The climax of Ecclesiastes' exercises seems to have been reached in the
previous chapter. The passionate storm is over, and now his thoughts
ripple quietly along in proverb and wise saying. It is as if he said
"I was altogether beyond my depth. Now I will confine myself only to
the present life, without touching on the things unseen, and here I can
pronounce with assurance the conclusion of wisdom, and sum up both its
advantages and yet inadequacy."
The proverbs that follow are apparently disjointed, and yet, when
closely looked at, are all connected with this subject. He shows, in
effect, that, take any view of life, and practically wisdom has
manifold advantages.
Ver. 1. The least ingredient of folly spoils as with the corruption of
death the greatest wisdom. (There is only One whose name is as
ointment poured forth untainted.)
Ver. 2. The wise man's heart is where it should be. He is governed by
his understanding, (for the heart in the Old Testament is the seat of
the thought as well as of the affections, as the same word, "_lehv_,"
translated "wisdom" in the next verse shows), a fool is all askew in
his own being. His heart is at his left hand. In other words, his
judgment is dethroned.
Ver. 3. Nor can he hide what he really is for any length of time.
"The way," with its tests, soon reveals him, and he proclaims to all
his folly.
Ver. 4. Yielding to the powers above rather than rebelling against
them, marks the path of wisdom. This may be an example of the testing
of "the way" previously spoken of, for true wisdom shines brightly out
in the presence of an angry ruler. Folly leaves its place,--a form of
expression tantamount to rebelling, and may throw some light on that
stupendous primal folly when angels "left their place," or, as Jude
writes, "kept not their first estate, but left their habitation," and
thus broke into the folly of rebelling against the Highest. For let
any leave their place, and it means necessarily confusion and disorder.
If all has been arranged according to the will and wisdom of the
Highest, he who steps out of the place assigned him rebels, and discord
takes the place of harmony. The whole of the old creation is thus in
disorder and confusion. All have "left their place." For God, the
Creator of all, has been dethroned. It is the blessed work of One we
know, once more to unite in the bonds of love and willing obedience all
things in heaven and in earth, and to bind in such way all hearts to
the throne of God, that never more shall one "leave his place."
Vers. 5-7. But rulers themselves under the sun are not free from
folly, and this shows itself in the disorder that actually proceeds
from them. Orders and ranks are not in harmony. Folly is exalted, and
those with whom dignities accord are in lowly place. It is another
view of the present confusion, and how fully the coming of the Highest
showed it out! A stable, a manger, rejection, and the cross, were the
portion under the sun of the King of kings. That fact rights
everything even now, in one sense, to faith for the path closest to the
King must be really necessarily the _highest_, though it be in the
sight of man the lowest. Immanuel, the Son of David, walking as a
servant up and down the land that was His own--The Lord Jesus, The Son
of Man, having less than the foxes or birds of the air, not even where
to lay his head,--Christ, the Son of God, wearied with His journey, on
the well of Sychar,--this has thrown a glory about the lowly path now,
that makes all the grandeur of the great ones of the earth less than
nothing. Let the light of His path shine on this scene, and no longer
shall we count it an evil under the sun for folly and lawlessness to
have the highest place, as men speak, but rather count it greatest
honor to be worthy to suffer for His name, for we are still in the
kingdom and patience of the Lord Jesus Christ,--not the Kingdom and
Glory. That shall come soon.
Vers. 8-10. But then, Ecclesiastes continues, is there complete
security in the humbler ranks of life? Nay, there is no occupation
that has not its accompanying danger. Digging or hedging, quarrying or
cleaving wood,--all have their peculiar difficulties. Although there,
too, wisdom is still evidently better than brute strength.
Vers. 11 to 15 turn to the same theme of comparison of wisdom and
folly, only now with regard to the use of the tongue. The most gifted
charmer (lit. master of the tongue) is of no worth _after_ the serpent
has bitten. The waters that flow commend the spring whence they issue.
Grace speaks for the wise: folly, from beginning to end, proclaims the
fool; and nowhere is that folly more manifested than in the
boastfulness of assertion as to the future.
"Predicting words he multiplies, yet man can never know
"The thing that shall be; yea, what cometh after who shall tell?
"Vain toil of fools! It wearieth him,--this man who knoweth naught
"That may befall his going to the city."
This seems to be exactly in line with the apostle James: "Go to now, ye
that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue
there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain: ye who know not what
shall be on the morrow."
Vers. 16-18. The land is blessed or cursed according to her head. A
well-marked principle in Scripture, which has evidently forced itself
on the notice of human wisdom in the person of Ecclesiastes. A city
flourishes under the wise diligence of her rulers, or goes to pieces
under their neglect and sensual revelry. For the tendency to decay is
everywhere under the sun, and no matter what the sphere,--high or low,
city or house,--constant diligence alone offsets that tendency.
Ver. 19. The whole is greater than its part. Money can procure both
the feast and the wine; but these are not, even in our preacher's view,
the better things, but the poorer, as chapter vii. has shown us. We,
too, know that which is infinitely higher than feasts and revelry of
earth, and here money avails nothing. "Wine and milk," joy and food,
are here to be bought without money and without price. The currency of
that sphere is not corruptible gold nor silver, but the love that
gives,--sharing all it possesses. There it is love that answereth all
things:--the more excellent way, inasmuch as it covers and is the
spring of all gifts and graces. Without love, the circulating medium
of that new creation, a man is poor indeed,--is worth nothing, nay,
_is_ nothing, (1 Cor. xiii.) He may have the most attractive and showy
of gifts: the lack of love makes the silver tongue naught but empty
sound,--a lack of love makes the deepest understanding naught; and
whilst he may be a very model of what the world falsely calls charity,
giving of his goods to feed the poor, and even his body to be burned,
it is love alone that gives life and substance to it all,--lacking love
it profits nothing. He who abounds most in loving, and consequent
self-emptying, is the richest there. The words of the Lord Jesus in
Luke xii. confirm this: "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself,
and is not rich toward God." The two are in direct contrast. Rich
here--laying up treasure for one's self here--_is_ poverty there, and
the love that gives _is_ divine riches. For he who loves most has
himself drunk deepest into the very nature of God, for God is Love, and
his heart fully satisfied with that which alone in all the universe can
ever satisfy the heart of man, filled up,--surely, therefore,
rich,--pours forth its streams of bounty and blessing according to its
ability to all about. How thoroughly the balances of the sanctuary
reverse the estimation of the world.
