I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason [of things], and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness [and] madness:
Ver. 25. I applied mine heart.] Circuivi ego et cot meum, so the original runs; I and my heart turned about, or made a circle to know, &c. He took his heart with him, and resolved, hard or not hard, to make further search into wisdom's secrets. Difficulty doth but whet on heroic spirits: it doth no whit weaken but waken their resolutions to go through with the work. When Alexander met with any hard or hazardous piece of service, he would say, Iam periculum par anime Alexandri, He ever achieved what he enterprised, because he never accounted anything impossible to be achieved. David was well pleased with the condition of bringing in to Saul the foreskins of a hundred Philistines. If a bowl run downhill, a rub in the way does but quicken it; as if up hill, it slows it. A man of Solomon's make, one that hath a free, noble, princely spirit, speaks to wisdom, as Laelius in Lucan did to Caesar,
“ Iussa sequi tam velle mihi, quam posse, necesse. ”
And to know the wickedness of folly.] The "sinfulness of sin." Rom 7:13 Sin is so evil that it cannot have a worse epithet given it. "Mammon of unrighteousness," Luk 16:11 is the next odious name to the devil.
Even the foolishness of madness.] That by one contrary he might the better know the other. Folly may serve as a foil to set off wisdom; as gardeners suffer some stinking stuff to grow near their sweetest flowers.