Proverbs 30 · a question people ask
"What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if you know?" (30:4). Whose son is this?
The verse asks four questions that begin Who: "Who has ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in his garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?" (30:4). Then it asks two more: "What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if you know?" (30:4). It doesn't give the name or say who the son is. No New Testament verse quotes Proverbs 30:4. Christians read his son’s name in two main ways, and these notes choose neither. Both readings hold what the New Testament says of Jesus as the Son; they differ only over whether this verse speaks of him. Both take the one who does the things 30:4 names to be God, and both agree that the verse itself leaves its questions unanswered.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A question that points to the Son
Those who read it this way hear 30:4 asking about God and his Son. The one who has gathered the wind, bound the waters and established the ends of the earth (30:4) is God, and the verse asks his name and also "his son’s name" (30:4). They set its first question, "Who has ascended up into heaven, and descended?" (Proverbs 30:4), beside Jesus' words: "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven" (John 3:13). They also set his son beside a psalm in which the LORD says, "You are my son. Today I have become your father" (Psalm 2:7), words Hebrews gives as "You are my Son. Today I have become your father" (Hebrews 1:5), of God's Son, "through whom also he made the worlds" (Hebrews 1:2). John 3:13 doesn't cite Proverbs, and they don't claim it does. On this reading 30:4 asks a question that the New Testament answers.
Proverbs 30:4 · John 3:13 · Psalm 2:7 · Hebrews 1:2 · Hebrews 1:5
A question only God can answer
Those who read it this way hear 30:4 as carrying on what the speaker has just said of himself: "Surely I am the most ignorant man, and don’t have a man’s understanding" (Proverbs 30:2), and "I have not learned wisdom" (Proverbs 30:3). The questions are like the ones the LORD asks Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding" (Job 38:4), and "Who determined its measures, if you know?" (Job 38:5). In Hebrew if you know is the same two words in Job 38:5 and Proverbs 30:4. On this reading no man can answer Who?, since the one who does these things is God, and the questions about his name and his son's name show how far beyond any man's knowledge he is. Some who read it this way hear his son of Israel, whom the LORD calls his son: "Israel is my son, my firstborn" (Exodus 4:22). On this reading the answer the speaker points to is God's own word, which comes next: "Every word of God is flawless" (Proverbs 30:5).
Proverbs 30:2-5 · Job 38:4-5 · Exodus 4:22
The verses
“Who has ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in his garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if you know?”