The eye [that] mocketh at [his] father
At his advice, admonitions, and instructions; looks upon him with
scorn and disdain, and treats him as a weak, silly, old man: here
Agur returns to the first generation he had observed; and
despiseth to obey [his] mother;
her orders and commands: or, "the obedience of his mother"
F19; her discipline and instruction,
having no regard to it. The word is rendered "gathering" in (
Genesis
49:10 ) ; and Jarchi interprets it of the gathering of
wrinkles in her face: and so the Targum, Arabic, and Syriac
versions render it, "the old age of his mother"; despising her as
an old foolish woman; see ( Proverbs
23:22 ) ; (qhl) , in
the Ethiopic language, signifies to "grow old", from whence the
word here used, by a transposition of letters, may be derived;
and Mr. Castell F20 observes, that the royal prophet,
among others, seems to have taken this word from the queen of
Sheba; the ravens of the valley, shall pick it out, and the
young eagles
shall eat it;
it signifies, that such persons shall come to an untimely end,
and an ignominious death; either be drowned in a river, when
floating upon it, or cast upon the banks of it, the ravens that
frequent such places, and are most cruel and voracious, should
feed upon them: or they should be hanged on a tree, or be
crucified F21, where birds of prey would light
upon them; and particularly pick out their eyes and eat them, as
being softest and sweetest to them; therefore first aim at them,
and of which birds, and especially ravens, are very fond
F23; and is a just retaliation for
their scornful and disdainful looks at their parent. This may
figuratively design the black devils of hell, the posse of them
in the air, who are sometimes compared to the fowls thereof; to
whom such unnatural and disobedient children shall become a prey;
see ( Matthew
13:4 Matthew
13:19 ) .