In this section of the chapter, we examine two sets of parables from the words of Agur ben Yakeh: the first set - "Three things are wondrous to me, and four I do not know," and the second set - "Under three things the earth trembles, and under four it cannot bear up." We will study both sets through the classic commentators: Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the Gra, Metzudas David, and primarily the Malbim - both in the conceptual, philosophical approach and according to the plain meaning (peshat).
שְׁלֹשָׁה הֵמָּה נִפְלְאוּ מִמֶּנִּי וְאַרְבָּעָה לֹא יְדַעְתִּים׃ - Three things are beyond me, and four I do not know.
דֶּרֶךְ הַנֶּשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם דֶּרֶךְ נָחָשׁ עֲלֵי־צוּר דֶּרֶךְ־אֳנִיָּה בְלֶב־יָם וְדֶרֶךְ גֶּבֶר בְּעַלְמָה׃ - The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a young woman.
Rashi explains: "Are beyond me" - they pass before my eyes, and immediately their path becomes hidden from me; I do not know where they are, meaning they vanish in an instant. And "four" does not mean "another four," but rather "and the fourth" - and the fourth "I do not know," I do not know it at all.
Ibn Ezra elaborates further: The eagle - I do not know how it soars in the expanse of the sky when it has nowhere to rest. The serpent - how it moves across a rock without legs, and how it holds on without slipping from the smooth stone. The ship - venturing into the heart of the sea, how it manages to reach its destination when it does not know where the wind will carry it. And the way of a man with a young woman - a person who engages in illicit relations without fearing Hashem, violating "Do not commit adultery" and giving no thought to his end. Regarding all of these, I do not know what their end will be: where the eagle will find rest in the sky, how the snake will rest on the rock, how the ship will safely arrive at its destination, and how that man will find rest on his bed at the end of his days - meaning, how does he not fear that he will have to give an accounting for all this?
כֵּן דֶּרֶךְ אִשָּׁה מְנָאָפֶת אָכְלָה וּמָחֲתָה פִיהָ וְאָמְרָה לֹא־פָעַלְתִּי אָוֶן׃ - Such is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats, wipes her mouth, and says, "I have done no wrong."
This continues the same theme: my astonishment also extends to the adulterous woman. "She eats and wipes her mouth" - a euphemism for committing adultery, denying it, and saying, "I have done no wrong." Just like a person who ate, leaving residue in his mouth and on his teeth, who then cleans his mouth and claims he ate nothing at all; so too she wipes her mouth and insists she did nothing wrong.
Ibn Ezra offers another explanation: the unique feature of all these things is that they leave no trace behind them - they pass by, and afterward no sign remains of where they had been.
The Gra follows a direction similar to Rashi: "Three things are beyond me" - at first I saw them, and immediately they disappeared; "and the fourth I do not know" - that one I do not know at all. The eagle soars into the sky and vanishes in an instant - one moment you see it, and a moment later its whereabouts are unknown. The serpent moves across a rock and disappears among the crevices - a snake was right here a moment ago and suddenly it is gone (just like a pest in the house: you finally grabbed a shoe, and suddenly you look for it and it has vanished). The ship - you see it, and then you look again and it is gone; this is also natural, because beyond the limits of visibility, since the earth is round, once it dips past the horizon it can no longer be seen. But "the way of a man with a young woman" is the fourth, about which it is said "I do not know": the moment of conception, the exact time when her pregnancy began, is fundamentally unknowable. The eagle, the serpent, and the ship I at least saw before they disappeared; but conception itself, occurring in utmost privacy, is concealed from the very start.
What is all this coming to teach us? The Vilna Gaon explains that this comes to teach about the Torah, which is divided into four parts - the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, Remez (allusions), and the secrets of the Torah (Sod). The Written Torah refers to the verses; the Oral Torah refers to the Midrashim of Chazal, the Gemaras, Sifra, and Sifrei; Remez is the study of hints and allusions in the Torah and Nach; and the secrets of the Torah represent the inner dimension of the Torah, the Zohar and Kabbalah.
