CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 10:1. Dead flies.] Lit., “Flies of death;” because, as such, they corrupt the ointment. The apothecary.] A dealer in spices. Thus it is not the common kind, but a costly, fragrant unguent that is here intended. A little folly.] Little in proportion to the entire mass of wisdom whose properties and influence it injures.
Ecclesiastes 10:2. A wise man’s heart is at his right hand.] By the heart we are to understand the inclinations, for these influence the understanding and the judgment. The wise man’s heart is in its right place. His feelings are on the side of wisdom and truth; and therefore his whole nature. But a fool’s heart at his left.] His inclinations are averse from wisdom and truth. He has sinister aims and purposes.
Ecclesiastes 10:4. The spirit of the ruler rise up against thee.] A ruler capable of committing great offences against thee, when his spirit is stirred up in anger.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 10:1-4
THE EXCELLENCIES OF WISDOM
I. As seen in the Contrasted Qualities of the Wise Man and the Fool. The intrinsic excellencies of wisdom are clearly manifest to all who have true spiritual insight, and that sympathy which is the best interpreter of its object. But there are some broad general features of wisdom which strike conviction of their excellence into the mind of every beholder. They are seen to great advantage when we contrast the action of wisdom and folly in regard to the roots or fruits of moral conduct.
1. As to motive and aim. The fool’s motive or aim is always sinister. He has no straightforward designs and purposes, but deals in what is sly and left-handed. (Ecclesiastes 10:2.) The very centre of motion is—as it were—shifted from its true place, and the result is nothing but the utmost moral confusion and disorder. But the motives and aims of the wise man, on the other hand, are pure and right. His heart—the principal fount and spring of action—is in the right place. Hence his character is marked by simplicity, and free from guile.
2. As to self-knowledge. The fool is under a complete delusion in regard to himself. He grows exalted in the imagination that he is wise. No revelation of his true self has been vouchsafed to his mind, and in the conceit of ignorance he is both happy and hold. When a fool at length knows that he is such, he has attained to the beginning of wisdom. He has already entered into the outer courts of her temple, and may yet know her mysteries and see her glory. But while this self-knowledge is hidden from him, the worst consequences of ignorance must follow. On the slightest occasions of life, in the common ways of duty and intercourse, his want of wisdom is manifest. He may be even said to proclaim himself a fool. (Ecclesiastes 10:3.) He has not even the sense to leave his true character to be discovered by slow inference, or to be concealed by silence and caution; he must needs precipitate the conclusion. Contrast this with the character of the wise man who learns to know himself, and does not bring discredit upon his wisdom by failing to show it when the occasion demands. Such a man will use that discretion, which, if it does not altogether hide his faults, will preserve them from being prominent.
3. As to self-government. Men are often placed in circumstances of great provocation where it is difficult to calm the anger that rises in the breast. The case is here supposed where a wise man is confronted with the insolence and tyranny of authority. (Ecclesiastes 10:4.) A conflict arises within him between the high sense of justice and the proper reverence due to that authority, as such. But prudence guides the wise man; he has learned to govern his passions, and by a calm demeanour tames the fury which threatened him. But the fool lacks discretion in such trying situations. He is stubborn and unyielding; and for want of self-government, his passion breaks forth to his own injury. He has not the wisdom to wait and be calm, nor the faith to believe in the triumph of the meek.
II. As seen in the Exquisite Delicacy of the Wise Man’s Character. (Ecclesiastes 10:1.) The character of the wise man is here compared to ointment; not of the common sort, but of the perfumer—one which is prepared with rare and costly ingredients. Such a compound may be spoiled and rendered valueless by so small a thing as the decaying remains of flies. Such is the delicacy and rare preciousness of the wise man’s character that the beauty and value of it may be impaired by a few faults. Coarse and common things are not easily injured. The chiefest dangers threaten that which is most skilfully and delicately contrived. The risks of such moral disasters arise from the very excellence of the wise man’s character.
1. In such, small blemishes are more conspicuous. Small blemishes in the character of the fool, standing as they do in the thick multitude of graver faults, easily escape notice. But in the character of the wise man, these are soon detected, as a black spot upon white ground. Men have a keen eye for the occasional weaknesses and indiscretions of human virtue.
2. In such, small blemishes are more ruinous. The wise man has an influence for good, and that influence is sensibly abated by even the appearance of shortcomings and moral deformities. He that is in reputation for wisdom and honour may, by retaining but a few faults, greatly fail to benefit mankind to that extent which is warranted by his strong virtues. The fragrance of a good man’s life may be injured, yea, almost changed into a baneful influence, by the admixture of but a few faults and follies.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 10:1. Those vibrations and disturbances which would not interfere with the proper action of some rude machinery would, in the instruments of the astronomer, be a source of disadvantage and error. The spirit of the wise man is trained to the finest issues, and may be injuriously affected by an apparently small cause.
