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Ecclesiastes 10 |
King James Version
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Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: [so doth] a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom [and] honour.
“Dead flies spoil the whole pot of sweet ointment,” and “when a king hearkens to unrighteous counsel, all the servants under him are wicked.” So one scabbed sheep, if not separated from those that are whole, infects the rest with the same distemper; and a person infected with the plague is to be avoided by all; and a mad dog is dangerous to everyone that it touches. If, therefore, we neglect to separate the transgressor from the church of God, we shall make the “Lord’s house a den of thieves.” .
Flies falling into perfume, and drowning, make the appearance and use of that pleasant oil unseemly; so, too, it is improper to have both wisdom and foolishness together in one’s mind.
Moreover, flies falling into myrrh, and suffocated therein, make both the appearance of that pleasant ointment and the anointing therewith an unseemly thing; and to be mindful of wisdom and of folly together is in no way proper. The wise man, indeed, is his own leader to right actions; but the fool inclines to erring courses, and will never make his folly available as a guide to what is noble. Yea, his thoughts also are vain and full of folly. But if ever a hostile spirit fall upon you, my friend, withstand it courageously, knowing that God is able to propitiate even a mighty multitude of offenses. These also are the deeds of the prince and father of all wickedness: that the fool is set on high, while the man richly gifted with wisdom is humbled; and that the slaves of sin are seen riding on horseback, while men dedicated to God walk on foot in dishonour, the wicked exulting the while. But if any one devises another's hurt, he forgets that he is preparing a snare for himself first and alone. And he who wrecks another's safety, shall fall by the bite of a serpent. But he who removes stones, indeed shall undergo no light labour; and be who cleaves wood shall bear danger with him in his own weapon. And if it chance that the axe spring out of the handle, he who engages in such work shall be put to trouble, gathering for no good and having to put to more of his iniquitous and shortlived strength. The bite of a serpent, again, is stealthy; and the charmers will not soothe the pain, for they are vain. But the good man does good works for himself and for his neighbours alike; while the fool shall sink into destruction through his folly. And when he has once opened his mouth, he begins foolishly and soon comes to an end, exhibiting his senselessness in all. Moreover, it is impossible for man to know anything, or to learn from man either what has been from the beginning, or what shall be in the future. For who shall be the declarer thereof? Besides, the man who knows not to go to the good city, sustains evil in the eyes and in the whole countenance. And I prophesy woes to that city the king of which is a youth, and its rulers gluttons. But I call the good land blessed, the king of which is the son of the free: there those who are entrusted with the power of ruling shall reap what is good in due season. But the sluggard and the idler become scoffers, and make the house decay; and misusing all things for the purposes of their own gluttony, like the ready slaves of money, for a small price they are content to do all that is base and abject. It is also right to obey kings and rulers or potentates, and not to be bitter against them, nor to utter any offensive word against them. For there is ever the risk that what has been spoken in secret may somehow become public. For swift and winged messengers convey all things to Him who alone is King both rich and mighty, discharging therein a service which is at once spiritual and reasonable.
These flies bring death as well as life. For example there is a divinized fly about which Elijah has said, “Is there no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of the fly, the God of Ekron?” I would be astonished if they really did divinize a fly. Rather he hereby has described the worthlessness of their enterprise.
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Ecclesiastes 10:2 A wise man's heart [is] at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.
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Ecclesiastes 10:3 Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth [him], and he saith to every one [that] he [is] a fool.
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Ecclesiastes 10:4 If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences.
We also read in Ecclesiastes, “If the spirit of him that has power, ascend upon your heart, leave not your place.” From this it is clearly evident that we have committed a sin if we surrender our place to him who ascends upon us and if we have not cast down headlong the enemy ascending upon the walls. However, it seems to me that when you call down upon the heads of your brothers, that is to say, upon your slanderers, eternal fires with the devil, you are not so much dashing your brothers to the ground as you are elevating the devil, since he is to be punished in the same fires as Christians.
