Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
Raising stones and cleaving wood
The precise meaning of the maxim is not quite clear. Some think the stone is part of a cairn that marks a neighbour’s property, which a man tries to move. The tree, likewise, belongs to a neighbour; and the teaching is, that one who commits acts of aggression upon the property of others will receive his punishment out of the acts themselves. Others find a political reference. The reformer tries to move stones, to remove ancient grievances, or to cut down trees, the upas-trees of hoary abuses, and finds that ancient and deep-seated evils have a deadly power of striking at those who dare to meddle with them. Or, again--and this, the simplest explanation, is to me at least as likely as any other--the cynical author who has found vanity of vanities in every successive sphere of human life observes in these homely words that ordinary honest labour must pay its due of misfortune in this sad world: a man cannot quarry stones to build his house, or cut logs to make up his fire, without risking the misfortune which a cruel fate seems to bring alike on the evil and the good. This interpretation fits in well with the Preacher’s view of life. Christ came to teach that in His right hand were pleasures for evermore. He came to join in every kind of innocent enjoyment, to teach men that the Father in heaven rejoiced in His children’s joy. He lifted stones and cleft wood in the builder’s workshop at Nazareth for more than twenty years out of His short life, to show that honest toil brought something else besides danger--that the stone could become a Bethel, and the wood an altar which raiseth the consecrated soul. (J. H. Moulton, D. D.)