"The way of an eagle in the sky" corresponds to the Written Torah, which comes to us from where? From heaven. "The way of a serpent upon a rock" corresponds to the Oral Torah, for a talmid chacham who does not avenge and bear a grudge like a serpent is not considered a true talmid chacham; that is to say, a talmid chacham must avenge and bear a grudge solely for the honor of Hashem. In practice nowadays we do not conduct ourselves this way, for who can say "I have purified my heart" to know that his grievance was purely for the sake of Hashem and not for his own honor? Yet in previous generations, when there were great individuals, a talmid chacham could maintain such strictness, and that is the true definition of avenging and bearing a grudge like a serpent for the sake of Hashem. It turns out, then, that the way of a serpent upon a rock refers to the talmid chacham engaged in deep debate in the Oral Torah.
"The way of a ship in the heart of the sea" corresponds to Remez. This is understood in light of what we learned in Sefer Yonah through the commentary of the Vilna Gaon: the Gaon interprets the entire Book of Yonah as an allegory for the soul descending into this world, subsequently fleeing from Hashem, which does not avail it, as the fish swallows it and spews it onto dry land - meaning that the soul returns in a gilgul (reincarnation), and when it returns it must rectify everything. The Gaon wondrously explains all the verses of Sefer Yonah in this manner. It emerges that the entire story of the ship carrying Yonah to Tarshish and the great fish swallowing him was also written as a Remez - an allusion to the soul returning in a gilgul.
"And the way of a man with a maiden" corresponds to the secrets of the Torah (Sod). The reason is that the unifications of the supernal attributes are always expressed in the language of the way of a man with a maiden: when Kabbalah speaks of "Abba" and "Imma", it speaks of divine influence (hashpa'ah), and that influence is a coupling or unification (yichud), akin to what exists between a man and a woman, except that in spiritual concepts we use refined language and speak of a "yichud". At a lower level, it refers to the unification of the Holy One, Blessed is He, and His Shechinah - Ze'eir Anpin with the Nukva, with Malchut. And just as in physical union there is a transfer of abundance from the male to the female, so too in the supernal unions it is a matter of channeling divine flow to bring down blessing into the world. Therefore, the secrets of the Torah, which articulate the unifications of the supernal attributes, are hinted at in "the way of a man with a maiden."
Let us also mention here the Malbim's philosophical explanation, even though we did not interpret the previous verses according to his approach, as his explanation here is more straightforward. He explains that they had a debate concerning the existence of God and whether the universe is eternal or created by an eternal Creator, and he came to demonstrate to them that the existence of God can be perceived from nature itself.
He tells them: throughout all of nature we find the phenomenon of reproduction - through mating, animals and human beings give birth in their image and likeness, and this is the force that preserves the species created during the six days of Creation. What guarantees that they will endure? The original elephant did not survive forever, but a male and female elephant give birth to calves, which grow up, and the cycle continues. Thus, union is what sustains the continued existence of all species, including mankind.
And here lies the profound insight: human reason cannot comprehend how through mating an impression of new life remains. For in all interactions of the elements, the moment that element departs, it generates nothing new and leaves no trace behind. Yet here, not only does an impression remain, but an entirely new life is formed and a new human being is born. He illustrates this through the elements: "the way of an eagle in the sky" represents the element of air; "the path of a serpent upon a rock" represents the element of earth; "the journey of a ship in the heart of the sea" represents the element of water. Parallel to these, "the way of a man with a maiden" represents the element of fire, for physical desire stems from fire - the fire of desire. Seemingly, just as the eagle leaves no trace in the sky, and the snake leaves no mark on the rock, and the ship leaves no trail in the water - so too the way of a man with a maiden should have left no lasting mark.
Indeed, "Such is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats, wipes her mouth" - there is no visible trace, to the point that she can deny it and say, "I have done no wrong." If so, how is it that in the end a new life is formed and a child is born? Is this not proof and evidence of the Creator's existence? The physical act itself leaves no trace, yet ultimately her pregnancy becomes evident and a new life emerges - from where did this originate, if not from a Supreme Power Who engineered this reality?
