Ecclesiastes 10:16

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) Woe.—See Note on Ecclesiastes 4:10.

A child.—The Hebrew word has a wide range, being constantly translated lad or young man, and applied, for instance, to Solomon (1Chronicles 29:1), to Rehoboam (2Chronicles 13:7), and according to a usage common to many languages (e.g., the Latin puer), it often means a servant (2Samuel 16:1, &c). Some take it in that sense here, contrasting it with the nobly-born king of the next verse. But comp. Isaiah 3:12.

In the morning.—Isaiah 5:11; Acts 2:15.

Benson Commentary

Ecclesiastes 10:16-17. Wo to thee, O land, when thy king is a child — Either in age or childish qualities; and thy princes eat in the morning — Give themselves up to eating and drinking at that time of the day which is most fit for God’s service, for the despatch of weighty affairs, and for sitting in judgment. Blessed art thou when thy king is the son of the nobles — Not so much by birth, as even the worst of kings commonly are, and have been, as by their noble and worthy dispositions and endowments, for such a one is opposed to the child in the former verse; and thy princes eat in due season — So as may further and not hinder their main business; for strength, and not for drunkenness — To refresh and strengthen their bodies, that they may be fit to perform the duties of their station, and not to please their palates, and indulge themselves in sensuality.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:16-20 The happiness of a land depends on the character of its rulers. The people cannot be happy when their princes are childish, and lovers of pleasure. Slothfulness is of ill consequence both to private and public affairs. Money, of itself, will neither feed nor clothe, though it answers the occasions of this present life, as what is to be had, may generally be had for money. But the soul, as it is not redeemed, so it is not maintained with corruptible things, as silver and gold. God sees what men do, and hears what they say in secret; and, when he pleases, brings it to light by strange and unsuspected ways. If there be hazard in secret thoughts and whispers against earthly rulers, what must be the peril from every deed, word, or thought of rebellion against the King of kings, and Lord of lords! He seeth in secret. His ear is ever open. Sinner! curse not THIS KING in thy inmost thought. Your curses cannot affect Him; but his curse, coming down upon you, will sink you to the lowest hell.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Foolish rulers, by their weakness, self-indulgence and sloth, bring decay upon the state: nobleness and temperance insure prosperity: yet the subject must not rebel in word or thought against his king.

Ecclesiastes 10:16

A child - Rather, young. The word is applied to Rehoboam 2 Chronicles 13:7 at the time of his accession to the throne, when he was 41 years old.

Eat in the morning - A sign of intemperance (compare Isaiah 5:11).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. a child—given to pleasures; behaves with childish levity. Not in years; for a nation may be happy under a young prince, as Josiah.

eat in the morning—the usual time for dispensing justice in the East (Jer 21:12); here, given to feasting (Isa 5:11; Ac 2:15).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

A child; either,

1. In age. Or,

2. (which is more agreeable to the following clause) In childish qualities, as ignorance, inexperience, injudiciousness, rashness, frowardness, fickleness, or wilfulness, and the like, in which sense this word is used, 2 Chronicles 13:7, compared with 1 Kings 14:21 Isaiah 3:4,12 1 Corinthians 14:20 Ephesians 4:14.

Thy princes eat; give up themselves to eating and drinking excessively and intemperately, as it is explained in the next verse. In the morning; the fittest time for God’s service, and for the despatch of weighty affairs, and for sitting in judgment, Psalm 101:8 Jeremiah 21:12. Which circumstance is added as a plain evidence of men that wholly devote themselves to vanity and luxury; which must needs occasion gross neglect of the great concerns of the kingdom, the oppression of the people to support such extravagancies, and a woeful and general corruption of the people by their example, and otherwise; which makes him say, Woe to that people!

