A Commentary in Simple English on Ecclesiastes

Chapter 10 Wisdom’s strength

Verses 1-3 Wisdom’s strength and weakness

These verses may be more wise sayings or proverbs. They carry on what the last two verses of Chapter 9 said. Wisdom can do a great deal of good. Yet that good is easy to destroy. A little of something bad can destroy a lot of good.

In verse 1, we have a picture. There is a pot of oil. The ‘perfumer’ has taken great care to make it. He has mixed spices with it. These spices cost him a great deal. So the oil should not only look good. The smell of it should be really beautiful. The perfumer can sell it at a high price. He should have put a lid on it though! Instead, some ‘flies of death’ have dropped into it. This may mean ‘dead flies’. Or it may mean ‘flies which bring death’. Flies are dirty. They spread many bad illnesses. They spoil the oil. Now it really does smell bad. On the top, it looks bad too. There are lots of little bubbles. There is a dirty ‘scum’ which floats on the top. It ‘ferments’ like yeast.

The wise man’s name or ‘reputation’ is like that oil. People know that he is wise and they honour him. If he makes only a few little mistakes, these are like the ‘flies of death’. It all goes bad. People ‘weigh’ his few little mistakes against his ‘name’ for wisdom. They take far more notice of a little that is bad than of a lot that is good. More ‘heavy’ than wisdom and honour is a little foolishness.

In verse 2, the ‘right hand’ is the place of honour and strength. This is so with most peoples all around the world. Many peoples think of the left hand as ‘unclean’. It is also weaker than the right hand. So the mind of the wise man is ‘at his right hand’. It is in the place of strength and honour. We say in English that ‘a man’s heart is in the right place’. There is another man who is not wise. He is ‘slow-minded’. His mind is ‘at his left hand’. It is weak.

Then in verse 3, the ‘fool’s’ mind is so weak that he cannot even walk along the road. The last part of the verse may mean that he calls everyone else a fool. Or he may just think that they are fools, even if he does not say so. Such people are very hard to bear! We have known people who are quick to say: ‘Look what some silly fool has done here!’ If only they would ask first we could give them a good reason for it.

Verses 4 - 11: Health and safety at work.

Now we have a whole series of pictures. The Teacher used to watch people at work. He saw the dangers that they faced. He saw, too, how wisdom could help them. By now, of course, you will feel that the Teacher is not so very sad as he was. He does not laugh, but there is a bit of a smile on his face at times.

So in verse 4, we have a picture rather like the one in 8:2-6. The ruler has just lost his temper. He is really angry. There is a young man with him. He is there to give advice to the ruler. But his chief is really wild with him. The young man must expect this to happen sometimes. The worst thing he can do is to walk out. There is danger in that! The best thing is to wait for the ruler to get over it. When he is quiet again, the young man will be able to talk to him. He can sort it out.

In verses 5 and 6 the Teacher sees what sort of mistakes the ruler makes. Maybe the young man in verse 4 had tried to put the ruler right. This had made the ruler angry. So the Teacher says: ‘This is something I have seen happen’. When the ruler makes a mistake, it does not end there. The ruler gives the best jobs to people who are silly. The ruler gives the poor jobs to people who are rich. They may not be wise people. Yet at least they know how to make money! If someone cannot do their work, we ‘kick him upstairs’. We give him a better paid job, where his mistakes will not matter so much. This is often easier than ‘giving him the sack’! (See Proverbs 19:10.)

Verse 7 is easy to bring up to date. Once again, the Teacher says that he has seen this happen. There is that silly office boy. He drives a big Mercedes. There is the chief on an old bicycle. Neither of them is safe. It is all ‘upside down’.

In verse 8 the Teacher turns from people who work in offices to people who do hard work. First, there is the man who digs a deep hole in the ground. He ought to have put a fence round it, with some lamps at night. He falls in himself.

We wonder why a man would break through a wall. Maybe this is a thief. It is a wall of stone where snakes can hide. There is the danger that the snake may come out of the wall and bite him. The man may even die. (See Amos 5:19.)

In verse 9, we have two more pictures of work and danger. First, there is a man who wants some stone to build with. So he digs a hole and pulls up stone from the ground (Psa 7:15). He ought to wear a hard hat to protect his head! If he drops a heavy stone, it may well crush his feet. So he ought to wear boots with steel toecaps! Another man splits up logs. Small sharp bits of wood may fly about. So he ought to wear ‘goggles’ to keep his eyes safe!

Verse 10 is not so easy. Here, a man works with some iron tool. It does take time to keep the edge of the tool sharp. The time it takes will be more than saved. The work will not be so hard, and he will get on faster. The problem is that the Hebrew here calls the edge, the ‘face’. We would expect it to be ‘the mouth’ of the tool. So the verse ends: ‘Wisdom (or skill) will bring success’. You can work too hard and fast and yet not get so much done.

Verse 11 gives another picture. Here it is of the ‘snake charmer’. There are still snake charmers in cities in Asia. He is ‘the master of the tongue’. He brings a basket to the market place. There is a cloth cover over the basket. In the basket is a snake. The ‘master of the tongue’ sits down. He may whisper or speak softly to the snake. Or he may make music on a pipe. He takes the cloth off the basket. He hopes that the snake will be ‘charmed’. It will move gently to and fro. His music will tell the snake what he wants it to do. Then people will gather round and throw money to him. If his music does not ‘charm’ the snake quickly enough, the snake will bite someone. Most likely it will bite the ‘snake charmer’. The ‘snake charmer’ may die. The money the crowd has given him will be no good to him then.

So in verse 9 a man tries to work too fast. Here the ‘snake charmer’ does not work fast enough. The thought of the ‘master of the tongue’ gets us ready for the next few verses.

Verses 12 - 20 Wisdom’s weakness again

In these verses, people say too much. In verse 12, the wise man speaks first. What he says brings favour. It is ‘grace’. It is kind. People like to listen to what he says. He does not say too much! Then the fool speaks. What he says does not do him any good. It does no good to the people who listen to him either. [10.1] In verse 13, the fool still goes on. ‘Beginning’ and ‘end’ takes in everything in between. The beginning is bad enough. Yet it gets much worse as it goes on. The wise man is the man who knows just how much we cannot know (8:7 and 17). The fool talks on as though he really knew about the future. (Verse 14) He talks far too much. He talks so much and listens so little that wise people cannot help him. They cannot get a word in! (Verse 15) By the time that the fool has finished, he is tired out. Everyone else is tired of his voice! Or maybe the fool would get lost on the main road into the next town. He gets tired because he walks much further than he needs to.

Perhaps we talk too much. (James 3:1-3) We should know the way to the City of God, the New Jerusalem.

The teacher leaves the unwise man now. Verses 16-20 are mostly about kings and rulers. In verse 16, there will be trouble for the land. The king is a man who has had no training for the work. Maybe he is too young. Or perhaps he has not been trained because no one expected him to become the next king. The people around him do not get on with their work. They waste the best part of the day. They would say that they have a good time. A man who comes back from lunch a bit drunk will give silly orders to the people who work for him.

In verse 17 we have a happy picture. Here, the king is a son of free men. He comes from a good family. The Jews had their main meal at the end of the day. So in this verse the men around the king do a good day’s work. They eat just as well as the men in verse 16. But they eat at the right time, which is at the end of the day’s work. They have self control. They do not get drunk. (See for example, Isaiah 28:7 and 80.)

To be lazy (verse 18) is one kind of folly. The bad way of life followed by the men around a weak king (verse 16) spreads. It is too much trouble for this man to repair his house. So the wood in the roof begins to fall down. That means that rain comes in through the roof. The man just lets his hands fall down. He should lift them up and work. Verse 19 is not easy but may mean that money can buy both a good meal and the drinks to go with it.

We have had flies and snakes. Now we have little birds! (verse 20) A wise man has to be careful what he says in front of other people. When there is no one else around, he still has to be careful. Someone else hears what he says in his own room. When that ‘someone else’ repeats it, you may be sure it will sound far worse. The people at the top are there now because they have other people who will tell tales. We say: ‘a little bird told me’ when we do not want to give away who it was that told us something. ‘Walls have ears’.