Indeed, there is an entire science called embryology, the study of embryos, and one can prove the existence of the Creator from the very phenomenon of reproduction: from the reality that the Holy One, Blessed is He, fashioned organs in man through which he is fruitful and multiplies and preserves the species. And the immense wonder of it - how an embryo develops within the mother's womb, receiving its entire vitality through a cord connected directly to its abdomen, containing vessels that nourish it and supply it with oxygen. And at the moment of birth, it pushes itself out, and a miracle of miracles occurs - what was closed opens, and what was open closes. If the direct opening into the abdomen were to remain, the infant would die of infection; the umbilical cord is cut, and from that point on the baby receives food through the mouth and breathes through the nose. We have grown accustomed to this, but anyone who contemplates it must ask: how did this come to be? One who assumes that this evolved gradually cannot offer any plausible explanation; he would have to claim that some arbitrary "explosion" created a connection to the abdomen, which then branched out to all the organs, yielding the full development of a fetus and a complete life, after which it emerges, begins to breathe, and suddenly a person stands up and walks. This demonstrates unequivocally that there is a Creator of the universe.
The Malbim explains: this cannot be accounted for by the nature of primeval matter and the blending of elements. With elements, if you mix one substance with another, you get a new compound; but here, what did you mix that resulted in new life? This is something outside the natural order of mere matter. Surely Someone breathed life into this embryo, and from that came this reality. Understand, then, says Agur ben Yakeh to Itiel and Uchal, the skeptics, that there is Someone Who created this entire reality - is the word of God, Who established this throughout creation, not clearly recognizable here?
The Malbim explains: An almah is a non-virgin woman (a be'ulah). For the entire passage is built on the premise that the action leaves no trace - "she eats, wipes her mouth, and says: I have done no wickedness"; whereas with a virgin, a physical mark is certainly left, for she has lost her virginity. Only with a non-virgin can it be said that no trace remains. Metzudat Tziyon explains similarly: a woman of tender years is called an almah, even if she is already not a virgin.
Why is it important to emphasize this? Anyone familiar with the lectures on Sefer Yeshayahu knows that in chapter 7 there are verses that Christians cite as evidence for their deity: "Behold, the almah shall conceive and bear a son." They claim that an almah means a virgin, and that this is a prophecy about that man. But this is a complete distortion from beginning to end. One of the greatest hallmarks of Christianity throughout history is that they were completely ignorant of Torah, as can be seen in the quotations in their gospels and the proofs they bring - a total lack of understanding of the Scriptures. First of all, almah does not mean a virgin at all, as we see here: "the way of a man with an almah," followed by "I have done no wickedness" - an act that leaves no mark, which refers to a woman who is not a virgin. Second, that prophecy speaks of an entirely different era, and the prophet gave it as an immediate sign of what would happen in that very generation; it is inconceivable that he would give a sign referring to an event centuries later. Furthermore, his name was not Immanuel; rather, she would call her son Immanuel. There are many other proofs refuting these baseless claims. But for our purposes: this verse proves that "the way of a man with an almah" does not refer to a virgin, but to a non-virgin, since it describes an act that leaves no visible trace.
Regarding the wording of the verse: "and wipes [u-machatah] her mouth" - Rashi explains that this is related to the phrase "as one wipes [yimcheh] a dish" (II Melachim 21:13), meaning overturning the dish; when a dish is facing up, one can see if something was in it, but when it is overturned, nothing is discernible of what was inside, and so she acts as if nothing took place. The simpler explanation of "wipes her mouth" is wiping and cleaning - like one who wipes her mouth and claims she ate nothing at all.
Having seen the wicked king of that era, and how he engaged in immoral relations with his maidservant, and how the maidservant and her slave-husband subsequently rebelled against the king, murdered him and his wives, and rose to reign in his stead - this was the sensational "news story" of that day, on everyone's lips. The Malbim explains: Agur now quotes the parables and poetic sayings that people composed about the new king - what people were saying about this new monarchy. The king was a king "against whom there is no rising up" (alkum), a slave who rebelled against his master and seized rule; and his wife, the maidservant, was named "Semamit" (the lizard), and she reigned in place of her mistress.
