CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 10:11. A babbler is no better.] Lit., “The master of the tongue.” One who is of ready utterance, capable of producing great effects by the power of speech, yet lacking energy and promptness in action.
Ecclesiastes 10:12. Gracious.] His words have the power of winning favour. They have a calm and grateful influence. All his actions are suitable and well-timed, not like those of the unwary serpent-charmer.
Ecclesiastes 10:14. A fool also is full of words.] Not only given to endless talk, but even boldly announcing his plans and purposes, as if he could certainly reckon upon the future. The latter part of the verse condemns the folly of such presumption.
Ecclesiastes 10:15. Wearieth every one of them.] Though full of words, they are indolent, and soon grow weary in any useful toil. He knoweth not how to go to the city.] He cannot make sure that he shall carry out even so ordinary a purpose and action. Probably St. James (chap. Ecclesiastes 4:13) refers to this passage when censuring the boldness which presumes upon a future which no man can certainly know or command.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 10:11-15
THE VANITY OF SPEECH
Human wisdom has been shown to be, in some cases, unavailing, through the sudden advantage that may be gained by folly. So many are the instances of apparent failure that a reflecting mind, in certain sad moods of thought, may be tempted to imagine that this landed possession is but another of the many vanities of human life. In particular, speech itself, which professes to manifest the inmost glory of wisdom, may be regarded as, after all, but a splendid vanity.
I. The Essential Value of Speech must be Admitted. There are many instances in which the wisest speech seems to fail. This faculty, however, must be regarded as, in itself, a good gift.
1. Speech rightly employed wins favour. (Ecclesiastes 10:12.) By the graciousness of speech, a wise man wins his way to favour, and conquers the minds and hearts of others. The gift of graceful speech is a splendid talent, though it may be degraded to serve the worst purposes. Hence the tongue is called “an ornament of iniquity.” (James 3:6.) It is capable of presenting error with seductive charms, and making the worst appear the better reason. Still, the gift of speech may be employed to enhance the attractions of wisdom, and graciously subdue men’s hearts to the love of her.
2. Speech rightly employed is powerful. (Ecclesiastes 10:11.) The enchanter has the power of controlling the serpent so that it forgets to sting. While the strange spell lasts, the venomous reptile is rendered harmless. The tongue, in like manner, can perform the office of a magician, and so persuade and charm men as to calm their most boisterous passions and render them harmless and obedient to the charmer’s will. In some critical juncture, the speech of a wise man may bring relief to a nation’s perplexity, and save it from ruin. The uttered word of man has proved mightier than the sword. It is the most powerful and lasting of all influences. Good and wise words are seeds, most tenacious of vitality, reproducing themselves from age to age in noble and heroic deeds. Speech, inasmuch as it is the vehicle of mind, must have the chief place among the instruments which man uses for carrying on his work in the world. But in some of those sad moods of reflection, into which the mind will sometimes fall, there is much to tempt a man to account even this brilliant gift a vanity.
II. Even in the Hands of the Wise, this Gift requires the Greatest Dexterity. On the supposition that wise men were always wise, we might well suppose that their speech would, at all times, be seasonable and full of grace. But the actual state, even of the best, falls below this ideal. The wisest and the meekest man on earth is in danger of speaking unadvisedly with his lips. The most devoted saint must take heed that he sin not with his tongue. Hence he who can so control his speech as not to offend at all has well nigh reached perfection. In order to manage the gift of speech rightly, it is necessary that we have something more than an ample store of wisdom’s gatherings and the faculty of graceful utterance.
1. There must be vigilance. The wisest man may fail through want of vigilance in certain crises of danger, and thus bring himself under the charge and the penalties of folly. The charmer possesses the art of rendering the serpent harmless, but if he stumbles upon it unawares, he shall be bitten like an ordinary man. So if the wise man is unwatchful, or does not speak at the right time; if he misses his opportunity or is wanting in discretion, notwithstanding his ability to represent the wealth of thought and feeling in words of power, he too must smart, as the veriest fool, under the grief and penalties of failure. There are certain junctures in human affairs which may nonplus unwatchful Wisdom
2. There must be prompt action. The richest gifts of wisdom must be accompanied by practical ability; or they may fail of success. A wise man may lack the power of grappling with emergencies, and may become so stunned by some sudden perplexity as to be totally unfit for the proper action of the time. There are so many sudden and unexpected changes in the course of human affairs, that unless the wise man, though gifted with the most persuasive speech, has the ability promptly to adapt himself to the occasion, he may be vanquished as though he were not wise.
III. This Gift is often the Instrument and Revealer of Folly. (Ecclesiastes 10:13-15.) The mind and heart—the nature of the man within—may be regarded as the fountain of speech. As that fountain is sweet or bitter, troubled or clear, live-giving or pestilential, so are the streams which flow from it. Speech is the instrument by which the mind conveys and distributes its wisdom or folly. Hence the fool soon reveals himself; for when he ventures to speak, his folly is sure of instant recognition. Some of the characteristics of the speech of such are noted here.
1. It shows no tendency towards improvement. (Ecclesiastes 10:13.) The speech of the fool does not follow the method of creation, where confusion and disorder improved into harmony and beauty. It shows no tendency to assume a higher state, no power to work itself clear. The disorder which marked his first utterance becomes more observable as he proceeds, so that by the time he has made an end of speaking he has outraged reason itself. He grows loquacious. There is scarcely any pause in his insipid and tiresome twaddle. (Ecclesiastes 10:14.) He does but win fresh titles of folly every time he speaks, and his last utterance is the most extravagant of all.
2. The effects of it are destructive. Foolish speech, though incapable of deceiving those who have discernment, is likely to affect others injuriously, and to grow into a source of mischief. (Ecclesiastes 10:13.) It is a stream which, gathering foulness as it proceeds, poisons the air. There is a kind of moral contagion in the words of a fool; and considering how many minds are predisposed to it, the mischief is immense. But the fool’s speech is more especially destructive to himself. (Ecclesiastes 10:12.) He may be said to commit moral suicide—himself the gulf which swallows up his reputation.
3. It is concerned with subjects in which a discreet silence should be observed. (Ecclesiastes 10:14-15.) The fool is apt to talk confidently about the future, as if he could command it and make it sure. He rushes boldly into matters concerning which he knows least. This has a most injurious effect upon himself. It consumes his energies in useless toil. (Ecclesiastes 10:15.) Such a confident way of dealing with future things shows an unwarrantable presumption. No man can know those things which are hidden in the dark recesses of futurity, where they lie open to the eye of God alone. To speak of the future as if we could command it, and know what lies hid in it, is manifest presumption. Even the most common facts and events of the future are so concealed from man that he cannot, in the conduct of his affairs, reckon upon them. He may purpose such an ordinary act as that of going to the city at such and such a time, but he cannot be sure that he shall accomplish this. (Ecclesiastes 10:15.) In the front of this awful fact of human ignorance, all daring presumption in speech and conduct must be contemptible and vain. It is an abuse of the divine gift of language when it is thus made the instrument of arrogance and folly, and the multitude of such abuses in the world may cause even a wise man, in some gloomy season of the soul, to reckon this boasted faculty with the sum total of human vanity.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 10:11. In the East, there have always been persons who, by means of music and legerdemain, exert great influence over some species of serpents, so that whilst under their spell the deadly cobra may be handled, as if he were utterly harmless. But if the charmer tread on the snake unawares, or be bitten when off his guard, he will be poisoned like another man. And to certain minds there has been given an ascendancy over other minds, like the influence of the serpent charmer. Sagacious and eloquent, they are able to soothe the fury of fierce tempers, and mould rancorous natures to their will. Like David’s transforming harp, as the strain advances, it looks as if a new possession had entered the exercised frame, and a seraph smiled out at those windows where a demon was frowning before. But alas for the harper, if Saul should snatch the javelin before David has time to touch the strings! Alas for the wise charmer, and also for the good cause, if the tyrant’s passion towers up, or the decree of the despot goes forth before a friendly counsellor has time to interfere [Dr. J. Hamilton].
“The master of the tongue”—the man of ready and wise speech—may fail in matters of ordinary life through want of the power of quickly adapting himself to the occasion. To ensure success in a world like this, where so many hidden dangers lie ready to spring upon us, we must have tact as well as talent.
