Two things - The limitation of man's desires follows naturally upon his consciousness of the limits of his knowledge.

Two things have I required of thee - These two petitions are mentioned in the next verse; and he wishes to have them answered before he should die. That is, he wishes the answer now, that he may live the rest of his life in the state he describes.

Two (e) [things] have I required of thee; deny [them] not to me before I die:
(e) He makes this request to God.

Two things have I required of thee,.... Or, "have asked of thee (a), O God"; as may be supplied, for the words are addressed to him. The following is a prayer made unto him, which contains the two requests here referred to; his requests are not many, his words are few; he did not make long prayers, or expect to be heard for much speaking;
deny me them not before I die; not that he thought he was near his end; nor is it his sense that he desired some time or other, at least before he died, that he might have these two requests granted him after mentioned; for what are poverty and riches, or convenient food, to a man just dying? but his meaning is, that he might be thus favoured as long as he lived; that all the while he was in the world, he might be kept from sin, and be free from anxious worldly thoughts and cares, having a moderate competency of good things: faith in prayer will have no denial; a wrestling Jacob will not let the angel go without a blessing; importunity in prayer gets much from the hands of God; "the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much", James 5:16.
(a) "postulavi a te", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Mercerus, Gejerus; "peto ab te", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "petii a te", Cocceius, Michaelis, Schultens.

Agur wisely prayed for a middle state, that he might be kept at a distance from temptations; he asked daily bread suited to his station, his family, and his real good. There is a remarkable similarity between this prayer and several clauses of the Lord's prayer. If we are removed from vanity and lies; if we are interested in the pardoning love of Christ, and have him for our portion; if we walk with God, then we shall have all we can ask or think, as to spiritual things. When we consider how those who have abundance are prone to abuse the gift, and what it is to suffer want, Agur's prayer will ever be found a wise one, though seldom offered. Food convenient; what is so for one, may not be so for another; but we may be sure that our heavenly Father will supply all our need, and not suffer us to want anything good for us; and why should we wish for more?

A prayer for exemption from wickedness, and the extremes of poverty and riches, the two things mentioned. Contentment is implied as desired.

