Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes.
Delight is not seemly for a fool. A life of luxurious delights sometimes makes wise men into fools; but it makes fools into madmen, to their own destruction. Recreation and pleasure are seemly for a wise man, as a temporary relaxation; but a "rod" of correction is what is most seemly for a fool (Proverbs 10:13; Proverbs 26:3). "Delight" would be prejudicial alike to the sinful fool himself, and to others who might be tempted by his seeming enjoyment to follow his bad ways.
Much less for a servant (for one who is essentially a mean slave in character) to have rule over princes
- over those who in nobility of mind, experience, and sagacity are essentially princes, though depressed by the accidents of fortune. "A servant" answers to "a fool" in the first clause. He who is a slave of his own passions is ill-fitted "to have rule over" those who, as using not "fools," but wise, are better fitted to be "princes" over, than subject to him (cf. Lamentations 5:8).