“If the anger of the ruler rises against you”—if he seems to have power over you, it is only because you have subjected yourself to him. For as “sin reigns in the mortal bodies” of those who want to “obey their passions,” and as someone is ruled over if he is ruled by mammon and has focused his thinking on the desire for money, so he [the ruler] has power over the one who subjects himself as slave.
You alone are not the source of the trouble, but there is also one who instigates you, the accursed devil. He makes his suggestions to all, but he does not prevail by force over those who do not give way to him. Therefore Ecclesiastes says, “Should the anger of the ruler burst upon you, forsake not your place.” If you shut your door, you will be out of his reach and he will not harm you. But if you are so careless as to admit the lustful thought, reflection will cause it to strike roots within you; it will capture your mind and drag you down into an abyss of sins.
He who sins gives place to the devil, taking no heed of him who said, “Do not give place to the devil,” or to Ecclesiastes, “If the spirit of him that has power ascends upon you, leave not your place.” Let us, then, who are in the Lord and who, as much as we are able, observe closely his wonders, so draw joy to our hearts from the contemplation of them. Homilies on the Psalms (Psalm ).
Do not say of your God, “He is grievous to me,” or of your position, “It is useless to me,” for it is written, “Leave not your place.” The devil wishes to take it from you, he wishes to carry you away, for he is jealous of your hope and jealous of your task. Letter , To His Clergy.
Author: Ambrosius von Mailand Rank: Bishop AD: 397
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Ecclesiastes 10:5 There is an evil [which] I have seen under the sun, as an error [which] proceedeth from the ruler:
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Ecclesiastes 10:6 Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
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Ecclesiastes 10:7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
Those who have come from paganism to the gospel—those who were slaves of desire, slaves of sin, slaves of the devil and of death—have become riders on horseback. About them it is said that, in the future, they will ride on divine words like on horses.
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Ecclesiastes 10:8 He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Scripture says that there are deep things that must not under any circumstances be looked into, and the one who searches in a hedge will be bitten by a snake.
The Jews in their imaginings, and in their agreeing to act unjustly against the Lord, forgot that they were bringing wrath upon themselves. Therefore does the Word lament for them saying, “Why do the people exalt themselves, and the nations imagine vain things?” For vain indeed was the imagination of the Jews, meditating death against the Life, and devising unreasonable things against the Word of the Father. For who that looks upon their dispersion, and the desolation of their city, may not aptly say, “Woe unto them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us.” And full well it is so, my brethren; for when they erred concerning the Scriptures, they knew not that “he who digs a pit for his neighbor falls into it; and he who destroys a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” And if they had not turned their faces from the Lord, they would have feared what was written before in the divine Psalms: “The heathen are caught in the pit which they made; in the snare which they hid is their own foot taken. The Lord is known when executing judgments: by the works of his hands is the sinner taken.”
Author: Athanasius the Apostolic Rank: Pope AD: 373
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Ecclesiastes 10:9 Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; [and] he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
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Ecclesiastes 10:10 If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom [is] profitable to direct.
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Ecclesiastes 10:11 Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.
These silent bites are alone in fending off the medicine of the wise people. This deadly menace is so utterly incurable that it is worsened by soothings, inflamed by serious treatment, and irritated by gifts.
“If a snake bites without hissing,” it says, “there is no abundance for the charmer,” indicating that the bite of a silent snake is dangerous. This means that if a diabolical suggestion or thought has not been disclosed by confessing it to the charmer (namely, to a spiritual man, who by the songs of Scripture can heal a wound immediately and draw the snake’s harmful venom out of a person’s heart), he will not be able to help the one who is in danger and about to perish.
The snake is powerful, when it spreads its poison secretly. In the one who is tricked, an impression is created that he has received something good which in reality is not good. The teacher who charms should not do so in a superflous way but in a way that accomplishes something. Then he shows his [student] the error, the guile of his seducer.