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,.... Not so much in age; though it is sometimes an unhappiness to a nation to be governed by a minor, especially if the young king has not good tutors, guardians, ministers, and counsellors, about him; but, if otherwise, a nation may be very happy under a minority, or the government of a young prince; such were Solomon, Joash, Uzziah, Josiah, and our Edward VI: but it rather respects one that is a child in understanding and judgment, in manners and conduct; that minds his pleasures, as children their play; is fickle and changeable, passionate and self-willed, unskilful in government, and yet will not be advised. The Targum applies this to the land of Israel, and instances in wicked Jeroboam, who made the morning sacrifice to cease; see Isaiah 3:12. From considering the bad effects of folly in men in general, in private persons and in subjects, the wise man proceeds to observe the ill consequences of it to a nation, in kings and princes, in civil magistrates: Jerom or Bede interprets this allegorically: Woe to the land whose king is the devil, who is always desirous of new things, 2 Corinthians 4:4;

and thy princes eat in the morning; as soon as they are up, children like; and not only eat, which may be convenient and lawful to do; but eat to excess, in a riotous and intemperate manner, and so unfit themselves for any service all the day: the "morning" is particularly observed, because the fittest time for consultation about the affairs of government; and was the usual time of sitting in judgment and trying causes, Jeremiah 21:12; and also for acts of religion and devotion. And so the Targum,

"and thy princes eat bread before they offer the daily morning sacrifice.''

Sad is the case of a nation, when not only their king is a minor, or a foolish one; but when his tutors and guardians, or his ministers of state and counsellors, give up themselves to sensual pleasures, and neglect public affairs; and, instead of being in the council chamber, or in a court of judicature, or at their early devotions, are indulging themselves in riotous eating and drinking.

Geneva Study Bible

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a {h} child, and thy princes {i} eat in the morning!

(h) That is, without wisdom and counsel.

(i) Are given to their lusts and pleasures.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 16-20. - Section 15. Koheleth returns to the theme mentioned in vers. 4-7. and speaks of folly in one who holds the position of king, and the need of wisdom and prudence in the subjects of an unworthy ruler. Verse 16. - Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child! "Child" is naar, which term included any age up to manhood. Some interpret the word here, as παῖς in Greek, in the sense of "slave," contrasting it with "the son of nobles" in the following verse. But it can hardly signify more than servitor, attendant; and in ver. 7 the antithesis to "prince" is ebed, not naar. The child in the present case is a youthful, inexperienced ruler, who does not realize his responsibilities, and is the tool of evil advisers. What particular instance, if any, Koheleth had in view it is impossible to say. Of course, many expositors see a reference to Rehoboam. whom, at forty years of age, his own son Abijah calls naar (2 Chronicles 13:7), and who was certainly childish in his conduct (1 Kings 12:1-14). Hitzig connects the passage with the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who was but five years old at the death of his father, B.C. 205, the reins of government being assumed by Agathocles and his sister Agathoclea, who occasioned serious disasters to the laud. To support this opinion, the date of our book has to be considerably reduced (see Introduction). It is best to take the gnome as a general expression, like that in Isaiah 3:12, "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them." Thy princes eat in the morning. Eating here implies feasting and banqueting, beginning the day with sensual enjoyment instead of such honest work as attending to state matters, administering justice, etc., as becomes good rulers. None but profligates would thus spend the early morning. "These are not drunken, as ye suppose; seeing it is but the third hour of the day," says St. Peter, repudiating the charge of intoxication (Acts 2:15). "Woe unto them," cries Isaiah (Isaiah 5:11), "that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink!" Even the heathen censured such debauchery. Cicero thus abuses Antonius: "At quam multos dies in ea villa turpissime es per-bacchatus. Ab hora tertia bibebatur, ludebatur, vomebatur" ('Philipp.,' 2:41). Curtius (5. 7. 2) reprehends" de die convivia inire." The Greeks had a proverb to denote abnormal sensuality, Ἀφ ἡμέρας πίνειν Ecclesiastes 10:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Woe to thee, O land, whose king is a child, and whose princes sit at table in the early morning! Happy art thou, O land, whose king is a noble, and whose princes sit at table at the right time, in manly strength, and not in drunkenness!" Regarding אי. Instead of שׁם ן, the older language would rather use the phrase מלכּו נער אשׁר; and instead of na'ar, we might correctly use, after Proverbs 30:22, 'ěvěd; but not as Grtz thinks, who from this verse deduces the reference of the book of Herod (the "slave of the Hasmonean house," as the Talm. names him), in the same meaning. For na'ar, it is true, sometimes means - e.g., as Ziba's by-name (2 Samuel 19:18 [17]) - a servant, but never a slave as such, so that here, in the latter sense, it might be the contrast of בּן־חורים; it is to be understood after Isaiah 3:12; and Solomon, Bishop of Constance, understood this woe rightly, for he found it fulfilled at the time of the last German Karolingian Ludwig III.

