Ecclesiastes 10: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a collection of short sayings that set wisdom against folly. It says a little folly ruins a good reputation, describes a world turned upside down where fools hold high office and princes walk while servants ride, and warns that ordinary work carries real risk unless skill guides it. It then contrasts the speech of a wise man with the endless talk of a fool, pronounces trouble on a land with a childish king and feasting officials, and closes by warning that even a private curse against the king or the rich can be reported.

Claim by Claim

1. 10:1
   • Dead flies make the perfumer's oil give off a foul stench.
   • Dead flies make the perfumer's oil ferment and spoil.
   • A little folly does the same to wisdom and honor as dead flies do to the oil.
   • The statement is ambiguous between a little folly outweighing wisdom and honor and a little folly ruining a man reputed for wisdom and honor.
2. 10:2
   • A wise man's heart is at his right hand.
   • A fool's heart is at his left hand.
3. 10:3
   • Even when the fool is walking along the road, his sense is lacking.
   • He says to everyone that he is a fool.
   • It is ambiguous whether the fool declares himself a fool to everyone or calls everyone else a fool.
4. 10:4
   • If the ruler's temper rises against you, do not leave your place.
   • Calmness lays great offenses to rest.
5. 10:5
   • There is an evil that I have seen under the sun.
   • The evil is like an error that proceeds from the ruler.
6. 10:6
   • Folly is set in many high positions.
   • The rich sit in low positions.
7. 10:7
   • I have seen servants riding on horses.
   • I have seen princes walking on the ground like servants.
8. 10:8
   • He who digs a pit will fall into it.
   • He who breaks through a wall will be bitten by a serpent.
9. 10:9
   • He who quarries or moves stones will be hurt by them.
   • He who splits wood will be endangered by it.
10. 10:10
    • If the iron is blunt and its edge is not sharpened, more strength must be exerted.
    • Wisdom gives the advantage of success.
11. 10:11
    • If the serpent bites when no charm has been spoken, the charmer gains no advantage.
    • It is ambiguous whether the one who gains nothing is a snake charmer or a mere babbler.
12. 10:12
    • The words of a wise man's mouth win favor.
    • The lips of a fool swallow him up.
13. 10:13
    • The beginning of the fool's words is folly.
    • The end of his talk is evil madness.
14. 10:14
    • The fool multiplies words.
    • A man does not know what will be.
    • No one can tell a man what will come after him.
15. 10:15
    • The toil of fools wearies him.
    • The fool does not know the way to the city.
16. 10:16
    • Woe to the land whose king is a child.
    • Woe to the land whose princes feast in the morning.
17. 10:17
    • Blessed is the land whose king is the son of nobles.
    • Blessed is the land whose princes eat at the proper time.
    • Such princes eat for strength and not for drunkenness.
18. 10:18
    • Through much slothfulness the roof beams sink in.
    • Through idleness of the hands the house leaks.
19. 10:19
    • Bread is made for laughter.
    • Wine makes life merry.
    • Money answers everything.
20. 10:20
    • Do not curse the king even in your thought.
    • Do not curse the rich even in your bedchamber.
    • A bird of the air will carry the sound of your words.
    • A winged creature will report the matter.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1

Perfumed oil was a manufactured luxury: olive oil steeped with costly spices and resins, used for grooming, hospitality and anointing. A whole expensive jar could be ruined by a few insects falling into it. The second half of the verse is compressed in Hebrew and can be read either as "a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor" or as "a little folly is more costly than wisdom and honor."

10:2

In Hebrew usage the right hand stood for strength, skill, favor and the place of honor beside a king; the left stood for weakness and clumsiness. To say a man's heart leans right or left is to say his instincts carry him toward what works or toward what does not. The image has nothing to do with political left and right, which is a much later idea.

10:3

The Hebrew of the last clause is literally "he says to everyone that he is a fool," and "he" is genuinely ambiguous: it can mean the fool advertises his own foolishness by how he walks along, or that he goes about calling everyone else a fool.

10:4

"Your place" is a courtier's post or station in a ruler's service; walking off it means resigning or storming out. The word rendered "staying calm" is a Hebrew noun meaning healing or composure, and it is not clear whether the calm belongs to the servant who stays put or is the calming effect his staying has on the ruler.

10:5

The Hebrew is ambiguous. It can mean an error that a ruler actually makes, or an error of the sort a person in authority makes, a mistake made carelessly rather than deliberately, by someone whose mistakes fall on everyone else.

10:6

"The rich" here means men of substance and standing, the landowning families who would normally be given office. The contrast is not between wealth and poverty but between the people fit for high position and the people actually put in it.

10:7

Horses in this period were the property of kings, nobles and the army, not ordinary transport; a donkey was what a common traveler rode. A slave on horseback while a prince goes on foot was an image of the social order turned upside down.

10:8

Field walls and terrace walls were built of loose stacked stone, and snakes nested in the gaps. Pulling a gap in someone's wall (to steal, or to take a shortcut) was a familiar way to get bitten. Both halves of the verse describe ordinary work that can turn on the worker.

10:9

A quarry is a pit where workers cut blocks of stone out of the ground. Heavy blocks could slip and crush a person.

10:10

"The ax" is literally "the iron", the iron head fitted to a wooden handle. The Hebrew of this verse is among the most obscure in the book; the final phrase can be read as "skill brings success," "wisdom has the advantage," or "wisdom is profitable for directing the work."

10:11

Snake charming was a recognized trade in the ancient Near East, and the charmer was called in Hebrew a "master of the tongue." The same phrase means a babbler or gossip, which is the joke the verse turns on: the man whose whole skill is his tongue is useless once the snake has already struck.

10:12

"Gracious" here means winning favor for the speaker, not kind or generous. The wise man's words earn him goodwill; the fool's words consume the man who speaks them.

10:15

Proverbial. The road to the nearest town was the one landmark everybody knew, so not knowing the way to town described someone hopelessly incompetent, worn out by effort because he cannot find the obvious path.

10:16

The Hebrew word can mean a child, a youth, or a servant, so the complaint may be about a king too young to rule or about one of low birth. Morning was when a ruler and his officials heard cases and did the business of government; officials already at the table by morning have abandoned the work of the day.

10:17

"A son of nobles" means free-born and of established family, someone raised and trained to govern, as opposed to the untried figure of the previous verse.

10:18

Roofs were flat, made of wooden beams covered with packed brush and clay, and had to be rolled and resealed regularly. Neglected, the beams sagged and the winter rain came straight through. This is a literal description of an unmaintained house before it is anything else.

10:19

"Money" is literally silver, weighed out by the piece; coins were not yet in use. The last clause says only "silver answers everything," and readers have long disagreed whether it is being stated approvingly, reported as what the feasters believe, or said with an edge.

10:20

A proverbial way of saying that words spoken in private get out; the same image survives in English as "a little bird told me." Some readers take the winged creature more concretely, as a court informer. Under a monarchy, cursing the king was a capital matter, which is what gives the warning its force.