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Ecclesiastes 10:12 The words of a wise man's mouth [are] gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
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Ecclesiastes 10:13 The beginning of the words of his mouth [is] foolishness: and the end of his talk [is] mischievous madness.
The church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride.
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Ecclesiastes 10:14 A fool also is full of words: a man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?
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Ecclesiastes 10:15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.
Thus, having turned aside from the royal path, they are unable to get to that metropolis to which our journeying must ever and unswervingly be directed. Ecclesiastes expressed this quite distinctly when he said, “The toil of fools afflicts those who do not know how to go to the city”—namely, to “that heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all.”
By “town” he does not mean a place but the deed according to the law. The fool does “not even know the way to town.” But the one who says, “Even if we live on earth, our citizenship is in heaven,” “knows the way to the town” in which he is a true citizen. And further: “As we have heard, so we have received in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.”
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Ecclesiastes 10:16 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king [is] a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!
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Ecclesiastes 10:17 Blessed [art] thou, O land, when thy king [is] the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
The passage from this book which I gladly quote is one touching the two cities and their kings, the devil and Christ: “Woe to you, O land, when your king is a youth, and when the princes eat in the morning. Blessed is the land whose king is the son of freeborn parents and whose princes eat in due season, in strength and not in confusion.” Here, the devil is spoken of as a “youth” because of the foolishness, pride, rashness, unruliness, and other faults usually rampant at that age; and Christ is spoken of as the “son of freeborn parents” because he descended in the flesh from those holy patriarchs who were citizens of the free city. The princes of the devil’s city “eat in the morning,” that is, before the proper time—in the sense that, being overeager to attain perfect happiness at once in the society of this present world, they are unwilling to await the only true happiness which will come in due time in the world to come. But the princes of the city of Christ await in patience the time of a blessedness which is sure to be theirs. The conclusion, “in strength and not in confusion,” means that their hope will not cheat them.
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Ecclesiastes 10:18 By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.
A house never suddenly collapses except because of some old weakness in the foundation or because of extended disregard by its tenants. Thus the structure of the roof is eventually destroyed by what had begun as a tiny leak but into which, through long neglect, a stormy tempest of rain pours like a river, once a large breach has been made. For “by slothfulness a dwelling will be brought low, and through lazy hands a house will leak.”
Our house, which was built to human stature, along with the habitation we shall have in heaven, will collapse if we are lazy and hesitant to do good works. And every floor that depends upon a rafter for support will crush its inhabitant when it falls to the ground. It is when the assistance of our hands and our strength is lacking that all the storm clouds and violent winds from above burst forth upon us. Moreover, because we translated this verse in the singular, it is better to understand it as pertaining to the church, all of whose sublimity will be ruined through the negligence of its leaders. And where the roof is thought to be strong, there will be found the enticements of wickedness.
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Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all [things].
Let each one do his work without chatting or shouting. Let absolutely no one laugh, so that there will not apply to us the reproach of the Scriptures, “They make bread for laughter.” If someone needs to ask his neighbor a question, he must do so quietly, without shouting.
Author: Oresiesis-Heru-sa Ast Posted on: 2022-11-13
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Ecclesiastes 10:20 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
Generally one is advised not to say bad things about others. A curse is nothing else but a wish for something bad.…The word cautions against slander. Do not even have the intention, he says, of slandering someone—let alone actually slandering someone. Look at how great an evil this is: “Do not love speaking ill [of anyone], lest you be cut off.” Thus, he says the following: Not even in your thoughts, not even in your consciousness, should you “curse the king.” But if one is not supposed to curse anyone, the king should be cursed even less.
If then those things, which are spoken in secret against you that are kings, are not hidden, is it not incredible that I should have spoken against you in the presence of a king and of so many bystanders? Defense Before Constantius
Author: Athanasius the Apostolic Rank: Pope AD: 373
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