conditions I would ask to be spared, and what exactly would I say in each?