In what now follows, the key-note struck in Proverbs 30:1 is continued. There follows a prayer to be kept in the truth, and to be preserved in the middle state, between poverty and riches. It is a Mashal-ode, vid., vol. i. p. 12. By the first prayer, "vanity and lies keep far from me," it is connected with the warning of Proverbs 30:6.
7 Two things I entreat from Thee,
Refuse them not to me before I die.
8 Vanity and lies keep far away from me
Poverty and riches give me not:
Cause me to eat the bread which is allotted to me,
9 Lest in satiety I deny,
And say: Who is Jahve?
And lest, in becoming poor, I steal,
And profane the name of my God.
We begin with the settlement and explanation of the traditional punctuation. A monosyllable like שׁוא receives, if Legarmeh, always Mehuppach Legarmeh, while, on the contrary, the poly-syllable אשׂבּע has Asla Legarmeh. אל־תּתּן־לי, with double Makkeph and with Gaja in the third syllable before the tone (after the Metheg-Setzung, 28), is Ben-Asher's; whereas Ben-Naphtali prefers the punctuation אל־תּתּן לי (vid., Baer's Genesis, p. 79, note 3). Also פּן־אשׂבּע has (cf. פּן־ישׁתּה, Proverbs 31:5) Makkeph, and on the antepenultima Gaja (vid., Thorath Emeth, p. 32). The perf. consec. וכחשׁתּי has on the ult. the disjunctive Zinnor (Sarka), which always stands over the final letter; but that the ult. is also to be accented, is shown by the counter-tone Metheg, which is to be given to the first syllable. Also ואמרתּי has in correct Codd., e.g., Cod. 1294, the correct ultima toning of a perf. consec.; Kimchi in the Michlol 6b, as well as Aben Ezra in both of his Grammars, quotes only וגנבתּי ותפשׂתּי as toned on the penult. That וגנבתּי cannot be otherwise toned on account of the pausal accent, has been already remarked under 6b; the word, besides, belongs to the סף''פתתין בא, i.e., to those which preserve their Pathach unlengthened by one of the greater disjunctives; the Athnach has certainly in the three so-called metrical books only the disjunctive form of the Zakeph of the prose books. So much as to the form of the text.
As to its artistic form, this prayer presents itself to us as the first of the numerical proverbs, under the "Words" of Agur, who delighted in this form of proverb. The numerical proverb is a brief discourse, having a didactic end complete in itself, which by means of numerals gives prominence to that which it seeks to bring forward. There are two kinds of these. The more simple form places in the first place only one numeral, which is the sum of that which is to be brought forth separately: the numerical proverb of one cipher; to this class belong, keeping out of view the above prayer, which if it did not commence a series of numerical proverbs does not deserve this technical name on account of the low ciphers: Proverbs 30:24-28, with the cipher 4; Sir. 25:1 and 2, with the cipher 3. Similar to the above prayer are Job 13:20., Isaiah 51:19; but these are not numerical proverbs, for they are not proverbs. The more artistic kind of numerical proverb has two ciphers: the two-ciphered numerical proverb we call the sharpened (pointed) proverb. Of such two-ciphered numerical proverbs the "words" of Agur contain four, and the whole Book of Proverbs, reckoning Proverbs 6:16-19, five - this ascending numerical character belongs to the popular saying, 2-Kings 9:32; Job 33:29; Isaiah 16:6, and is found bearing the stamp of the artistic distich outside of the Book of Proverbs, Psalm 62:12; Job 33:14; Job 40:5; Job 5:19, and particularly Amos 1:3-2:6. According to this scheme, the introduction of Agur's prayer should be:
אחת שׁאלתּי מאתּך
וּשׁתּים אל־תּמנע ממּנּי בּטרם אמוּת
and it could take this form, for the prayer expresses two requests, but dwells exclusively on the second. A twofold request he presents to God, these two things he wishes to be assured of on this side of death; for of these he stands in need, so as to be able when he dies to look back on the life he has spent, without the reproaches of an accusing conscience. The first thing he asks is that God would keep far from him vanity and lying words. שׁוא (= שׁוא, from שׁוא = שׁאה, to be waste, after the form מות) is either that which is confused, worthless, untrue, which comes to us from without (e.g., Job 31:5), or dissoluteness, hollowness, untruthfulness of disposition (e.g., Psalm 26:4); it is not to be decided whether the suppliant is influenced by the conception thus from within or from without, since דבר־כּזב [a word of falsehood] may be said by himself as well as to him, a falsehood can intrude itself upon him. It is almost more probable that by שׁוא he thought of the misleading power of God-estranged, idolatrous thought and action; and by דבר־כזב, of lying words, with which he might be brought into sympathy, and by which he might ruin himself and others. The second petition is that God would give him neither poverty (ראשׁ, vid., Proverbs 10:4) nor riches, but grant him for his sustenance only the bread of the portion destined for him. The Hiph. הטריף (from טרף, to grind, viz., the bread with the teeth) means to give
(Note: The Venet. translates, according to Villoison, θέρψον με; but the MS has, according to Gebhardt, θρέψον.)
anything, as טרף, with which, 31:15, נתן חק is parallel: to present a fixed piece, a definite portion of sustenance. חק, Genesis 47:22, the portion assigned as nourishment; cf. Job 23:14 חקּי, the decree determined regarding me. Accordingly, חקּי לחם does not mean the bread appropriately measured out for me (like ἄρτος ἐπιούσιος, that which is required for οὐσία, subsistence), but the bread appropriate for me, determined for me according to the divine plan. Fleischer compares (Arab.) ratab and marsaum, which both in a similar way designate a fixed sustentation portion. And why does he wish to be neither poor nor rich? Because in both extremes lie moral dangers: in riches, the temptation to deny God (which 'כּחשׁ בּה signifies, in the later Hebrews. כּפר בּעקּר, to deny the fundamental truth; cf. (Arab.) kafar, unbelieving), whom one flowing in superabundance forgets, and of whom one in his self-indulgence desires to know nothing (Job 21:14-16; Job 22:16.); in poverty, the temptation is to steal and to blaspheme the name of God, viz., by murmuring and disputing, or even by words of blasphemy; for one who is in despair directs the outbreaks of his anger against God (Isaiah 8:21), and curses Him as the cause of His misfortune (Revelation 16:11, Revelation 16:21). The question of godless haughtiness, מי יהוח, the lxx improperly change into מי יראה, τίς με ὁρᾶ. Regarding נורשׁ, to grow poor, or rather, since only the fut. Niph. occurs in this sense, regarding יוּרשׁ, vid., at Proverbs 20:13.
That the author here, by blaspheming (grasping at) the name of God, especially thinks on that which the Tôra calls "cursing (קלּל) God," and particularly "blaspheming the name of the Lord," Leviticus 24:15-16, is to be concluded from the two following proverbs, which begin with the catchword קלל: