Chapter 10
2021 - This chapter also starts with "prose format", like 7 did. This time it continues with one short exception until 11: 4.
There is no new section title before 10. Sure looks like there should be.
It only takes a small screw up to ruin a lot of character built up over years. So easy to undo even a lifetime of good.
1 Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. [Ecc 10:1 ESV]
2021 - Some interesting verses here...wise to the right, fools to the left. What would that have meant in the days of Solomon?
Vs 3, Even when you get a fool on the right road, he's obviously not there of his own design, and it will be obvious that he is a fool.
vs 4, Don't run when the might of government is directed against you - or perhaps it means when a single bureaucrat decides to make your life hell. "...for calmness will lay great offenses to rest." Hard to tell if the offender is me, or the bureaucrat though.
2021 - Here is another of the "great evils" Solomon observed. It would be remiss not to go back and gather these up one by one. These are things he believes are fundamentally destructive in the way the world is set up. I think destructive is a pretty good word for it. Here are the verses:
[Ecc 10:5 ESV] There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler:
[Ecc 10:6 ESV] folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.
[Ecc 10:7 ESV] I have seen slaves on horses, and princes walking on the ground like slaves.
The idea seems to be that there is an order of things - a hierarchy of things - that is natural and useful and correct. Some are "made" to be in charge, others to be their slaves. What is evil is when the hierarchy is reversed. When ignorant fools are put in the highest positions and those with knowledge wisdom and experience are ignored. No, not just ignored. Forcefully subjugated to the foolish.
Note also that we break from prose format to block for these three verses, then we jump back into prose.
[[[2021 - Here is the complete list of evils that Solomon points out in Ecclesiastes. Mostly, they need a few more verses for context, but here is the basic list. What a great side study this would be!
[Ecc 5:13 ESV] There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt,
[Ecc 6:1 ESV] There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind:
[Ecc 6:2 ESV] a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.
[Ecc 9:3 ESV] This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
[Ecc 10:5 ESV] There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler:
[Ecc 10:6 ESV] folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.
[Ecc 10:7 ESV] I have seen slaves on horses, and princes walking on the ground like slaves.
There are four of them. Four is the number of man I believe in Biblical numerology. Doubt that is coincidence.]]]
8-10, I have no idea what the point of these verses might be, or whether this follows on from vs 5. Maybe Solomon is just too wise for this fool to comprehend. MSB summarizes with "Dangers and uncertainties abound in life." That seems far too glib to describe these verses. Maybe it means that our work, no matter how intensely done, no matter how expert it is, no matter our intent, may lead us to nothing but maiming accidents, unpredictable adverse consequences, disappointment, or death. BECAUSE, life if full of "glitches". Because the good guys do NOT always win.
2021 - It just seems to me that these prose formatted "proverbs" in Ecclesiastes are much deeper than those in the book of Proverbs. Do 8-11 go together? Or is each a stand alone pillar of wisdom?
[Ecc 10:8 ESV] He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.
[Ecc 10:9 ESV] He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.
[Ecc 10:10 ESV] If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.
[Ecc 10:11 ESV] If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer.
These four are set off as if they go together in the TCR ESV. Vss 8,9, on simple inspection, say that manual labor is dangerous. Inherently dangerous. Random things can happen and hurt you. These things are unpredictable (sorry OSHA), and cannot be entirely eliminated. To work is to take a risk. Is the idea that to participate in life, the rules are that you must work to eat, and if you work, there is risk. Therefore, to get up every morning is to take a risk. And then vss 10, 11 seem to say there are some mitigations that should be considered. Take care of your tools - because maintained tools are safer tools, and preparation before commencing is better than "learning the hard way". This works I think. This makes sense. But is that really all he is saying?
2021 - Then we get four more verses together:
[Ecc 10:12 ESV] The words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him.
[Ecc 10:13 ESV] The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness.
[Ecc 10:14 ESV] A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?
[Ecc 10:15 ESV] The toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.
Again, we don't know who divided these up into fours. It is in TCR that way, but BLB ESV does not divide them, nor does it put in the prose format. NASB does not divide any of it at all, nor is there a format change in 10...but there was in 7! Why????
These are about fools talking too much. Perhaps it also says those who talk too much are fools. This truly reminds me of men like Al Gore who tell us what we must do today so that things will be better in a hundred years. He makes a living with "much words" talking about what "will be after him", though he cannot possibly know it. And that last verse...for all their words, starting at foolishness and ending at madness...they can't even find their own way back to town. I wonder if it is true that the predictions and/or the recommendations go from foolishness to madness as they go along? I bet you really could do a study like that. I wonder if Solomon is giving us an evaluative tool for determining who is wise and who is foolish?
2023 - This hit me again as a guideline for how to take the climate change activists and the fossil fuel haters...We can surely see that originally, as they predicted what the earth would look like in 100 years or 1000 years, that we didn't give them much credibility. So they escalated the consequences and they ramped up the imminence of the consequences of ignoring them. It started with a need to consider what MIGHT be coming and escalated to we must spend billions today or the whole planet will die. So...from foolishness to madness. Solomon has said over and over that the future is unknowable because we cannot accurately describe the initial state, much less what will happen tomorrow or next week. As to the climate, a worldwide outbreak of volcanism could undo trillions of dollars worth of carbon remediation in a month. Can the volcanoes be predicted? A socialist conqueror in South America could burn the rain forest to the ground and force its people into an agricultural economy and undo a trillion dollars worth of prevention. And, a brilliant physicist could conceive a way to contain a fusion reaction and generate electricity so cheaply that in hindsight, the trillion dollars worth of prevention would be considered a complete waste of money. So what is the principle? The more certain the predictability, the more money spent on improving. The opposite is also true. The less certain the prediction, the less we ought to spend on it. And on the most fundamental level, wise men talk about what WILL happen, fools rant on and on about how to prevent what MIGHT happen.
2023 - That last verse...does that mean a fool doesn't know when to shut up and go home?
2021 - The last five verses are taken together:
[Ecc 10:16 ESV] Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning!
[Ecc 10:17 ESV] Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
[Ecc 10:18 ESV] Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.
[Ecc 10:19 ESV] Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.
[Ecc 10:20 ESV] Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.
Vss 16, 17 tell us that good leadership matters. And it says that leadership is hierarchical. I'm pretty sure it says your leaders should come from the uppermost class. Take care of your business. Enjoy your life. But don't criticize the rich and powerful. Just don't. They will find out. Right Alexa? Right Google? We'd never invite a full time spy into our houses to record all we say and "fly" it to those who are interested. And yet, we put these little spies in, and are proud of ourselves for doing so. This last verse is quite prophetic.
2025 - In the NASB95, vs 19 says it this way:
19 [Men] prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything. [Ecc 10:19 NASB95]. MSB says we need to refer back to the subject of this paragraph, which is a king who parties too much. Things fall into ruin, no one worries about keeping up with maintenance, and then that last phrase means that he figures he can just raise taxes at some point and bring everything back up to par. So in context, we understand that as a general rule, money does not fix everything. But foolish rulers depend on taxes to cover for their slackness.