Part of the four things too wonderful, Proverbs 30:18–20.
Quick answer
Four paths, and the first three vanish as they are made. The fourth is a man and a young woman, and it is listed among wonders rather than among warnings.
Read the whole unit
Four things beyond Agur's understanding, joined by leaving no track, followed in verse 20 by someone who counts on that.
Read the whole unit
The chapter's second numerical saying, and the only one whose subject is Agur's own bafflement. He is not listing things that are impressive. He is listing four things he cannot work out, and the word he uses, נִפְלְאוּ, is the word for something beyond a person rather than something beyond belief.
What the four share is that they leave nothing behind. An eagle crosses the sky and the sky closes. A snake crosses bare rock and there is no track. A ship crosses open water, and the Hebrew says it goes through the heart of the sea, which the NKJV footnotes; the wake heals. Then the fourth, a man with a young woman, and the saying stops there without explaining itself. After three pictures of a path that vanishes, the fourth is about two people, and it is filed under wonder, not under warning.
Then verse 20 uses the same word, way, for something else entirely. A woman commits adultery, eats, wipes her mouth, and says she has done nothing wrong. Whether that verse was originally part of the saying is genuinely disputed, and the catalog treats it as part of the unit while noting the dispute. What connects it is the tracelessness. Three of the four wonders leave no mark, and here is someone counting on that.
And that is where the unit joins the rest of the chapter. "I have done no wickedness" is verse 12 again in a different mouth: pure in its own eyes, and not washed. The chapter's real subject keeps turning out to be the person who has acquitted themselves.
What this verse contributes
The list, and the pattern the reader is expected to notice. דֶּרֶךְ, way, opens all four lines. Air, rock, open water: three surfaces that take no impression. The Hebrew of the third says the ship goes in the heart of the sea, which the NKJV footnotes, and the phrase carries the sense of the deep middle where there is nothing to steer by.
Then the fourth, and the saying declines to finish the thought. The reader supplies whatever the connection is: that attraction leaves no visible trail, that its course cannot be predicted, that it is as unaccountable as a snake on a stone. Agur does not say. He says he does not understand it, and puts it in the wonder column. For a book that has spent several chapters warning a young man about the wrong woman, that is a notable restraint, and it should not be quietly converted into another warning.
Why translations differ
The word the NKJV renders virgin is עַלְמָה, a young woman of marriageable age. Whether the term itself specifies virginity or only youth is disputed among translators and lexicons, which is why the versions read variously "virgin," "maiden," and "young woman." The catalog reports the disagreement and does not settle it, and nothing in the reading above depends on which is right.
Related: Proverbs 5:15–19 · Song of Songs 8:6–7
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.