Dead flies cause the ointment... to send forth a stinking savour. Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies Homiletic Magazine. Among the Jews, oil rendered fragrant by being mixed with precious drugs was used for many different purposes. With it priests and kings were anointed when they entered upon their offices, guests at the tables of the rich were treated to it as a luxury. It was used medicinally for outward application to the bodies of the sick; and with it corpses, and the clothes in which they were wrapped, were besprinkled before burial. Very great care was needed in the preparation of the material used for such special purposes. Elaborately confected as the ointment was, it was easily spoiled and rendered worthless. It was accordingly necessary not only to take great pains in making it, but also in preserving it from contamination when made. A dead fly would soon corrupt the ointment, and turn it into a pestilent odour. So, says the Preacher, a noble and attractive character may be corrupted and destroyed by a little folly; an insignificant-looking fault or weakness may outweigh great gifts and attainments. The fault which shows itself in a character is not like a stain or flaw in a marble statue, which is confined to one spot, and is no worse after the lapse of years, but like a sore in a living body, which weakens and may destroy the whole organism. One cause why the evil influence spreads is that we are not on our guard against it, and it may grow to almost ungovernable strength before we are really convinced that there is any danger. We can recognize at once great errors and heinous vices, and the alarm and disgust they excite prepare us to resist them; but little follies and weaknesses often fill us with an amused contempt for them, which blinds us to their great power for evil. So numerous are the sources from which danger arises, that a long list might be made of the little sins by which the characters of many good men and women are often marred: indolence, selfishness, love of ease, procrastination, indecision, rudeness, irritability, over-sensitiveness to praise or blame, vanity, boastfulness, talkativeness, love of gossip, undue laxity, undue severity, want of self-control over appetites and passions, obstinacy, parsimony. Numerous though these follies are, they may be reduced into two great classes — faults of weakness and faults of strength. I. FAULTS OF WEAKNESS. This class is that. of those which are largely negative, and consist principally in omission to give a definite and worthy direction to the nature; want of self-control, love of ease, indolence, procrastination, indecision, selfishness, unfeelingness. Want of self-control over appetites and passions led David into the foulest crimes, which, though sincerely repented of, were most terribly avenged, and have for ever left a stain upon his name. Love of case is the only fault which is implied in the description of the rich man in the parable ( Luke 16:19 ), a desire to be comfortable and avoid all that was disagreeable, but it led him to such callous indifference to the miseries of his fellows, as disqualified him for happiness in the world to come. A very striking illustration of the deterioration of a character through the sin of weakness and indecision is to be found in the life of Eli. His good qualities have not preserved his memory from contempt. This is the sting of the rebuke addressed to the Church of Laodicea ( Revelation 3:15, 16 ). In Dante 's description of the lower world special infamy is attached to this class of offenders, that of those who have never really lived, who have never awakened to take any part either in good or evil, to care for anything but themselves. They are unfit for heaven, and hell scorns to receive them. "This miserable mode the dreary souls of those sustain who lived without blame and without praise." II. FAULTS OF STRENGTH. This class includes those faults which are of a positive character, and consist largely in an abuse of qualities which might have been virtues. The very strength of character by which men and women are distinguished may lead by over-emphasis into very offensive deterioration. Thus firmness may degenerate into obstinacy, frugality into parsimony, liberality into extravagance, light-heartedness into frivolity, candour into rudeness, and so on. And these are faults which disgust and repel, and cause us to overlook even very great merits in a character; and not only so, but, if unchecked, gradually nullify those merits. We may find in the character of Christ all the virtues which go to make up holiness so admirably balanced that no one is over-prominent, and therefore no one pushed to that excess which so often mars human excellence. "His tender tone was the keen edge of His reproofs, and His unquestionable love infused solemnity into every warning." ( Homiletic Magazine. ) Dead flies J. Hamilton, D. D. Our instances must be taken almost at random; for, like their Egyptian prototypes, these flies are too many to be counted. I. RUDENESS. Some good men are blunt in their feelings, and rough in their manners; and they apologize for their coarseness by calling it honesty, downrightness, plainness of speech. They quote in self-defence the sharp words and shaggy mien of Elijah and John the Baptist, and, as affectation, they sneer at the soft address and mild manners of gentler men. The question, however, is not between two rival graces — between integrity on the one side, and affability on the other; but the question is, Are these two graces compatible? Is it possible for a man to be explicit, and open, and honest, and, withal, courteous and considerate of the feelings of others? Is it possible to add to fervour and fidelity, suavity, and urbanity, and brotherly kindness? There never was one more faithful than the Son of God, but there never was one more considerate. And just as rudeness is not essential to honesty, so neither is roughness essential to strength of character. The Christian should have a strong character; he should be a man of remarkable decision. And he should be a man of inflexible purpose. When once he knows his Lord's will, he should go through with it, aye, through fire and water. But this he may do without renouncing the meekness and gentleness which were in Christ. He may have zeal without pugnacity, determination without obstinacy. II. IRRITABILITY. One of the most obvious and impressive features in the Saviour's character was His meekness. In a patience which ingenious or sudden provocation could not upset; in a magnanimity which insult could not ruffle; in a gentleness from which no folly could extract an unadvised word, men saw what they could scarcely understand, but that which made them marvel. But many Christians lack this beauty of their Master's holiness; they are afflicted with evil tempers, they cannot rule their spirits, or rather they do not try. Some indulge occasional fits of anger; and others are haunted by habitual, daily, life-long fretfulness. The one sort is generally calm and pellucid as an Alpine lake, but on some special provocation is tossed up into a magnificent tempest; the other is like the Bosphorns, in a continual stir, and even when not a breath is moving, by the contrariety of its internal currents vexing itself into a ceaseless whirl and eddy. But either form, the paroxysmal fury, and the perennial fretfulness, is inconsistent with the wisdom from above, which is peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated. III. SELFISHSESS. The world expects self-denial in the Christian; and with reason, for of all men he can best afford it, and by his profession he is committed to it. Attention to the wants of others, care for their welfare, and consideration for their feelings are Scriptural graces for which all Christians ought to be conspicuous. Christianity allows us to forget our own wants, but it does not permit us to forget the necessities of our brethren. It requires us to be careless of our own ease, but it forbids us to overlook the comfort and convenience of other people. ( J. Hamilton, D. D. ) A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left . Ecclesiastes 10:2 Heart and hand J. E. Henry, M. A. I. The wise man's heart at his right hand means that HIS AFFECTIONS ARE AT THEIR PROPER OBJECTS. The heart is the moral power or seat of principle. "With the heart man believeth." "A new heart also will I give unto you." Then the hand is the active power, the faculty by which principles are carried into action. "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners." "I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands to God." The right hand, again, is the ideal hand. "The Lord hath sworn by His right hand." Thus whatever a hand is or does, the right hand is and does pre-eminently. It is the perfection of all that is characteristic in a hand. When therefore, a wise man's heart is said to be at his right hand, it is said by way of commendation. It means that his moral nature is as it ought to be. It occupies its right place. It sustains its right relations. It discharges its proper functions. It is altogether a heart right in God's sight. Now, the heart is a most important portion of the body. It is the very seat and citadel of its life. Derangement in it means instantaneous derangement in every vital process. And in the spiritual life the thing we call the heart is no less essential. Out of it are the issues of life. It is the seat of principle. It is the home of the affections. It is the source of all the moral actions. The other powers are the heart's executive to obey its rule and carry out its high behests. II. The wise man's heart at his right hand means that HIS PRINCIPLES ARE AT THE BACK OF PRACTICAL POWER. All through Scripture the right hand is the emblem of power. Our Lord styles the Father's right hand "the right hand