Ecclesiasteschapter 10
20 verses · Solomon, by tradition · 10th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
Through laziness the roof caves in, and in the hands of the idle, the house leaks.
Introduction
Solomon, by tradition, Wisdom and poetry, Ecclesiastes Overview.
This chapter belongs to the book of wisdom that tradition gives to Solomon, and it is made almost entirely of short proverbs. It was heard by people who worked with tools and lived under officials, where one mistake at work or one careless word at court could cost dearly. The chapter sets wisdom beside folly again and again and shows how small things decide large outcomes. Listen for the trades it draws on, the perfumer, the quarryman, the woodcutter and the snake charmer. It closes on the conduct of rulers and on speech that travels further than expected.
Context
- Who
- Workers who risked injury daily, and courtiers who risked their heads
- What
- A collection of proverbs on the damage done by folly, the value of skill, and the conduct of rulers and speakers.
- Where
- Workshops, quarries, fields and the royal court of Israel.
- When
- Late in the reign of Solomon, about 940 BC, on the traditional reading; many date the book's Hebrew to the Persian period, so the date is held with less certainty than the setting.
- Why
- To train the reader to act with wisdom in ordinary work and in the presence of power.
Historical context
"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour." The perfumer's trade was real and expensive: oils infused with imported spices, stored in sealed jars because contamination ruined the batch. One insect in the jar destroyed a fortune's worth of scent.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The work hazards are those of actual trades. "He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it", cisterns and storage pits were cut by hand and left open while being dug. "Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him", field boundaries were dry stone walls, and vipers lived in the gaps; pulling out a stone put your hand where the snake was. "Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith, and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby", quarrying and splitting timber killed and maimed men regularly.
"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." Iron tools were new enough in Israel's memory to be prized and had to be sharpened constantly. The proverb prefers a whetstone to a stronger back.
"Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning." The ordinary working day started at first light and the main meal came late. Officials feasting in the morning meant a government that had stopped governing. The counterpart is a land whose princes "eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness."
"A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter" is a proverb about informers, a warning not to curse the king even in your bedroom. Ancient courts ran on exactly that kind of reporting.
Significance
"Through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through" is the same failed clay roof as in Proverbs, and it makes the chapter's argument physical: neglect does not announce itself, it just leaks.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For hearers who worked with tools and lived under officials, the chapter's message was that small things decide outcomes, one fly, one blunt edge, one loose stone, one word said in the wrong room.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard aloud once a year, when the whole book is read at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that reading and sources it to Tractate Soferim 14:3; it printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for this book.
Rashi ties the nineteenth verse, the feast made for laughter, to the wedding. "For the joy of the musical entertainment at a wedding, we make a feast" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:19:1). He adds that a large feast is called bread, as in the great feast of Belshazzar in Daniel 5:1.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern, and the edition's own notes are never quoted as his.
The dead flies in the perfumer's oil draw Rashi's longest note on the chapter. In winter flies are weak and near death, yet one that falls into the perfumer's oil makes it putrid. So a small thing spoils a precious one, and Rashi says a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour the same way. He then turns it to judgment. A man equally divided between transgressions and merits commits one more sin, and it tips the scale (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:1:1). He adds that the Midrash Aggadah compares the evil inclination to the dying flies (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:1:2).
The ruler whose anger rises is the Ruler of the Universe, scrutinising a man by the standard of justice. The counsel not to leave one's place means, "Do not set aside your virtuous trait" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:4:1 and 10:4:2). The error from the ruler is like a word that has left a ruler's mouth and cannot be recalled. "So does the Holy One, Blessed Is He, speak, and [His decrees] cannot be retracted" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:5:1).
Rashi reads the fools set on high as prophecy of the Temple's destruction. He says he saw with the Holy Spirit that the wicked would stretch out their hand against the Temple (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:6:1). The slaves on horses are the Chaldeans, leading Israel's captives in neck irons (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:7:1).