The imperfection of human nature is such that even the wisdom of the wisest is seldom found unmixed with baser matter.
The wise are a standing rebuke to others, therefore men are prone to exaggerate their faults.
A certain grace and attractiveness of behaviour is necessary to give full effect and influence to the finest assemblage of virtues. In addition to the greatest excellencies, we must have “whatsoever things are lovely.”
A man’s character is the expression of his true self; in fact, the express image of the invisible things in him. His reputation depends upon the manner in which he is imaged and represented to the eye of society. Hence while the real character of the wise man may not be seriously affected, his reputation may suffer loss.
The principle is especially applicable to a Christian profession; and the best use we can make of it is to exemplify it in some of those flaws and failings which destroy the attraction and impressiveness of men truly devout and God-fearing. Our instances must be taken almost at random; for, like their Egyptian prototypes, these flies are too many to be counted.
1. Rudeness.
2. Irritability.
3. Selfishness. The subject is uninviting, and time would fail did we speak of the parsimony, the indolence, the egotism, the want of intelligence, the want of taste, by which many excellent characters are marred, and by which the glory of the Gospel is often compromised [Dr. J. Hamilton].
Ecclesiastes 10:2. Right desires and inclinations are as necessary to the character of the wise man as nobility and strength of mind. They place him in the position of the best advantage for all good and true work.
Fools have no dexterity in duty. They can, at best, but awkwardly imitate the virtues of the wise.
1. A wise man minds his own proper business; whereas the fool neglects what belongs to himself, and is exceedingly officious, intermeddling, and full of sagacious counsel, in every one’s concerns but his own. Any wisdom he has is “at his left hand,” it is applied in the wrong place.
2. The understanding of the wise man is at all times ready for his immediate direction—“at his right hand.” So that, being steadily applied to its proper business, it is prepared to meet times of emergency. The fool, on the contrary, is ever uncertain, ever at a loss, all hesitation and perplexity. His wisdom is always to seek.
3. That which the wise man does, his wisdom enables him to do well—with skill and dexterity. The fool, when he does anything at all, does it with his left hand; not only applying any little fragments of wisdom he may possess in a wrong direction, but bungling, blundering, and failing, even in that which he attempts [Wardlaw].
Ecclesiastes 10:3. A fool is mischievous without art, as he is a hypocrite without deceiving. A man must have some understanding to conceal the want of it.
The fool does not need, as the Pharisees did, to sound a trumpet before him. He is his own herald.
That quality of fools by which they quickly reveal themselves, even in the most ordinary intercourse of life, may be reckoned as one of the wise compensations of Providence; for thus wicked men are often prevented from doing the utmost mischief.
Not that he intends to convey this impression, but that, in point of fact, he does convey it. So long, indeed, as he “holdeth his peace,” even “a fool may be counted wise” (Proverbs 17:28). But he has only to open his lips in order to let out the secret, and to show what he really is. His ignorance, his petulance, his indiscretion, his self-complacency and presumption, let all who meet him know that he is a fool. He talks loudly and confidently on subjects regarding which wiser men hardly venture to give an opinion. The wise are like deep rivers, which flow quietly. The fool is like the shallow stream, which brawls and makes a noise [Buchanan].
The fool, having no true self-knowledge, is puffed up with conceit and vanity; therefore he fails rightly to interpret the effects of his own folly upon others. He is the last to detect the derision and contempt which he himself has excited.
Ecclesiastes 10:4. The wise man when oppressed by the powerful does not allow himself to be driven by passion into acts of rebellion. He stands firmly at the post of duty, and is content to wait till the indignation be overpast, and audience be given to the still small voice of reason and truth.
Where the obligation of duty is clear, we should not be moved from our steady purpose of obedience by the sudden outburst of unrighteous anger.
There are times when a wise man may abstain from insisting upon his own proper rights. In the conflict with human authority, swayed by fierce passions, he learns meekly to endure, knowing that what is right and true is more likely to have due recognition when those passions have subsided.
If we meet anger with anger, we wage a conflict in which nothing can be gained, and everything may be lost.
There is a wonderful power in the arts of conciliation. A soft answer turneth away wrath; and what is better still, when a man’s ways please God, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Esther and Mordecai succeeded in getting the persecuting edict of Ahasuerus recalled, by committing their way unto the Lord, and by waiting for the fitting moment to speak. And well it were, for the interests of peace and love, if, in less conspicuous spheres of life, the same prudent course were always followed. How often are lasting enmities and divisions caused simply for want of a little of that yielding, whose power to pacify even great offences Solomon so justly celebrates [Buchanan].