of power." God is declared to have led Israel "by the right hand of Moses," and Israel to have obtained the Land of Promise by "God's right hand, and His arm, and the light of His countenance." So men are spiritually saved by God's "right hand," and Christ in His resurrection was "by the right hand of God exalted." The right hand of God, the right hand of man, is the organ of power in each. In the body the heart is in closest connection with the strongest hand. And in the spiritual department the same law holds. The godly man in whom exists the most perfect connection between heart and life, has for this reason a power all his own. That power is spiritual power, the mightiest power there is. It is an aspect of the force that regenerates hearts, that illuminates minds, that changes characters, that adorns lives with the transcendent beauties of holiness. Not more surely does a right hand of power connect itself with a healthy nourishing heart, than a forceful Christian life attends on and expresses the energies of a heart renewed by grace. III. The wise man's heart at his right hand means that HIS PURPOSES ARE AT THE FITTEST AGENCY FOR CARRYING THEM OUT. When the heart chooses God's will, the hand chooses His way. It perceives the fitness of it. It believes in the policy of it. It would argue the suitableness of it in any ease from the fact that it is His way. This is true wisdom. No stronger reason for adopting a way than that it is God's way. IV. HIS RESOLUTIONS ARE AT A DEGREE OF STRENGTH IN WHICH THEY PROMPTLY TAKE THE FORM OF ACTION. There is a constitutional unreadiness in some people. They cannot be prompt. This unreadiness which distinguishes the dull from the smart, distinguishes also the left hand from the right. It responds more slowly to the will. It acts less readily in almost every work. The right hand is the hand of promptitude as well as the hand of skill. Now, in life, as every young man should consider, film element of promptitude has an important place. The few who succeed are the wise men who have their boat of action ready to launch on the advancing wave of opportunity. The many who fail are the foolish who are indolently unobservant, and therefore always off their guard. There is a perfectly identical treatment of the question of personal godliness. Religion has its times of opportunity which are its decisive hours. Some saving truth comes home. There are stings of conviction. There are half-formed resolves that choice shall be made of eternal things. But here the curse of spiritual unreadiness comes in. The man is not prepared for immediate action. He is a spiritual "Athelstone the Unready." To God's "now" he answers "soon." To God's "begin" he answers "wait." The man whose heart is where and how it ought to be is a man who takes God directly at His word. The Divine "come" he takes to be the essence of duty, and the Divine "now" to be never untimely. And so, like doves to their windows, he flies for refuge to Christ. Then darting forth an eager hand, he lays hold on the hope set before him. ( J. E. Henry, M. A. ) Influence of a good heart N. Emmons, D. D. I. A GOOD HEART is something which comprises all moral goodness, or everything truly virtuous and excellent. "God is love." His love comprises holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. So a good heart in man consists in true benevolence, and comprises every holy and virtuous affection. And for this reason the Scripture calls a good heart a perfect heart, a pure heart, an honest heart, an upright heart, a wise and understanding heart. II. A GOOD HEART FITS MEN FOR EVERY KIND OF DUTY. 1. A good heart fits men for all religious duties.(1) A good heart evidently fits men to read the Scriptures. These were indited by the spirit of holiness, and ought to be read with the same spirit with which they were written.(2) Devout meditation is a religious duty; and a good heart fits men to meditate upon God and Divine things with peculiar pleasure and satisfaction.(3) Prayer is another religious duty of the first importance, and a good heart is the very spirit of grace and supplication.(4) God looks at the heart in all religious services; and it is only a pure and upright heart that can prepare men to worship Him in spirit and in truth. 2. A good heart fits men for all secular as well as religious duties. It disposes them to propose a right end in all their secular concerns, which is the glory of God and the good of their fellow-creatures. So far as men are guided by a good heart, they act from noble and benevolent motives in all their pursuits. Whatever they do, they do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men. 3. A good heart fits men for all social duties. It naturally prompts those who possess it to speak and act with propriety in all companies, in all places, in all stations, and in all relations of life. It makes men quick to discover and practise the duties which they owe to each other. 4. A good heart fits men for doubtful duties, or duties in doubtful cases. If any are at a loss whether to embrace or reject any religious sentiment proposed, they have a standard in their own breasts by which to try it. It is only to appeal to their own conscience, and ask, What says benevolence in this case? Is this doctrine agreeable to disinterested benevolence, or is it an expression of selfishness? And therefore the good man's heart is always at his right hand, and ready to decide what is true and what is false. 5. A good heart figs men for difficult duties. There is a great variety of difficult duties, but I shall mention only two sorts; dangerous duties and self-denying duties. These have always been difficult to perform. But a good heart will make them easy and pleasant, and dispose men to perform them with a degree of alacrity and delight.IMPROVEMENT: 1. If a good heart fits men for every kind of duty, then they can never find a solid and satisfactory excuse for their ignorance or neglect of duty. 2. If a good heart figs men for all kinds of duty, then those who have a good heart will be very apt to make it appear that their heart is good. 3. If a good heart fits men for every kind of duty, then those who have a bad heart will be very apt to show it. Men are as apt to discover their left hand as their right hand. They discover it both by not using it and by attempting to use it without ease and dexterity. As a good heart fits men for duty, so a bad heart unfits them for duty. It sometimes prevents their understanding their duty, but more frequently prevents their doing what they know to be their duty. Both their ignorance and neglect discover an evil heart at their left hand. 4. If a good heart fits men for all kinds of duty, then those who are destitute of it do no duty at all in the sight of God. 5. If a good heart fits men for all kinds of duty, then good men find a pleasure in performing every kind of duty. 6. If a good heart fits men for every duty, then all good men desire to grow in grace. They desire grace, not merely on account of the spiritual enjoyment that grace affords them, but principally because it fits them for every duty towards God and man. 7. If a good heart fits men for every duty, then those who are destitute of it continually live in darkness. This is certainly a very deplorable situation. ( N. Emmons, D. D. ) Heart and hand Fergus Ferguson, D. D. In the physical system the heart and the head are alike related to the hand. We associate the heart with feeling, the head with thought, and the hand with movement or action. Life is made up of feeling, thought and action. The motive power may be said to lie in the heart; the guiding principle in the head; and the efficient working element in the hand. But in the Scriptures the heart is almost always used to denote the whole inner being, as including the mental and moral nature, the intellect and the affections. Wisdom is the right direction of all our faculties and powers towards a given end, and it demands their harmonious co-operation. We want first of all to have concentration of power, and after that the direction of it along the right lines. In the harmony of head and heart we have wisdom in thought and action. In their contrariety we have folly. The heart or soul ought to control the hand. It is the business of a wise man to know what he can do and what he cannot do. A man need be in no doubt as to the end of his existence. If it is one's deepest desire really to serve the Lord, He will lead one in the right way, and show one in specific form what he ought at all times to do. A wise man's heart is at his right hand in this sense, that he always acts from within himself, or from the ground of his own personal feeling. This sentence of Solomon means that the wise man is a practical man — a man of action as well as of thought. The foolish man whose heart is at his left hand has separated thought from action. If he has a theory of life at all, his actual life is out of harmony with it. It is so with the religion of many: they have separated between their theory of the life to come and their practice in the present life. The man whose heart is at his right hand is always ready for action, and specially prepared to seize the opportunity when it comes. There is a general preparedness for action which always characterizes him, and makes him equal to the occasion, his mind being constantly made up to a very large extent. The true soldier is always ready for action. One's facts and principles must always be at hand, ready for the occasion. To have one's heart at his right hand is to do one's work with his whole heart. He puts his mind and conscience into it, and really enjoys it. His motto is that what is worth doing at all ought to be done well. There is nothing so miserable as to have a work to do for which one has no heart. But to have as one's daily work that in which he finds his highest happiness and culture is surely a most enviable condition. In opposition to all this, the man whose heart is at his left hand is living an essentially idle life. There is no unity of purpose in his existence. The deep spiritual forces of his being, separated from all that is practical and profitable, are wasted. Let us seek by all means the concentration of our powers, and the direction of them to the one true end of life. Our heart is in the right place when our supreme affection is that love to God in Christ which goes continually forth in earnest and prayerful endeavour for the good of others. When Sir Walter Raleigh had laid his head upon the block, he was asked by the executioner whether it lay aright; whereupon, with the marvellous calmness of a man whose heart was fixed, he replied, "It matters little, my friend, how the head lies, provided the heart be right." ( Fergus Ferguson, D. D. ) I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. Ecclesiastes 10:7 A social scene in human life D. Thomas, D. D. I. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS COMMON. 1. In the political realm. We see small-minded men occupying influential offices in the State. 2. In the ecclesiastical department. 3. In the commercial department. How often do we see little men by trickery, fraud and lucky hits become the great men of the market. 4. In the literary department. II. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS INCONGRUOUS. 1. It does not agree with what we might have expected under the government of a righteous God. That the race is not always to the morally swift and the battle to the morally strong is an undoubted anomaly in the government of God. 2. It does not agree with the moral feelings of humanity. Whilst there is a perversity in man which leads him to hurrah the successful and the prosperous, there is, nevertheless, down deep in the heart of all men a feeling that such a scene as that indicated in the text is something terribly incongruous, a great moral enormity. III. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS TEMPORARY. 1. Such a social scene does not exist in the other world. Death destroys all these adventitious distinctions and moral incongruities. 2. Such a social scene will not always exist here. ( D. Thomas, D. D. ) Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Ecclesiastes 10:8 Respect the hedge W. L. Watkinson. We covet the apple on the tree and forget the snake in the grass; the consequence being, that when we essay to bite the apple, the snake bites us. Now, there are many protective hedges about us; and the trouble is, that we are variously tempted to play tricks with these, and upon occasion to set them at naught. Therein we usually discover how great is the mistake we have made. I. GUARD THE SENSE OF SHAME. Whatever tends to lessen the acuteness of the soul to things false, ugly, or foul is sharply to be shunned. Beware of the literature that tends to reconcile to odious things! If the soul is to keep its virgin purity, it must turn away even from the reflection of foulness in a mirror. Beware of the company whose conversation and fellowship in some way, not perhaps very apparent, blights the bloom and dims the lustre of pure feeling! Beware of the amusements that filch away the quick delicacy which has been evolved in our nature at an infinite expense! Beware of the fashion that sets lighter store by old-fashioned modesty! Better pluck out as useless appendages the tender eyelashes which guarantee the sight than consent to destroy the instincts of purity which preserve the spirit. The sense of shame is a sacred thing; it is the saintliness of nature, and we ought sedulously to guard and heighten it in the fear of God. The man or woman who heedlessly violates this ethereal hedge puts himself or herself outside what is elsewhere called a wall of fire. II. RESPECT THE CODE OF COURTESY. Even in domestic life and between chief friends are interposed hedges, if they be not rather flower borders, which must be respected, if mutual regard and veneration are to continue. United most closely as we are, certain delicate observances and deferences fix the isolation of our personality, and imply the attention that must be paid to our rights and feelings. The grievous misunderstandings and animosities which wreck the peace and prosperity of households not uncommonly originate in excessive familiarities between brothers and sisters; these fail to see that refined proprieties guard the several members of a family as a scarlet cord reserves special places in great assemblies, and that "good form" must be observed in private as well as in public. Some one has wisely said, "It is no worse to stand on ceremony than to trample on it." No, indeed, it is often a great deal better; for social ceremonial is the fence that protects the delicate forms and flowers which are so difficult to rear. Let young people revere the pale of ceremony, for when it is broken down beauty, purity and peace are at the mercy of a ruthless world. III. OBEY THE RULES OF BUSINESS. Regulations touching hours of going out and coming in, minute directions for household conduct, rules about the handling of cash, usages in keeping accounts, and petty laws directing twenty other details of duty, are based in an expediency which really and simultaneously conserves the rights and safety of masters and servants alike. The beginner may not see the reasonableness of a system of delicate network which comprehends eating, drinking and sleeping, and the almost infinite ramifications of daily duty; but there is more reasonableness in all these worrying precepts than he sees. The laws of business are the outcome of the experience of generations, and are not lightly to be set aside. A young man can hardly pay too much deference to the customs and traditions of the establishment in which his lot is cast; he cannot; be too exactly conscientious about the prescribed obligations of time, usage, method, goods and cash: to tamper here is to be lost. Beware of the slightest infraction of your official duty, of all informality and unauthorized action, of all illicit and contraband ways and things, deadly serpents without rattles wait behind the violated precepts! Whilst, on the other hand, if you keep the least of these commandments, it shall keep you, and the discipline of obedience on a lower level will strengthen you to comply with the sublimest laws of all on the highest levels of thought and conduct. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) Fences and serpents A. Maclaren, D. D. What is meant here is, probably, not such a hedge as we are accustomed to see, but a dry stone wall, or, perhaps, an earthen embankment, in the crevices of which might lurk a snake to sting the careless hand. The "wall" may stand for the limitations and boundary lines of our lives, and the inference that wisdom suggests in that application of the saying it, "Do not pull down judiciously but keep the fence up, and be sure you keep on the right side of it." For any attempt to pull it down — which, being interpreted, is to transgress the laws of life which God has enjoined — is sure to bring out the hissing snake with its poison. I. ALL LIFE IS GIVEN US RIGIDLY WALLED UP. The first thing that the child learns is that it must not do what it likes. The last lesson that the old man has to learn is, you must do what you ought. And between these two extremities of life we are always making attempts to treat the world as an open common, on which we may wander at our will. And before we have gone many steps some sort of keeper or other meets us and says to us, "Trespassers I back again to the road!" Life is rigidly hedged in and limited. There are the obligations which we owe, and the relations in which we stand, to the outer world, the laws of physical life, and all that touches the external and the material. There are the relations in which we stand, and the obligations which we owe to ourselves. And God has so made us as that obviously large tracts of every man's nature are given to him on purpose to be restrained, curbed, coerced, and sometimes utterly crushed and extirpated. God gives us our impulses under lock and key. All our animal desires, all our natural tendencies, are held on condition that we exercise control over them, and keep them well within the rigidly marked limits which He has laid down, and which we can easily find out. We sometimes foolishly feel that a life thus hedged up, limited by these high boundaries on either side, must be uninteresting, monotonous, or unfree. It is not so. The walls are blessings, like the parapet on a mountain road that keeps the traveller from toppling over the face of the cliff. They are training-walls, as our hydrographical engineers talk about, which, built in the bed of a river, wholesomely confine its waters and make a good scour which gives life, instead of letting them vaguely wander and stagnate across great fields of mud. Freedom consists in keeping willingly within the limits which God has traced, and anything except that is not freedom, but is licence and rebellion, and at bottom servitude of the most abject type. II. EVERY ATTEMPT TO BREAK DOWN THE LIMITATIONS BRINGS POISON INTO THE LIFE. We live in a great automatic system which, by its own operation, largely avenges every breach of law. I need not remind you, except in a word, of the way in which the transgression of the plain physical laws stamped upon our constitutions avenges itself; but the certainty with which disease dogs all breaches of the laws of health is but a type in the lower and material universe of the far higher and more solemn certainty with which "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." The grossest form of transgression of the plain laws of temperance, abstinence, purity, brings with itself, in like manner, a visible and palpable punishment in the majority of cases. Some serpents' bites inflame, some paralyze; and one or other of these two things — either an inflamed conscience or a palsied conscience — is the result of all wrongdoing. I do not know which is the worst. III. ALL THE POISON MAY BE GOT OUT OF YOUR VEINS IF YOU LIKE. Christ has received into His own inmost life and self the whole gathered consequences of a world's sin; and by the mystery of His sympathy, and the reality of His mysterious union with us men, He, the sinless Son of God, has been made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. For sin and death launched their last dart at Him, and, like some venomous insect that can sting once and then must die, they left their sting in His wounded heart, and have none for them that put their trust in Him. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) The hedges of life H. Wonnacott. I look around upon the universe. It is a place of hedges. It is not barren moorland about which we are doubtful if it has an owner, for He has everywhere defined His rights and established His bounds. I. READ IT IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY, and take it as a piece of experience. It is given us by a man who brings it out of his own heart, for he had felt the bite of the serpent himself. There was scarcely a hedge upon which he did not set his foot, and there were few penalties of sin which he did not feel. Although every means was at his command for avoiding sin's consequences, he felt the serpent's sting; and if you will take his experience of sin, and rest satisfied in his verdict on it, it will save you from untold sorrow and infinite regrets. But this is not the experience of one man. Look around society and question men for yourselves. Hear the intemperate man express the shame and contempt which follow his intemperance; hear the worldly man as the day of life draws to its close bemoan the hollow cheat the world has played upon him; listen to the experience of those who have climbed out of the mire and have now their feet set upon the rock; and the unqualified answer you will get will be that this language is true. Or open the volume of history, and mark the solemn retributions of God upon every page. Read the history of Jacob, of Haman, of Ahab and Jezebel. Or open the book of secular history. Glance at the history of Greece and Rome, or any nation under heaven. Thrones gained by the sword have been lost by it. Fortunes won by fraud have cursed in turn every one that has held them; and tear at random any page from the archives of the world, and it will comment to you on these words, for the experience of men through 6,000 years has confirmed these truths, and they express the settled experiences of mankind. II. READ THIS NOT ONLY IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY, BUT IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION, and take it not only as a piece of experience, but as the revelation of a Divine law. God's government has another world as its theatre as well as this. Men may sin here and in some cases be comparatively free from any terrible outward consequences; in that other domain of God's the effects of their sin will reveal themselves in all their fearfulness and terror. Poison does not a

Benson Commentary Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. Ecclesiastes 10:1 . Dead flies, &c. — Solomon seems in these words to be prosecuting what he had said in the last clause of the preceding chapter; showing how much good one foolish action may destroy, what evil may result from it, and how a man, otherwise famed for wisdom, may thereby lose his reputation. So most interpreters understand the verse. “The wiser or better,” says Bishop Patrick, “any man is, so much the more cautious ought he to be in all his words and actions, if he mean to preserve that credit, esteem, and authority in the world, which give him great advantages for doing good. For, as dead flies, though very small creatures, falling into a pot of ointment,” and abiding and being putrified in it, “corrupt that precious composition, and turn the perfume into a stink; so doth a small error or miscarriage blemish him who was highly valued for his discretion and virtue.” And this comes to pass, partly, because all the actions, and consequently the follies of such men are most diligently observed, whereas the actions and follies of persons known to be ignorant and weak are generally disregarded; and, partly, because of that envious and malicious disposition which is in the minds of too many, and makes them quick- sighted to discover, and glad to hear, and forward to declare, the faults of such as, by their greater eminence, outshone and obscured them. Ecclesiastes 10:2 A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left. Ecclesiastes 10:2-3 . A wise man’s heart is at his right hand — His understanding or wisdom is always present with him, and ready to direct him in all his actions. He manages all his affairs prudently and piously. He mentions the right hand because that is the common instrument of action. But a fool’s heart is at his left — His understanding and knowledge serve him only for idle speculation and vain ostentation, but is not useful or effectual to govern his affections and actions. Yea also, when he walketh by the way — Not only in great undertakings, but in his daily conversation; his wisdom faileth him — Hebrew, ??? ??? , his heart is wanting; he acts preposterously and foolishly, as if he were without a heart. He saith, &c. — He discovers his folly to all that meet him or converse with him. Ecclesiastes 10:3 Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him , and he saith to every one that he is a fool. Ecclesiastes 10:4 If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences. Ecclesiastes 10:4 . If the spirit of a ruler — His passion or wrath; rise up against thee — Upon some misinformation given him, or mismanagement of thine; leave not thy place — In anger or discontent. Withdraw not thyself rashly and hastily from his presence and service: see on Ecclesiastes 8:3 . Continue in a diligent and faithful discharge of thy duty, as becomes a subject, and modestly and humbly submit to him. For yielding pacifieth, &c. — Hebrew ???? ???? , healing maketh to cease great sins: that is, a submissive, meek deportment, which is of a healing nature, appeaseth wrath conceived for great offences. Ecclesiastes 10:5 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: Ecclesiastes 10:5-7 . There is an evil, &c. — I have observed another great vanity and misdemeanour among men; as an error which proceedeth, &c. — Or rather, as the Hebrew may be translated, which is indeed an error proceeding from the ruler: for the following erroneous conduct must needs come from those who have power of conferring honour and authority. Folly is set in great dignity — Foolish and unworthy persons are frequently advanced by the favour or humour of princes into places of great trust and dignity, which is at once a great reproach to the prince, and a sore calamity to his people. And the rich sit in a low place — Wise and worthy men, rich in endowments of the mind, are neglected and despised, or removed from those places to which their merits had raised them. I have seen servants on horses — Men of a servile condition and disposition riding in pomp and state as princes; and princes — Men of noble birth and qualities, fit to rule a kingdom, walking as servants — In a state of poverty and degradation, despised and disregarded. Ecclesiastes 10:6 Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. Ecclesiastes 10:7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. Ecclesiastes 10:8 He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Ecclesiastes 10:8-9 . He that diggeth a pit, &c. — The meaning of these verses, which may be considered as common proverbs, is, that those who are seeking and striving to injure others, often bring mischiefs thereby on their own heads; as he that digs a pit for another may, unawares, fall into it himself; and he who, in those hot countries, was pulling up a hedge, was in danger of being bit by a serpent lurking in it; and he that removes stones to undermine his neighbour’s house, may possibly be hurt, if not killed, by the upper stones falling on himself. It may be observed here, however, that Melancthon, Bishop Patrick, and many other interpreters, consider these verses as containing warnings to princes and people to take heed they do not rashly, and with violence, attempt to make changes in the established order of things in churches or states. “Let neither prince nor people,” says Henry, “violently attempt any changes, nor make a forcible entry upon a national settlement, for they will both find it of dangerous consequence. Let not princes invade the rights and liberties of their subjects; and let not subjects mutiny and rebel against their princes, but let both be content within their own bounds. God, by his ordinance, as by a hedge, hath enclosed the prerogatives and powers of princes, and their persons are under his special protection; those, therefore, that form any treasonable designs against their peace, their crown, and dignity, are but twisting halters for themselves. And those that go about to alter a well-modelled, well-settled government, under colour of redressing some grievances, and correcting some things amiss in it, will quickly perceive, not only that it is easier to find fault than to mend; to demolish that which is good, than to build up that which is better;” but that they pull a house down upon themselves, under the ruins of which they may perhaps be crushed to death. But this latter verse is thus interpreted by some, He that removeth stones — That rashly attempts things too high and hard for him; shall be hurt therewith — Shall suffer injury from such attempts. And he that cleaveth wood — With an iron instrument; shall be endangered thereby — May peradventure cut himself: that is, he that deals with men of knotty, stubborn tempers, shall have much vexation and trouble thereby, and probably shall find his character as well as peace much wounded. Ecclesiastes 10:9 Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby. Ecclesiastes 10:10 If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct. Ecclesiastes 10:10 . If the iron be blunt — The axe wherewith a man cuts wood; he must put to more strength — To make it cut: that is, if a man do not use fit and proper means to accomplish any work, it will cost him so much the more labour and pains; but wisdom is profitable to direct — Both in the choice and in the use of means. In other words, As wisdom instructs a man in the smallest matters, so it is useful for a man’s direction in all weighty affairs. Ecclesiastes 10:11 Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better. Ecclesiastes 10:11 . Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment — Unless it be seasonably prevented by the art and care of the charmer. This is an allusion to the general opinion, then and still prevailing in the eastern countries, that serpents might be charmed so as to be prevented from biting by certain incantations, or by singing and music. See note on Psalm 58:4-5 . And a babbler is no better — Hebrew, ??? ?????? , the master of the tongue; which may be understood either of a rash, loose talker, a mere babbler, or of a backbiter and slanderer. Each of these is in the habit of using his tongue as if he were lord of it, and often does much mischief thereby, especially the latter, who, by his malicious words, bites secretly like a serpent, and gives deadly wounds to the characters of the absent. Ecclesiastes 10:12 The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. Ecclesiastes 10:12-15 . The words of a wise man are gracious — Hebrew, ?? , grace: as they are profitable, so they are acceptable to others, procuring him favour with those that hear him. But the lips of a fool will swallow up himself — His discourses are ungracious and offensive to others, and therefore pernicious to himself. The beginning of his words is foolishness, &c. — All his talk, from the beginning to the end, is foolish and sinful; the more he talks the more his folly and wickedness appear; and the end is mischievous madness — He proceeds from evil to worse, and adds wilfulness to his weakness, and never desists till he hath done mischief to himself or others. A fool also is full of words — Forward to promise and boast what he will do; which is the common practice of foolish men, and running on endlessly, and never knowing when to cease; for he will have the last word, though it be but the same with that which was the first. A man cannot tell what shall be — What he will say next; his talk is so incoherent. And what shall be after him, who can tell? — That is, what mischief his foolish talk may produce. The labour of the foolish wearieth, &c. — Fools discover their folly by their wearisome and fruitless endeavours after things which are too high for them. Because he knoweth not, &c. — He is ignorant of those things which are most easy, as of the way to the great city whither he is going. Ecclesiastes 10:13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness. Ecclesiastes 10:14 A fool also is full of words: a man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him? Ecclesiastes 10:15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city. Ecclesiastes 10:16 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 . Wo to thee, O land, when thy king is a child — Either in age or childish qualities; and thy princes eat in the morning — Give themselves up to eating and drinking at that time of the day which is most fit for God’s service, for the despatch of weighty affairs, and for sitting in judgment. Blessed art thou when thy king is the son of the nobles — Not so much by birth, as even the worst of kings commonly are, and have been, as by their noble and worthy dispositions and endowments, for such a one is opposed to the child in the former verse; and thy princes eat in due season — So as may further and not hinder their main business; for strength, and not for drunkenness — To refresh and strengthen their bodies, that they may be fit to perform the duties of their station, and not to please their palates, and indulge themselves in sensuality. Ecclesiastes 10:17 Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness! Ecclesiastes 10:18 By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. Ecclesiastes 10:18 . By much slothfulness, &c., the house droppeth through — That house which is neglected by its owner, and not repaired, must needs come to ruin. Whereby he intimates that the sloth and carelessness of princes, in the management of public affairs, which is a usual attendant on that luxury of which he now spoke, is most destructive to themselves and to their people. Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things . Ecclesiastes 10:19 . A feast is made for laughter, &c. — Not merely for caring, but chiefly for pleasant conversation, and the society of friends; not the laughter of fools, which is madness, but that of wise men, namely, that cheerfulness by which they fit themselves for business and severe studies: and wine maketh merry — Hebrew, ????? ???? , maketh glad the life, exhilarates the mind; but money answereth all things — Procures not only meat and drink for feasting, but all other worldly advantages. Therefore be frugal, and spend not all in luxurious eating and drinking, remembering, that money is wanted for a great many other purposes. Some refer this verse to rulers, and consider this last clause as being added to aggravate the sin and folly of luxury, to which, when princes give up themselves, they not only neglect their business, but thereby waste that money and treasure which are so highly necessary for the support and preservation of themselves and their kingdoms: and, in consequence thereof, are obliged to squeeze money out of their people by oppressive taxes, and other dishonourable and dangerous practices. Ecclesiastes 10:20 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. Ecclesiastes 10:20 . Curse not the king — Having spoken of the miscarriages of kings, he now gives a caution to their subjects, that they should not thence take occasion to speak irreverently or contemptuously of them, or wish or design any evil against their persons or government. For though vices may be condemned wheresoever they are, yet both reverence and obedience are due to magistrates, as they are God’s deputies and vicegerents, and that, notwithstanding their vices, as is manifest from Romans 13:1 , &c. 1 Peter 2:13 . No, not in thy thought — In the most secret manner, by giving way to such thoughts and affections, for these would very probably break forth into disloyal words and practices: and curse not the rich — The princes or governors under the king, who are commonly rich; for a bird, &c., shall carry the voice — The king will hear of it by unknown and unsuspected hands, as if a bird had heard and carried the report of it. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. FOURTH SECTION The Quest Achieved. The Chief Good Is To Be Found, Not In Wisdom, Nor In Pleasure, Nor In Devotion To Affairs And Its Rewards; But In A Wise Use And A Wise Enjoyment Of The Present Life, Combined With A Steadfast Faith In The Life To Come Ecclesiastes 8:16 - Ecclesiastes 12:7 AT last we approach the end of our Quest. The Preacher has found the Chief Good, and will show us where to find it. But are we even yet prepared to welcome it and to lay hold of it? Apparently he thinks we are not. For, though he has already warned us that it is not to be found in Wealth or Industry, in Pleasure or Wisdom, he repeats his warning in this last Section of his Book, as if he still suspected us of hankering after our old errors. Not till he has again assured us that we shall miss our mark if we seek the supreme Good in any of the directions in which it is commonly sought, does he direct us to the sole path in which we shall not seek in vain. Once more, therefore, we must gird up the loins of our mind to follow him along his several lines of thought, encouraged by the assurance that the end of our journey is not far off. Nor in Devotion to Affairs and its Rewards. Ecclesiastes 9:13-18 ; Ecclesiastes 10:1-20 So far, then, Coheleth has been occupied in retracing the argument of the first Section of the Book. Now he returns upon the second and third Sections: he deals with the man who plunges into public affairs, who turns his wisdom to practical account and seeks to attain a competence, if not a fortune. He lingers over this stage of his argument, probably because the Jews, then as always, even in exile and under the most cruel oppression, were a remarkably energetic, practical, money-getting race, with a singular faculty of dealing with political issues or handling the market; and, as he slowly pursues it, he drops many hints of the social and political conditions of the time. Two features of it he takes much to heart: first, that wisdom, even of the most practical and sagacious sort, did not win its fair recognition and reward-a very natural complaint in so wise a man; and, secondly, that his people were under tyrants so gross, self-indulgent, indolent, and unstatesman-like as the Persians of his day-also a natural complaint in a man of so wise and patriotic spirit. He opens with an anecdote in proof of the slight regard in which the most valuable and remunerative sagacity was held. He tells us of a poor man-and I have sometimes thought that this poor man may have been the author himself; for the military leaders of the Jews, though among the most expert strategists of that era, were often very learned and