There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:

There are four very little things of the earth, and they are wiser than the wise:

There are four things which are little upon the earth, but they are very wise:

Four are little ones of earth, And they are made wiser than the wise:

Four things are least upon the earth, and they are wiser than the wise:

Exceeding wise - Some prefer the reading of the Septuagint and Vulgate: "wiser than the wise." The thought, in either case, turns upon the marvels of instinct, which, in their own province, transcend the more elaborate results of human wisdom.

There be four things - Of which it is said, they are very little but very wise. 1. The ants. 2. The rabbits. 3. The locusts. 4. The spider.
1. The ants show their wisdom by preparing their meat in the summer, seeking for it and storing it when it may be had; not for winter consumption, for they sleep all that time; but for autumn and spring. See the note on Proverbs 6:6 (note). The ants are a people; they have their houses, towns, cities, public roads, etc. I have seen several of these, both of the brown and large black ant.
2. The rabbits act curiously enough in the construction of their burrows; but the word שפן shaphan probably does not here mean the animal we call coney or rabbit. It is most likely that this is what Dr. Shaw calls the Daman - Israel; a creature very like a rabbit, but never burrowing in the ground, but dwelling in clefts and holes of rocks.
3. The locusts. These surprising animals we have already met with and described. Though they have no leader, yet they go forth by troops, some miles in circumference, when they take wing.
4. The spider. This is a singularly curious animal, both in the manner of constructing her house, her nets, and taking her prey. But the habits, etc., of these and such like must be sought in works on natural history.

There are four [things which are] little upon the earth, but they [are] very (n) wise:
(n) They contain great doctrine and wisdom.

There be four things which are little upon the earth,.... Small in bulk, that have little bodies, are the lesser sort of animals;
but they are exceeding wise; show a great deal of art and wisdom in what they do; or "but they are wise, made wise" (e) by the instinct of nature, by the direction of Providence, by which they do things that are surprising. Some versions, that have no regard to the points, read the words, "but their are wiser than the wise" (f); than even wise men; wise men may learn much from the least of creatures; see Job 12:7.
(e) "sapientia, sapientia imbuta"; Hebrews. "sapientificata", Piscator, Gejerus. (f) "Sapientiora sapientibus", so Sept. V. L. Arabic and Syriac versions; "sapientia superant, vel prudentissimos", Tigurine version.

Four things that are little, are yet to be admired. There are those who are poor in the world, and of small account, yet wise for their souls and another world.

These verses provide two classes of apt illustrations of various aspects of the moral world, which the reader is left to apply. By the first (Proverbs 30:25-28), diligence and providence are commended; the success of these insignificant animals being due to their instinctive sagacity and activity, rather than strength. The other class (Proverbs 30:30-31) provides similes for whatever is majestic or comely, uniting efficiency with gracefulness.

Another proverb with the cipher 4, its first line terminating in ארץ:
24 Four are the little things of the earth,
And yet they are quick of wit - wise:
25 The ants - a people not strong,
And yet they prepare in summer their food;
26 Conies - a people not mighty,
And yet set their dwelling on the rocks;
27 No king have the locusts,
And yet they go forth in rank and file, all of them together;
28 The lizard thou canst catch with the hands,
And yet it is in the king's palaces.
By the disjunctive accent, ארבּעה, in spite of the following word toned on the beginning, retains its ultima-toning, 18a; but here, by the conjunctive accent, the tone retrogrades to the penult., which does not elsewhere occur with this word. The connection קטנּי־ארץ is not superlat. (for it is impossible that the author could reckon the שׁפנים, conies, among the smallest of beasts), but, as in the expression נכבּדּי־ארץ, the honoured of the earth, Isaiah 23:8. In 24b, the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and Luther see in מ the comparative: σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν (מחכמים), but in this connection of words it could only be partitive (wise, reckoning among the wise); the part. Pual מחכּמים (Theodotion, the Venet. σεσοφισμένα) was in use after Psalm 88:6, and signified, like בּשׁל מבשּׁל, Exodus 12:9, boiled well; thus חכמים מחכמים, taught wit, wise, cunning, prudent (cf. Psalm 64:7, a planned plan = a cunningly wrought out plan; Isaiah 28:16, and Vitringa thereto: grounded = firm, grounding), Ewald, 313c. The reckoning moves in the contrasts of littleness to power, and of greatness to prudence. The unfolding of the ארבעה [four] begins with the הנּמלים [the ants] and שׁפנּים [conies], subject conceptions with apposit. joined; 26a, at least in the indetermination of the subject, cannot be a declaration. Regarding the fut. consec. as the expression, not of a causal, but of a contrasted connection, vid., Ewald, 342, 1a. The ants are called עם, and they deserve this name, for they truly form communities with well-ordered economy; but, besides, the ancients took delight in speaking of the various classes of animals as peoples and states.
(Note: Vid., Walter von der Vogelweide, edited by Lachmann, p. 8f.)
That which is said, 25b, as also Proverbs 6:8, is not to be understood of stores laid up for the winter. For the ants are torpid for the most part in winter; but certainly the summer is their time for labour, when the labourers gather together food, and feed in a truly motherly way the helpless. שׁפן, translated arbitrarily in the Venet. by ἐχῖνοι, in the lxx by χοιρογρύλλιοι, by the Syr. and Targ. here and at Ps 104 by חגס, and by Jerome by lepusculus (cf. λαγίδιον), both of which names, here to be understood after a prevailing Jewish opinion, denote the Caninichen
(Note: The kaninchen as well as the klippdachs [cliff-badgers] may be meant, Leviticus 11:5 (Deuteronomy 14:7); neither of these belong to the bisulca, nor yet, it is true, to the ruminants, though to the ancients (as was the case also with hares) they seemed to do. The klippdach is still, in Egypt and Syria, regarded as unclean.)
(Luther), Latin cuniculus (κόνικλος), is not the kaninchen [rabbit], nor the marmot, χοιρογρύλλιος (C. B. Michaelis, Ziegler, and others); this is called in Arab. yarbuw'; but שׁפן is the wabr, which in South Arab. is called thufun, or rather thafan, viz., the klippdachs (hyrax syriacus), like the marmot, which lives in societies and dwells in the clefts of the mountains, e.g., at the Kedron, the Dead Sea, and at Sinai (vid., Knobel on Leviticus 11:5; cf. Brehm's Thierleben, ii. p. 721ff., the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1868, Nr. 1290). The klippdachs are a weak little people, and yet with their weakness they unite the wisdom that they establish themselves among the rocks. The ants show their wisdom in the organization of labour, here in the arranging of inaccessible dwellings.