The fool's words he reads of Balaam. When God asked Balaam who the men with him were, Balaam named Balak, king of Moab, as if to say that he was esteemed by earthly kings though despised by God (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:13:1). The fool who multiplies words is Balaam boasting that he knows the knowledge of the Most High (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:14:1). The fool's labour that wearies him is the traveller who never learned the road to the city and sinks in the mire. So "the laziness of those who abandon the Torah causes them wearying labor in Gehinnom" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:15:1). The princes who eat in due season eat "In strength and not in drunkenness", given to wisdom and understanding (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:17:1).
The corpus carries one further note on this chapter without an English text, marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. It stands cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 10:3:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the dead flies, it holds Berakhot 61a:27 and Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 1:9:3. On the second, the wise heart at the right hand, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 14:6 and 22:9. On the third it holds Kohelet Rabbah 10:3:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 10:3:1. On the fourth, the anger of the ruler, it holds Aggadat Bereshit 67:2 and Avodah Zarah 13a. On the fifth it holds Bava Metzia 68a:8 and Bereshit Rabbah 74:9. On the sixth, folly set on high, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 1:1:35 and Kohelet Rabbah 10:6:1. On the seventh, the slaves on horses, it holds Kohelet Rabbah 10:7:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 10:7:1.
The pit, the stones and the axe carry the next run. On the eighth verse the corpus holds Avodah Zarah 27b:7 and Avot DeRabbi Natan 3:3. On the ninth it holds Bava Batra 145b:10 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 9:4. On the tenth, the blunt axe, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 3:12 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Taanit 1:27. On the eleventh, the serpent that bites, it holds Aggadat Bereshit 79:5 and Arakhin 15b:10. On the twelfth, the gracious words of the wise, it holds Esther Rabbah, Petichta 8 and Kohelet Rabbah 10:12:1.
The fool's words and the land's king carry the rest. On the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth verses the corpus holds Kohelet Rabbah 10:13:1, 10:14:1 and 10:15:1 with Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 10:13:1, 10:14:1 and 10:15:1. On the sixteenth, the land whose king is a child, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 21:1 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 1:3. On the seventeenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:8 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 10:17:1. On the eighteenth, the sagging roof, it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 1:7 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 1:8. On the nineteenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 13:17 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 10:19:1. On the twentieth, the king cursed in thought, it holds Avodah Zarah 10b:1 and Bamidbar Rabbah 9:12. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:1:1 to 10:20:1, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 10:3:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ecclesiastes/10.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this book and printing parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, and the festival reading at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week, sourced there to Tractate Soferim 14:3.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Dead Flies Spoil the Ointment: a Little Folly Outweighs Wisdom
Ecclesiastes 10:1-3
As dead flies bring a stench: to the perfumer’s oil, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor, the chapter's rule of disproportion. The right and left of verse 2 are readiness against awkwardness, in the older commentators' reading of the idiom. Verse 3 shows the fool advertising himself.
Ecclesiastes 10:1
“So the higher a man's religious character is, the more hurt is caused by a sinful folly in him. Bad savor is endurable in oil, but not in what professes to be, and is compounded by the perfumer ("apothecary") for, fragrance. "Flies" answer to "a little folly" (sin), appropriately, being small (1Co 5:6); also, "Beelzebub" means prince of flies.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
inclines to the right: The right hand was the skilled and ready hand, so Barnes reads the wise man's sense as present when needed and the fool's as missing. Clarke adds that right and left stand in Scripture for good and evil. Bonaventure linked it to the sheep of Matthew 25.
the fool walks along the road: Barnes takes the road as the literal way or the course of a fool's life, and on either road his lack of sense shows everyone. Henry adds that the fool neither hides his folly nor feels any shame. Sin marks him wherever he walks.
Ecclesiastes 10:4-7
If the ruler’s temper flares against you: The court cluster opens: If the ruler’s temper flares against you, do not abandon your post, for calmness lays great offenses to rest. Then comes an error that proceeds from the ruler: Folly is appointed to great heights, and I have seen slaves on horseback.
error that proceeds from the ruler: The error is named in the next two verses: folly appointed to great heights and the rich sitting low. Clarke sees a ruler who hands offices to men without merit, and Bonaventure calls it the promotion of fools. The evil comes from the ruler himself.
