Ecclesiastes 10:2

This chapter, and those that follow, differ from the ones before. They drop almost entirely the language of personal experience. Only the close of chapter 12 returns to it, and it fits there as the conclusion of the book. The rest gives us short, pointed sayings that confirm the argument of the book. They warn against indulging folly even in the smallest thing. They commend wisdom in practical matters, for every class, subjects or rulers, in public life as in private, in word as well as deed.

By nature the heart is literally at the left hand. Wisdom, in a figure, gives it a quite different place, ready for prompt and effective action whenever action is needed.

The fool is slow to grasp what a principle means, and his plans are clumsy and useless. More than that, even in ordinary daily life, he never sees the right thing at the right time.

Men who stand out from others for their reputed wisdom draw the fault-finding of people far inferior in weight or worth. Such people cultivate the cheap skill of spying out a flaw to run them down. So it is important to cut off the opportunity from those who look for one.

As he was faithful in the least, his master promoted him to greater tasks and far more honourable ones. "And he set him over his house, and all that was his he put into his hand." This was no small place of service. It meant running an immense household. The work was large, varied, and new to him, for he had been brought into it so recently and so strangely. Yet "Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of Jehovah was on all that was his in house and in field." For "A wise man's heart is at his right hand," says Solomon.

This chapter contains a series of proverbs, expressing the wisdom and prudence of the natural man. Here are many observations, and all of them show that wisdom has a practical value and certain advantages. These sayings are of a different kind from the proverbs in the book before it. There we are face to face with the wisdom which is from above, here it is the wisdom of man. The name of the Lord is not mentioned once.

We see too in Ecclesiastes 9 and 10 how little anything here answers to what man seems capable of. Even when that capacity is real, people value it little. Still, the wisdom of the upright and the folly of the fool each have their own consequences, and, after all, God judges. To sum up the whole: we must remember God, and do it before weakness and old age overtake us.