But, then, how may we become rich in that true, real sense? To obtain
the money that "answereth all things" under the sun, men _toil_ and
_plan_. Perhaps as the balances of the sanctuary show that selfish
accumulation here is poverty there, so the means of attaining true
riches may be, in some sort, the opposite to those prevailing for the
false--"quietness and confidence."
The apostle, closing his beautiful description of charity, says:
"Follow after charity." Ponder its value--meditate on its
beauties--till your heart becomes fascinated, and you press with
longing toward it. But as it is difficult to be occupied with "Love"
in the abstract, can we find anywhere an embodiment of love? A person
who illustrates it in its perfection, in whose character every glorious
mark that the apostle depicts in this 13th chapter of Corinthians is
shown in perfect moral beauty--yea, who is in himself the one complete
perfect expression of love. And, God be thanked, we know One such;
and, as we read the sweet and precious attributes of Love, we recognize
that the Holy Spirit has pictured every lineament of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Wouldst thou be rich, then, my soul? Follow after, occupy
thyself with, press toward, the Lord Jesus, till His beauties so
attract as to take off thy heart from every other infinitely inferior
attraction, and the kindling of His love shall warm thy heart with the
same holy flame, and thou shalt seek love's ease--love's rest--in
pouring out all thou hast in a world where need of all kinds is on
every side, and thus be "rich toward God." So may it be for the
writer, and every reader, to the praise of His grace. Amen.
Where are we, in time, my readers? Are we left as shipwrecked sailors
upon a raft, without chart or compass, and know not whether sunken
wreck or cliff-bound coast shall next threaten us? No; a true divine
chart and compass is in our hands, and we may place our finger upon the
exact chronological latitude and longitude in which our lot is cast.
Mark the long voyage of the professing Church past the quiet waters of
Ephesus, where first love quickly cools and is lost; past the stormy
waves of persecution which drive her onward to her desired haven, in
Smyrna; caught in the dangerous eddy, and drifted to the whirlpool of
the world in Pergamos, followed by the developed Papal hierarchy in
Thyatira, with the false woman in full command of the ship; past
Sardis, with its memories of a divine recovery in the Reformation of
the sixteenth century:--Philadelphia and Laodicea alone are left; and,
with mutual contention and division largely in the place of brotherly
love, who can question but that we have reached the last stage, and
that there is every mark of Laodicea about us? This being so, mark the
word of our Lord Jesus to the present state of the professing Church:
"Thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing, but knowest not that thou art poor, and blind, and naked, and
wretched, and miserable." Yes, in the light of God, in the eyes of the
Lord, in the judgment of the sanctuary, we live in a day of _poverty_.
It is this which characterizes the day in which our lot is cast,--a
lack of all true riches, whilst the air is filled with boastings of
wealth and attainment.
Further, I can but believe that we whose eyes scan these lines are
peculiarly in danger here. Thyatira goes on to the very end. Sardis
is an offshoot from her. Sardis goes on to the end. Philadelphia is
an offshoot from her. Philadelphia goes on to the end, and is thus the
stock from whence the proud self-sufficiency of Laodicea springs. If
we (you and I) have shared in any way in the blessings of Philadelphia,
we share in the dangers of Laodicea. Yea, he who thinks he represents
or has the characteristics of Philadelphia, is most open to the boast
of Laodicea. Let us have to do--have holy commerce--with Him who
speaks. Buy of Him the "gold purified by the fire." But how are we to
buy? What can we give for that gold, when He says we are already poor?
A poor man is a bad buyer. Yes, under the sun, where toil and
self-dependency are the road to wealth; but above the sun quietness and
confidence prevail, and the poor man is the best--the only--buyer.
Look at that man in Mark's Gospel, chapter x., with every mark of
Laodicea upon him. _Blind_, by nature; _poor_, for he sat and _begged;
naked_, for he has thrown away his garment, and thus surely _pitiable,
miserable_, now watch him buy of the Lord.
"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?"
"Lord, that I might receive my sight."
"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."
And the transaction is complete; the contract is settled; the buying is
over. "Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the
way." Yes; there is just one thing that that poor, naked, blind man
has, that is of highest value even in the eyes of the Lord, and that is
the quiet confidence of his poor heart. All Scripture shows that that
is what God ever seeks,--the heart of man to return and rest in Him.
It is all that we can give in the purchase, but it buys all He has.
"All things are possible to him that believeth." In having to do with
the Lord Jesus we deal with the rich One whose very joy and rest it is
to give; and it is surely easy _buying_ from Him whose whole heart's
desire is to _give_. Nothing is required but need and faith to
complete the purchase.
"Need and Faith" are our "two mites." They are to us what the two
mites were to the poor widow--all our "living," all we have. Yet,
casting them into the treasury, God counts them of far more value than
all the boasted abundance of Laodicea. They are the servants, too,
that open all doors to the Lord. They permit no barriers to keep Him
at a distance. That gracious waiting Lord then may enter, and sweet
communion follow as He sups with poor "Need and Faith"--Himself
providing all the provender for that supper-feast.