The first parable: Concerning the new queen, they would say that she was originally a maidservant who committed adultery with the king, and "such is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats, wipes her mouth, and says: I have done no wickedness" - she concealed her adulterous affair with the king. Afterward, she and her slave-husband betrayed him and murdered him. Regarding this, the parable-makers said: "Three things are too wondrous for me" - things that leave no trace: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the water. And the fourth element is the element of fire, the passion of the adulteress, fiery sparks - about which he says, "and four I do not know," meaning: I did not know that even in this, no trace at all would remain.
The explanation is as follows: The wonder was how, despite the intense bond that this adulterous maidservant had with the king - a bond that should have secured a lasting connection and loyalty - she ultimately remained loyal to her husband, and the two of them rose up and rebelled against the king to reign in his place, with nothing remaining of that passionate love. Just as an eagle leaves no trace in the sky, a serpent leaves no trace on a rock, and a ship leaves no trace in the sea, one might have thought that at least the spark of love would leave a lasting impression, and that such a bond would not vanish so quickly. Yet here we see that even this left no mark whatsoever: they rose up and murdered the king, "she ate and wiped her mouth," as though there had never been any flame of passion at all, and nothing remained of it. This is the meaning of "and four I do not know" - I did not imagine that love could also vanish so completely, revealing that all those fiery sparks amounted to nothing.
תַּחַת שָׁלוֹשׁ רָגְזָה אֶרֶץ וְתַחַת אַרְבַּע לֹא־תוּכַל שְׂאֵת׃ - Under three things the earth trembles, and under four it cannot bear up.
תַּחַת־עֶבֶד כִּי יִמְלוֹךְ וְנָבָל כִּי יִשְׂבַּע־לָחֶם׃ - Under a slave when he rules, and a scoundrel when he is sated with food.
תַּחַת שְׂנוּאָה כִּי תִבָּעֵל וְשִׁפְחָה כִּי־תִירַשׁ גְּבִרְתָּהּ׃ - Under an unloved woman when she is wed, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.
This is another grouping. "Make the earth tremble" - in its plain sense, when a person sees these things, he gets infuriated; as people say today, it makes his blood boil.
The first: "A servant when he reigns." The Metzudas David explains: He does not know the arts of statesmanship, and he acts with madness. When someone drives like a madman, no one wants to sit next to him behind the wheel, and all the more so when the controls of a major superpower are in his hands. And when he loses his temper, he reverts to his madness. This is like Muammar Gaddafi, the former ruler of Libya, or like the regime in North Korea - everyone knew he was a madman, and dealing with him was life-threatening, because you never knew where his craziness would erupt next. In contrast, a leader who maintains dignity and speaks to the point - even if his hatred is palpable and seeping through every pore - at least retains his composure and does not carry out the horrific things he might wish to do.
We see this problem of "a servant when he reigns" in our own times as well: every petty figure becomes a minister of defense, leaders of a small country meddle in the affairs of the greatest superpower in the world, issuing all manner of critiques and comparisons. All of this merely reveals the haughtiness and vast pride that have overcome those who have seized the leadership of the nation. In any case, to return to our subject: when a servant reigns and lacks statesmanship, "the earth trembles."
The second: "And a churlish villain when he is sated with bread." This too is extremely infuriating. Why? One expects the villain to lose, to suffer harm; yet suddenly one sees that he steals, cheats, and is fully sated, enjoying everything while no one lifts a finger against him - and out of this comes the outrage.
The third: "For an unloved woman when she is married." The Metzudas David explains: A woman whose deeds are odious, meaning an adulteress and harlot, "when she is married" [ki tiba'el] - not in the sense of intimacy, but in the sense of acquiring a master, when she weds a husband. This makes the matter far more infuriating, because she now has someone to whom she can attribute her pregnancy. As long as she committed adultery while unmarried, if people saw her visibly pregnant, what a terrible disgrace it was; but once she is married and continues her adultery, people see her belly and say, "Mazal tov, you will soon have a child," and no one realizes that the child is born of adultery. Thus she now has cover to continue her illicit deeds undetected, which magnifies the outrage.