While under the power of the eloquent tongue, fierce natures may be wielded at will; but when the charm is dissolved their virulence returns.
He who gives to his tongue an unrestrained license, and is guided in the use of it neither by principle nor by prudence, is a man that requires to be managed with peculiar caution. Contradiction and violence may only irritate, and make the venom of his tongue the more virulent and deadly. He must be charmed [Wardlaw].
Ecclesiastes 10:12. “The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious.”
1. They win the favour of the hearers. It is pleasant to listen to them—to be near the fountains of Wisdom
2. They minister good to the hearers. They convey those treasures of the mind and heart which are the impulse of all goodness in life, and the most enduring possession of man.
The words of wise men have a gentle, yet all-prevailing force. In morals, this is a pleasing constraint, a drawing of the affections. It corresponds to attraction in the physical universe.
The gracious words of Christ, who was incarnate wisdom, are still powerful in drawing the nations to Himself.
The fool is the sepulchre of his own reputation; for as long as he was silent, you were willing to give him credit for the usual share of intelligence, but no sooner does he blurt out some astounding blunder—no sooner does he begin to prattle forth his egotism and vanity, than your respect is exchanged for contempt or compassion [Dr. J. Hamilton].
As the Psalmist says when speaking of such men as he, “They make their own tongue to fall upon themselves” (Psalms 64:8). It was the folly of Herod that made him utter the rash promise, which stained his soul with the crime of murder. It was the folly of another Herod that prompted the profane and self-glorying oration, which drew down upon him the vengeance of the Almighty [Buchanan].
Ecclesiastes 10:13. The speech of the fool shows no tendency towards improvement as he proceeds. It is sure to degenerate into unmeaning rant, and to arouse passions which are hurtful to himself and to others.
There is a ridiculous disproportion between the passionate language of a fool and the insignificant causes which excite it.
There is as much difference between the chastised fervour of the wise man’s words, and the impudent rage of fools, as there is between the warmth and glow of health and the burning of a fever.
We have here the serpent, the babbler spoken of in Ecclesiastes 10:11, wreathed into a circle, his two ends, head and tail, meeting together. And as at the one end he is a serpent having his sting in his head, so at the other end he is a scorpion having his sting in his tail [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 10:14. A fool vainly imagines that mere words are knowledge and wisdom. Hence he easily lends himself to a flattering delusion to conceal the poverty of his mind.
Wisdom is content with few words. The most important truths have been condensed into the smallest compass. The precious things of the mind are thus rendered portable.
He is like the empty drum that sounds at the lightest touch. His self-conceit persuades him that he is competent to decide, off-hand, matters on which deeper, more thoughtful, more conscientious minds are slow to say anything at all. “A man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?” These are difficulties which wiser men feel and acknowledge.… The wise man waits for more light. The ease is not ripe for judgment—he can as yet neither approve nor disapprove; he can neither acquit nor condemn; and accordingly he refrains his lips. Not so the fool. He is the first, the longest, and the loudest in every discussion [Buchanan].
Fools are always most confident concerning the unknown and inscrutable.
That balanced condition of the mind, in which it is content to remain released from belief, is so uncommon that we have no word in our language to represent it. Every ignorant and foolish man has a stiff opinion upon those subjects in which his knowledge is least.
Ecclesiastes 10:15. Folly makes a man both a weariness to himself and to his neighbours. They grow impatient of his blunders and busy zeal of fruitless labour.
The fool is most confident in that wherein he ought to show the greatest modesty and reserve. He speaks of the accomplishment of his plans for the future with the same assurance as if he had read them distinctly in the Book of Fate.
The fool he has in view is a culpable fool—is one whose folly has much more of the moral than of the intellectual, in the defect which it indicates and implies. He is one whose heart is much further wrong than his head. The tongue of a mere imbecile cannot bite like a serpent.… In the highest and truest sense of the word, all wicked men are fools. There is a city—a mighty city—a glorious city—to which not one of them knows how to go; and that is the New Jerusalem, the city of the living God [Buchanan].
Fools (in the moral signification of the term), when they stand before some great conviction, waken up to the discovery that what they thought was knowledge was only words, resting upon no realities. They learn, like Job, the language of penitence and submission (Job 42:5-6).