studious men-who lived in a little city, with only a few inhabitants. A great king came up against the city, besieged it, threw up the lofty military causeway, as high as the walls, from which it was the fashion of the time to deliver the assault. By his Archimedian wit the poor man hit on a stratagem which saved the city; but though his service was so signal, and the city so little that the "few men in it" must have seen him every day, "yet no one remembered that same poor man," or lent a hand to lift him from his poverty. Wise as he was, his wisdom did not bring him bread, nor riches, nor favour ( Ecclesiastes 9:13-15 ). Therefore, concludes the Preacher, wisdom, great gift though it is, and better, as in this instance, than "an army to a beleaguered city," { Ecclesiastes 7:19 } is not of itself sufficient to secure success. A poor man’s wisdom-as many an inventor has found-is despised even by those who profit by it. Although his counsel, in the day of extremity, is infinitely more valuable than the loud bluster of fools, or of a ruler among fools, nevertheless the ruler, because he is foolish, may be affronted to find one of the poorest men in the place wiser than himself; he may easily cast his "merit in the eye of scorn," and so rob him both of the honour and the reward of his achievement ( Ecclesiastes 9:16-17 )-an ancient saw not without modern instances. For the fool is a great power in the world, especially the fool who is wise in his own conceit. Insignificant in himself, he may nevertheless do great harm and "destroy much good." Just as a tiny fly, when it is dead, may make the sweetest ointment offensive by infusing its own evil savour, so a man, when his wit is gone, may with his little folly cause many sensible men to distrust the wisdom they should honour: { Ecclesiastes 10:1 }-who has not met such a hot-headed want-wit in, for example, the lobbies of the House of Commons? To a wise man, such as Coheleth, the fool, the presumptuous conceited fool, is "rank and smells to heaven," infecting sweeter natures than his own with a most pestilent corruption. He paints us a picture of him-paints it with a keen graphic scorn which, if the eyes of the fool were in his head, { Ecclesiastes 2:14 } and "what he is pleased to call his mind" could for a moment shift from his left hand to his right ( Ecclesiastes 10:2 ), might make him nearly as contemptible to himself as he is to others. As we read Ecclesiastes 10:3 , the unhappy wretch stands before us. We see him coming out of his house; he goes dawdling down the street, forever wandering from the path, attracted by the merest trifle, staring at familiar objects with eyes that have no recognition in them. knowing neither himself nor others; and, with pointed finger, chuckles after every sober citizen he meets, "There goes a fool!" Yet a fool quite as foolish and malignant as this, quite as indecent even in outward behaviour, may be lifted to high place, and has ere now sat on an imperial throne. The Preacher had seen many of them suddenly raised to power, while nobles were degraded, and high functionaries of State reduced to an abject servitude. Now if the poor wise man have to attend the durbar, or sit in the divan, of a foolish capricious despot, how should he bear himself? The Preacher counsels meekness and submission. He is to sit unruffled even though the ruler should rate him, lest by resentment he should provoke some graver outrage ( Ecclesiastes 10:4-7 : compare Ecclesiastes 8:3 ). To strengthen him in his submission, the Preacher hints at cautions and consolations which, because free and open speech was very dangerous under the Persian despotism, he wraps up in obscure maxims capable of a double sense-nay, as the commentators have shown, capable of a good many more senses than two-to the true sense of which "a foolish ruler" was by no means likely to penetrate, even if they fell into his hands. The first of these maxims is, "He who diggeth a pit shall fall into it" ( Ecclesiastes 10:8 ). And the allusion is, of course, to an Eastern mode of trapping wild beasts and game. The huntsman dug a pit, covered it with twigs and sods, and strewed the surface with bait; but as he dug many such pits, and some of them were long without a tenant, he might at any inadvertent moment fall into one of them himself. The proverb is capable of at least two interpretations. It may mean that the foolish despot, plotting the ruin of his wise servant, might in his anger go too far; and, betraying his intention, provoke a retaliative anger before which he himself would fall. Or it may mean that, should the wise servant seek to undermine the throne of the despot, he might be taken in his treachery and bring on himself the whole weight of the tyrant’s wrath. The second maxim is "Whoso breaketh down a wall, a serpent shall bite him" ( Ecclesiastes 10:8 ); and here, of course, the allusion is to the fact that snakes infect the crannies of old walls. {compare Amos 5:19 } To set about dethroning a tyrant was like pulling down such a wall; you would break up the nest of many a reptile, many a venomous hanger-on, and might only get bit or stung for your pains. Or, again, in pulling out the stones of an old wall, you might let one of them fall on your foot; and in hacking out its timbers, you might cut yourself: that is to say, even if your conspiracy did not involve you in absolute ruin, it would be only too likely to do you serious and lasting injury ( Ecclesiastes 10:9 ). The next adage runs ( Ecclesiastes 10:10 ), "if the axe be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, he must put on more strength, but wisdom should teach him to sharpen it," and is, perhaps, the most difficult passage in the book. The Hebrew is read in a different way by almost every translator. As I read it, it means, in general, that it is not well to work with blunt tools when by a little labour and delay you may whet them to a keener edge. Read thus, the political rule implied in it is, "Do not attempt any great enterprise, any revolution or reform, till you have a well-considered scheme to go upon, and suitable instruments to carry it out with." But the special political import of it may be, "Your strength is nothing to that of the tyrant; do not therefore lift a blunt axe against the trunk of despotism: wait till you have put a sharp edge upon it." Or, the tyrant himself may be the blunt axe, and then the warning is, "Sharpen him up, repair him, use him and his caprices to serve your end; get your way by giving way to him, and by skilfully availing yourself of his varying moods." Which of these may be the true meaning of this obscure disputed passage, I do not undertake to say; but the latter of the two seems to be sustained by the adage which follows: "If the serpent bite because it is not charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer." For here, I think, there can be little doubt that the foolish angry ruler is the serpent, and the wise functionary the charmer who is to extract the venom of his anger. Let the foolish ruler be never so furious, the poor wise man. who is able "to cull the plots of best advantages," and to save a city, can surely devise a charm of soft submissive words which will turn away his wrath; just as the serpent charmer of the East, by song and incantation, is at least reputed to draw serpents from their lurk, that he may pluck the venom from their teeth ( Ecclesiastes 10:11 ). For, as we are told in the very next verse, "the words of the wise man’s mouth win him grace, while the lips of the fool destroy him." And on this hint, on this casual mention of his name, the Preacher-who all this while, remember, is personating the sagacious man of the world, bent on rising to wealth, power, distinction-once more "comes down" on the fool. He speaks of him with a burning heat and contempt, as men versed in public affairs are wont to do, since they best know how much harm a voluble, impudent, self-conceited fool may do, how much good he may prevent. Here, then, is the fool of public life. He is a man always prating and predicting, although his words, only foolish at the first, swell and fret into a malignant madness before he has done, and although he of all men is least able to give good counsel, to seize occasions as they rise, or to foresee what is about to come to pass. Puffed up by the conceit of wisdom or of his own importance, he is forever intermeddling with great affairs, though he has no notion how to handle them, and is incapable of even finding his way along the beaten road which leads to the capital city, of taking and keeping the plain and obvious path which the exigencies of the time require; while ( Ecclesiastes 10:3 ) he is forward to cry, "There goes a fool," of every man who is wiser than himself ( Ecclesiastes 10:12-15 ). If he would only hold his tongue, he might pass muster; beguiled by his gravity and silence, men might give him credit for sagacity, and fit his foolish deeds with profound motives; but he will speak, and his words betray and "swallow him up." Of course we have no such fools, "full of words," to rise in their high place and wag their tongues to their own hurt-they are peculiar to antiquity or to the East. But then there were so many of them, and their influence in the state was so disastrous that, as the Preacher thinks of them, he breaks into an almost dithyrambic fervour, and cries, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes feast in the morning! Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is noble, and thy princes eat at due hours, for strength and not for revelry!" Through the sloth and riot of these foolish rulers, the whole fabric of the state was fast fading into decay-the roof rotting and the rain leaking in. To support their inopportune and profligate revelry, they imposed crushing taxes on the people, which inspired in some a revolutionary discontent, and in some the apathy of despair. The wise exile foresaw that the end of a despotism so unjust and luxurious could not be far off; that when the storm rose and the wind blew, the ancient house, unrepaired in its decay, would topple on the heads of those who sat in its halls, revelling in a wicked mirth ( Ecclesiastes 10:16-19 ). Meantime, the sagacious servant of the state, perchance too of foreign extraction, unable to arrest the progress of decay, or not caring how soon it was consummated, would make his "market of the time"; he would carry himself warily: and, because the whole land was infested with the spies bred by despotism, he would give them no hold on him, nor so much as speak the simple truth of his foolish debauched rulers in the privacy of his own bed chamber, or mutter his thoughts on the roof, lest some "bird of the air should carry the report" ( Ecclesiastes 10:20 ). But if this were the condition of the time, if to rise in public life involved so many mean crafts and submissions, so many deadly imminent risks from spies and from fools clad in a little brief authority, how could any man hope to find the Chief Good in it? Wisdom did not always win promotion; virtue was inimical to success. The anger of an incapable idiot, or the whisper of an envious rival, or the caprice of a merciless despot, might at any moment undo the work of years, and expose the most upright and sagacious of men to the worst extremities of misfortune. There was no tranquillity, no freedom, no security, no dignity in such a life as this. Till this were resigned and some nobler, loftier aim found, there was no chance of reaching that great satisfying Good which lifts man above all accidents, and fixes him in a happy security from which no blow of circumstance can dislodge him. Ecclesiastes 10:9 Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby. Combined with a steadfast Faith in the Life to come. Ecclesiastes 10:9 - Ecclesiastes 12:7 But, soft; is not our man of men becoming a mere man of pleasure? No; for he recognises the claims of duty and of charity. These keep his pleasures sweet and wholesome, prevent them from usurping the whole man, and landing him in the satiety and weariness of dissipation. But lest even these safeguards should prove insufficient, he has also this: he knows that "God will bring him into judgment"; that all his works, whether of charity or duty or recreation, will be weighed in the pure and even balance of Divine Justice ( Ecclesiastes 11:9 ). This is the secret of the pure heart-the heart that is kept pure amid all labours and cares and joys. But the intention of the Preacher in thus adverting to the Divine Judgment has been gravely misconstrued, wrested even to its very opposite. We too much forget what that judgment must have seemed to the enslaved Jews; -how weighty a consolation, how bright a hope! They were captive exiles, oppressed by profligate despotic lords. Cleaving to the Divine Law with a passionate loyalty such as they had never felt in happier days, they were nevertheless exposed to the most dire and constant misfortunes. All the blessings which the Law pronounced on the obedient seemed withheld from them, all its promises of good and peace to be falsified; the wicked triumphed over them, and prospered in their wickedness. Now to a people whose convictions and hopes had suffered this miserable defeat, what truth would be more welcome than that of a life to come, in which all wrongs should be both righted and avenged, and all the promises in which they had hoped should receive a large fulfilment that would beggar hope? what prospect could be more cheerful and consolatory than that of a day of retribution on which their oppressors would be put to shame, and they would be recompensed for their fidelity to the law of God? This hope would be sweeter to them than any pleasure; it would lend a new zest to every pleasure, and make them more zealous in good works. Nay, we know, from the Psalms composed during the Captivity, that the judgment of God was an incentive to hope and joy; that, instead of fearing it, the pious Jews looked forward to. it with rapture and exultation. What, for example, can be more riant and joyful than the concluding strophe of Psalm 96:1-13 ? Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad: Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: Let the field exult and all that therein is: And let all the trees of the wood sing for joy Before Jehovah: for He cometh, For He cometh to judge the earth, To judge the world with righteousness And the peoples with his truth: or than the third strophe of Psalm 98:1-9 ? Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: The world, and they that dwell therein: Let the floods clap their hands, And let the hills sing for joy together Before Jehovah: for he cometh to judge the earth: With righteousness shall he judge the world, And the peoples with equity. It is impossible to read these verses, and such verses as these, without feeling that the Jews of the captivity anticipated the divine judgment, not with fear and dread, but with a hope and joy so deep and keen as that they summoned the whole round of nature to share it and reflect it. If we remembered this, we should not so readily agree with the Preachers and Commentators who assume Coheleth to be speaking ironically in this verse, and as though he would defy his readers to enjoy their pleasures with the thought of God and his judgment of them in their minds. We should rather understand that he was making life more cheerful to them; that he was removing the blight of despair which had fallen on it; that he was kindling in their dreary prospect a light which would shine even into their darkened present with gracious and healing rays. All wrongs would be easier to bear, all duties would be faced with better heart, all alleviating pleasures would grow more welcome, if once they were fully persuaded that there was a life beyond death, a life in which the good would be "comforted" and the evil "tormented." It is on the express ground that there is a judgment that the Preacher, in the last verse of this chapter, bids them banish "care" and "sadness," or, as the words perhaps mean, "moroseness" and "trouble"; though he also adds another reason which no longer afflicts him much, viz. , that "youth and manhood are vanity," soon gone, never to be recalled, and never enjoyed if the brief occasion is suffered to pass. Mark how quickly the force of this great hope has reversed his position. Only in Ecclesiastes 11:8 , the very instant before he discloses his hope, he urges men to enjoy the present "because all that is coming is vanity," because there were so many dark days, days of infirm querulous age and silent dreary death before them. But here, in Ecclesiastes 11:10 , the very moment he has disclosed his hope, he urges them to enjoy the present, not because the future is vanity, but because the present is vanity, because youth and manhood soon pass and the pleasures proper to them will be out of reach. Why should they any longer be fretted with care and anxiety when the lamp of revelation shone so brightly on the future? Why should they not be cheerful when so happy a prospect lay before them? Why should they sit brooding over their wrongs when their wrongs were so soon to be righted, and they were to enter on so ample a recompense of reward? Why should they not travel toward a future so welcome and inviting with hearts attuned to mirth and responsive to every touch of pleasure? But is the thought of judgment to be no check on our pleasures? Well, it is certainly used here as an incentive to pleasure, to cheerfulness. We are to be happy because we are to stand at the bar of God, because in the judgment He will adjust and compensate all the wrongs and afflictions of time. But it is not every one who can take to himself the full comfort of this argument. Only he can do that who makes it his ruling aim to do his duty and help his neighbour. And no doubt even he will find the hope of judgment-for with him it is a hope rather than a fear-a valuable check, not on his pleasures, but on those base counterfeits which often pass for pleasures, and which betray men, through voluptuousness, into satiety, disgust, remorse. Because he hopes to meet God, and has to give account of himself to God, he will resist the evil lusts which pollute and degrade the soul: and thus the prospect of Judgment will become a safeguard and a defence. But he has a safeguard of even a more sovereign potency than this. For he not only looks forward to a future judgment, he is conscious of a present and constant judgment. God is with him wherever he goes. From "the days of his youth he has remembered his Creator". { Ecclesiastes 12:1 } He has remembered Him and given to the poor and needy. He has remembered Him, and doing all things as to Him, duty has grown light. He has remembered Him, and his pleasures have grown the sweeter because they were gifts from heaven, and because he has taken them, in a thankful spirit, for a temperate enjoyment. Of all safeguards to a life of virtue, this is the noblest and the best. We can afford, indeed, to part with none of them, for we are strangely weak, often where we least suspect it, and need all the helps we can get: but least of all can we afford to part with this. We need to remember that every sin is punished here and now, inwardly if not outwardly, and that these inward punishments are the most severe. We need to remember that we must all appear before the judgment seat of God. to render an account of the deeds done in the body. But above all-if love, and not fear, is to be the animating motive of our life-we need to remember that God is always with us, observing what we do; and that, not that He may spy upon us and accumulate heavy charges against us, but that He may help us to do well; not to frown upon our pleasures, but to hallow, deepen, and prolong them, and to be Himself our Chief Good and our Supreme Delight. "‘Live while you live,’ the Epicure would say, ‘And seize the pleasure of the present day.’ ‘Live while you live,’ the Sacred Preacher cries, ‘And give to God each moment as it flies.’ Lord, in nay view let both united be: I live in pleasure while l live in Thee." Finally, the Preacher enforces this early and habitual reference of the soul to the Divine Presence and Will by a brief allusion to the impotence and weariness of a godless old age, and by a very striking description of the terrors of the death in which it culminates. While "the dew of youth" is still fresh upon us we are to "remember our Creator" and his constant judgment of us lest, forgetting Him, we should waste our powers in sensual excess; lest temperate mirth should degenerate into an extravagant and wanton devotion to pleasure; lest the lust of mere physical enjoyment should outlive the power to enjoy, and, groaning under the penalties our unbridled indulgence has provoked, we should find "days of evil" rise on us in long succession, and draw out into "years" of fruitless desire, self-disgust, and despair ( Ecclesiastes 12:1 ). "Before the evil days come," and that they may not come; before "the years arrive of which we shall say, I have no pleasure in them," and that they may not arrive, we are to bethink us of the Pure and Awful Presence in which we daily stand. God is with us that we may not sin; with us in youth, that "the angel of his Presence" may save us from the sins to which youth is prone; with us, to save us from "the noted slips of youth and liberty," that our closing years may have the cheerful serenity of a happy old age. To this admonition drawn from the miseries of godless age, the Preacher appends a description of the terrors of approaching death ( Ecclesiastes 12:2-5 ), -description which has suffered many strange torments at the hands of critics and commentators. It has commonly been read as an allegorical, but singularly accurate, diagnosis of "the disease men call death," as setting forth in graphic figures the gradual decay of sense after sense, faculty after faculty. Learned physicians have written treatises upon it, and have been lost in admiration of the force and beauty of the metaphors in which it conveys the results of their special science, although they differ in their interpretation of almost every sentence, and are driven at times to the most gross and absurd conjectures in order to sustain their several theories. I need not give any detailed account of these speculations, for the simple reason that they are based, as I believe, on an entire misconception of the Sacred Text. Instead of being, as has been assumed, a figurative description of the dissolution of the body, it sets forth the threatening approach of death under the image of a tempest which, gathering over an Eastern city during the day, breaks upon it toward evening: so, at least, I, with many more, take it. And I do not know how we can better arrive at it than by considering what would be the incidents which would strike us if we were to stroll through the narrow tortuous streets of such a city as the day was closing in. As we passed along we should find small rows of houses and shops, broken here and there by a wide stretch of blank wall, behind which were the mansions, harems, courtyards of its wealthier inhabitants. Round and within the low marrow gates which gave access to these mansions, we should see armed men lounging whose duty it is to guard the premises against robbers and intruders; these are "the keepers of the house," over whom, as over the whole household, are placed superior officials-members of the family often-or "men of power." Going through the gates and glancing up at the latticed windows, we might catch glimpses of the veiled faces of the ladies of the house who, not being permitted to stir abroad except on rare occasions and under jealous guardianship, are accustomed to amuse their dreary leisure, and to learn a little of what is going on around them, by "looking out of the windows." Within the house, the gentlemen of the family would be enjoying the chief meal of the day, provoking appetite with delicacies such as "the locust," or condiments such as "the caperberry," or with choice fruit such as "the almond." Above all the shrill cries and noises of the city you would hear a loud humming sound rising on every side, for which you would be sorely puzzled to account if you were a stranger to Eastern habits. It is the sound of the cornmills which, towards evening, are at work in every house. A cornmill was indispensable to every Eastern family, since there were no public mills or bakers except the King’s. The heat of the climate makes it necessary that corn should be ground and baked every day. And as the task of grinding at the mill was very irksome, only the most menial class of women, often slaves or captives, were employed upon it. Of course the noise caused by the revolution of the upper upon the nether millstone was very great when the mills were simultaneously at work in, every house in the city. No sound is more familiar in the East; and, if it were suddenly stopped, the effect would be as striking as the sudden stoppage of all the wheels of traffic in an English town. So familiar was the sound, indeed, and of such good omen, that in Holy Writ it is used as a symbol of a happy, active, well-provided people; while the cessation of it is employed to denote want, and desolation, and despair. To an Oriental ear no threat would be more doleful and pathetic than that in Jeremiah 25:10 , "I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle." Now suppose the day on which we rambled through the city had been boisterous and lowering; that heavy rain had fallen, obscuring all the lights of heaven; and that, as the evening drew on, the thick clouds, instead of dispersing, had "returned after the rain," so that setting sun and rising moon, and the growing light of stars, were all blotted from view. { Ecclesiastes 12:2 } The tempest, long in gathering, breaks on the city; the lightnings flash through the darkness, making it more hideous; the thunder crashes and rolls above the roofs; the tearing rain beats at all lattices and floods all roads. If we cared to abide the pelting of the storm, we should have before us the very scene which the Preacher depicts. "The keepers of the house," the guards and porters would quake. "The men of power," the lords or owners of the house, or the officials who most closely attended on them, would crouch and tremble with apprehension. The maids at the mill would "stop" because one or other of the two women-two at least-whom it took to work the heavy millstone had been frightened from her task by the gleaming lightning and the pealing thunder. The ladies, looking out of their lattices, would be driven back into the darkest corners of the inner rooms of the harem. Every door would be closed and barred lest robbers, availing themselves of the darkness and its terrors, should creep in. { Ecclesiastes 12:3 } "The noise of the mills" would grow faint or utterly cease, because the threatening tumult had terrified many, if not all, the grinding maids from their work. The strong-winged "swallow," lover of wind and tempest, would flit to and fro with shrieks of joy; while the delicate "songbirds" would drop, silent and alarmed, into their nests. The gentlemen of the house would soon loose all gust for their delicate cates and fruits; "the almond" would be pushed aside, "the locust loathed," and even the stimulating "caperberry provoke no appetite," fear being a singularly unwelcome and disappetising guest at a feast. In short, the whole people, stunned and confused by the awful and stupendous majesty of a tropical storm, would be affrighted at the terrors which come flaming; from "the height" of heaven, to confront them on every highway ( Ecclesiastes 12:4-5 ). Such and so terrible is the tempest that at times sweeps over an Eastern city. Such and so terrible, adds the Preacher, is death to the godless and sensual. They are carried away as by a storm; the wind riseth and snatcheth them out of their place. For if we ask, "Why, O Preacher, has your pencil laboured to depict the terrors of a tempest?" he replies, "Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners pace up and down the street" ( Ecclesiastes 12:5 ). He leaves us in no doubt as to the moral of the fable, the theme and motive of his picture. While painting it, while adding touch to touch, he has been thinking of "the long home"-or, as the Hebrew has it, "the house of eternity"; a phrase still used by the Jews as a synonym for "the grave"-which is appointed for all living, and of the mercenary professional mourners who loiter under the windows of the dying man in the hope that they may be hired to lament him. To the expiring sinner death is simply dreadful. It puts an end to all his activities and enjoyments, just as the tempest brings all the labours and recreations of a city to a pause. He has nothing before him but the grave, and none to mourn him but the harpies who already pace the street, longing for the moment when he will be gone, and who value their fee far above his life. If we would have death shorn of its terrors for us, we must "remember our Creator" before death comes; we must seek by charity, by a faithful discharge of duty, by a wise use and a wise enjoyment of the life that now is, to prepare ourselves for the life which is to come. Death itself, as Coheleth proceeds to remind us ( Ecclesiastes 12:6 ), cannot be escaped. Some day the cord will break and the lamp fall; some day the jar or pitcher must be broken, and the wheel, shattered, fall into the well. Death is the common event. It befalls not only the sinful and injurious, but als