The fourth: "And a maidservant when she dispossesses her mistress." When the maidservant inherits the authority of her mistress, and the mistress becomes a servant - this is the most infuriating of all. Why? Because of her lowliness and foolishness, she lacks the sense to honor someone truly worthy of honor. If this maidservant had even a shred of sense, she would treat her former mistress with some respect, recognizing, "After all, she was once my mistress"; but due to her coarseness and folly, she does not know how to respect anyone worthy. Therefore, specifically concerning this case it says: "And for four, it cannot bear" - this fourth one is completely intolerable, beyond endurance. In the words of the Metzudas David: "This is harder than all the others, even more than a servant who reigns, because she is a woman, shallow of mind, and arrogant in her newfound power."
The Malbim explains: This is another parable that the people composed about the king and queen together - those who rose to power after murdering the legitimate king. The coup staged by the adulterous maidservant and her servant husband, who ruled in place of the king and his wives, was what caused "the earth to tremble." "A servant when he reigns" - he had been a slave, and now rose to rule in his master's place. "And a villain when he is sated with bread" - this man was originally a base scoundrel, and now the royal treasuries are in his hands and he is sated with bread.
What is the difference between a generous person [nadiv] and a villain [naval]? The Malbim explains: When a generous person is sated with bread, he shares his bounty with the poor; but the villain's vulgarity remains with him and he only increases his wickedness, remaining just as base as before. In practical life, this is often very true: someone who grew up with wealth and came from financial comfort is naturally accustomed to giving. By contrast, one who climbed up from deprivation often finds it extremely difficult to give. Not only to give to others - one can observe that he often struggles even to spend on himself, since he was conditioned always to calculate: "Why buy this now, and how will we make ends meet this month?" Even though his circumstances have completely changed and he can easily afford it, he retains that same habit of scrutinizing every penny and pinching pennies. Conversely, someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth is accustomed to generosity - though at times one might hear someone say, "Do you know how hard I worked for a hundred thousand shekels?" even when he now possesses millions; people often remain bound by the nature they developed earlier in life.
And corresponding to the woman: "For an unloved woman when she is taken" - she was hated because of her adulterous affairs and evil deeds. According to the Malbim, "when she is taken" [ki tiba'el] is understood literally, as she was the paramour of the previous king through her adultery with him, and this too stirred outrage and caused "the earth to tremble." And worst of all - "a maidservant when she dispossesses her mistress," for she is the one who now inherits the throne; this is the most appalling outcome. This was the second parable that the people of that era would recite.
We have studied two groupings. "Three things are wondrous to me" - the eagle, the serpent, and the ship, which pass without leaving a trace or sign, and corresponding to them, the fourth: "the way of a man with a maiden." The Vilna Gaon derived from here an allusion to the four realms of Torah: the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, Remez (allusion), and Sod (the mystical secrets). The Malbim, in his philosophical exposition, derived from this a proof for the existence of the Creator: throughout the elements of nature - air, earth, water - the action leaves no permanent impression, and likewise in human intimacy there is no physical trace ("she eats, wipes her mouth"), yet from it new life comes into being - which cannot be accounted for by the mere nature of matter or the blending of the physical elements, but by the word of God Who established it so at Creation. From here we also learned that an almah is not a virgin but a woman who has known intimacy, thereby dismantling the baseless claims of Christianity. And according to the literal approach, the Malbim demonstrated that these were parables spoken by the people of that generation regarding the servant who became king and the maidservant who became queen: the wonder that even the blazing flames of love leave no physical trace, and the outrage over a servant who reigned, a villain sated with bread, an odious woman who became a king's concubine, and a maidservant who inherited her mistress's throne - which is the most unbearable of all, which the earth cannot endure.