Folly is appointed to great heights: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the rich as men rich in wisdom, set against the folly placed on high. Barnes sees a king's whim raising a low favorite while a noble man is passed over. Henry calls it an ill day for a people.
slaves on horseback: Gregory the Dialogist read the horse as the honor of this life, given to slaves of sin while princes rich in virtue go on foot. Didymus the Blind turned the image around. For him the slaves on horseback are pagans the gospel set free.
Ecclesiastes 10:8-11
He who digs a pit may fall into it: Hazards follow: the pit-digger falling in, the wall-breacher bitten by a snake. The pit is the reversal figure of Proverbs 26:27 and Psalm 7:15. The dull axe gives the lesson, skill produces success, and verse 11 adds that skill is worthless if the snake bites before it is charmed.
The one who quarries stones: The man who quarries is injured by stones, the man who splits logs by an axe flying back, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture it. They read the proverb as wisdom ignored recoiling on the man who ignores it. Clarke calls for care.
If the axe is dull: A dull blade makes a man exert more strength, and Clarke reads skill here as the wisdom to sharpen the axe first. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see Rehoboam in it, a king who chose force over wise counsel. Strength without skill is wasted.
If the snake bites: Barnes reads it of a charmer too slow at his craft: the snake bites before it is charmed, and skill brings no profit. Clarke hears the snake that bites without hissing as the slanderer, whose words strike with no warning. The next verse turns to the lips of a fool.
Woe to the Land Whose King Is a Child: a Bird Shall Carry the Voice
Ecclesiastes 10:12-15
The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious: The fool's words are traced as a progression: The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but the lips of a fool consume him. His talk begins in folly and ends in evil madness, and the fool multiplies words about a future no one can know.
The beginning of his talk: The fool's speech runs downhill from folly to evil madness. Bonaventure traces the start to haste, a man who speaks before he considers, as Proverbs 29 warns. Symmachus, as Jerome reports, rendered the end as confusion, a talk that falls into incoherence.
the fool multiplies words: Barnes hears the fool's many words as confident talk about what is coming, the boast James 4:13 rebukes. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reason that no one knows what will come, so the fool's words about it are futile. Henry adds that he must have the last word.
The toil of a fool: Wesley calls the way to the city the easiest thing to know, and Barnes says the fool lacks sense even for ordinary business. Effort without sense is wasted. Henry applies the verse to the highway of Isaiah 35:8, the road to the heavenly city that sinful folly still misses.
Ecclesiastes 10:16-20
Woe to you, O land whose king is a youth: , and whose princes feast, government judged by its appetites, as Henry puts it. Verse 18 applies sloth to government, and money is the answer for everything reports the courtiers' creed. Do not curse the king even in your thoughts.
a son of nobles: Gill notes the Hebrew word for nobles, horim, comes from the word for white, and reads it as purity of mind and manners. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place the nobility in virtue, and the time for a feast after duty is done. Augustine read the blessed land's king as Christ.
Through laziness the roof caves in: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the house as the kingdom of verses 16 and 17, its roof left to cave in under idle princes. John Cassian applied it to the soul, where a small leak neglected over time brings the whole house down. The ruin comes slowly.
money is the answer for everything: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown keep the princes of verse 16 in view: they feast for laughter while the house leaks, and take bribes. Henry sets a limit on money. It buys what the market sells and buys the soul no pardon.
Do not curse the king: Jerome took the bird as a figure of speech, as saying the walls have ears. Clarke wondered whether the carrier pigeon lay behind it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that what is a figure for earthly kings is fact for God, who knows every thought, as Psalm 139 says.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, City of God 17.20; Bonaventure, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Ecclesiastes; Didymus the Blind, COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES 299:24; Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book 31, Section 43; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes; John Cassian, CONFERENCE 6:17; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.