Surely, the serpent will bite without enchantment— If the serpent biteth because he is not enchanted, then nothing remaineth to the master of enchantments. The two proverbial similes made use of in this and the preceding verse, to shew the inconveniencies arising from an ill-judged choice of those who are intrusted with the administration of public affairs, are very fit for the purpose: but the manner in which Solomon passes from the last to the main subject, for the sake of which they had been alleged, looks very abrupt in all the versions. I think it is quite otherwise in the original, and have endeavoured so to express it; by which means we have a perfect connection between the two members of the sentence. If the serpent biteth because [either through the neglect, or through the unskilfulness, of him whose business it is to prevent it] he is not enchanted, then there is no occasion for a master of enchantments; or there remaineth nothing for him to do. The simile by this construction becomes applicable, with the greatest imaginable propriety, to the subject which Solomon had in hand; and I cannot help conjecturing from this propriety, that it was a proverbial sentence, commonly used in political matters, to signify that it was needless to appoint ministers to negociate with a subtle enemy, represented by the serpent, except they were such as to be able to gain their point with him. I must add, that the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic interpreters, who had a more exact knowledge of the customs of those times than we can pretend to, seem to have understood this place as we do, and several modern interpreters of note are of the same opinion. Now I conceive that the transition from this simile to the abilities of a wise or experienced man in the next verse, lies in the affinity of signification between the words which he had made use of to signify the charmer's office, and those which he employs to describe the eloquence of the wise. The word לחשׁ lachash, enchantment, has a double signification; and takes in both the charms of magic, and the charms of eloquence: see Isaiah 3:3. So that, instead of saying, The words of a wise man's mouth are חן chein, grace, he might as well have said that they are לחשׁ lachash, without any alteration in the sense. The expression, master of the tongue, as it is read in the margin of our Bibles, is likewise applicable to a man who knows how to manage his words as occasion requires, and thereby to make himself acceptable to every body. Thus, from a master of the tongue by office, who was not really master of what belonged to his employment, (viz. לחשׁ lachash,) to one who really had that accomplishment, or rather an accomplishment of the same denomination, the transition was easy and natural. I do not know but that the allusion to the enchanter, in opposition to the wise man, is still carried on in what Solomon says of the fool, a man without experience, in opposition to the same, Ecclesiastes 10:12. The lips of a fool will swallow up himself; at least the fool here spoken of is very like the charmer mentioned by the son of Sirach, Sir 12:13 whom nobody pities when he is bit by the very serpent that he should have enchanted. Desvoeux.
Related Commentaries of Ecclesiastes 10:11
Ecclesiastes 10:11
11 Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babblerd is no better.