(Note: Cf. Bchmann's Feglgelte Worte, p. 178, 5th ed. (1868).)

Na'ar is a very extensively applicable word in regard to the age of a person. King Solomon and the prophets Jeremiah and Zechariah show that na'ar may be used with reference to one in a high office; but here it is one of few years of age who is meant, who is incapable of ruling, and shows himself as childish in this, that he lets himself be led by bad guides in accordance with their pleasure. In 16b, the author perhaps thinks of the heads of the aristocracy who have the phantom-king in their power: intending to fatten themselves, they begin their feasting with the break of day. If we translate yochēēlu by "they eat," 16b sounds as if to breakfast were a sin, - with us such an abbreviation of the thought so open to misconception would be a fault in style, but not so with a Hebrew.

(Note: Vid., Gesch. d. jd. Poesie, p. 188.f.)

אכל (for לחם אכל, Psalm 14:4) is here eating for eating's sake, eating as its own object, eating which, in the morning, comes in the place of fresh activity in one's calling, consecrated by prayer. Instead of אשׁ, Ecclesiastes 10:17, there ought properly to have been אשׁריך; but (1) אשׁרי has this peculiarity, to be explained from its interjectional usage, that with the suff. added it remains in the form of the st. constr., for we say e.g., אשׁריך for אשׁריך; (2) the sing. form אשׁר, inflected אשׁרי, so substitutes itself that אשׁריך, or, more correctly, אשׁרך, and אשׁרהוּ, Proverbs 29:19, the latter for אשׁריו, are used (vid., under Sol 2:14).

Regarding běn-hhorim, the root-word signifies to be white (vid., under Genesis 40:16). A noble is called hhor, Isaiah 34:12; and one noble by birth, more closely, or also merely descriptively (Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 649), běn-hhorim, from his purer complexion, by which persons of rank were distinguished from the common people (Lamentations 4:7). In the passage before us, běn-hhorim is an ethical conception, as e.g., also generosus becomes such, for it connects with the idea of noble by birth that of noble in disposition, and the latter predominates (cf. Sol 7:2, nadiv): it is well with a land whose king is of noble mind, is a man of noble character, or, if we give to běn-hhorim the Mishnic meaning, is truly a free man (cf. John 8:36). Of princes after the pattern of such a king, the contrary of what is said 16b is true: they do not eat early in the morning, but ba'et, "at the right time;" everywhere else this is expressed by be'itto (Ecclesiastes 3:11); here the expression - corresponding to the Greek ἐν καιρῷ, the Lat. in tempore - is perhaps occasioned by the contrast baboqěr, "in the morning." Eating at the right time is more closely characterized by bighvurah velo vashshethi. Jerome, whom Luther follows, translates: ad reficiendum et non ad luxuriam. Hitz., Ginsb., and Zckl., "for strengthening" (obtaining strength), not: "for feasting;" but that beth might introduce the object aimed at (after Hitz., proceeding from the beth of exchange), we have already considered under Ecclesiastes 2:4. The author, wishing to say this, ought to have written lshty wl' lgbwrh. Better, Hahn: "in strength, but not in drunkenness," - as heroes, but not as drunkards (Isaiah 5:22). Ewald's "in virtue, and not in debauchery," is also thus meant. But what is that: to eat in virtue, i.e., the dignity of a man? The author much rather represents them as eating in manly strength, i.e., as this requires it (cf. the plur. Psalm 71:16 and Psalm 90:10), only not bashti ("in drunkenness - excess"), so that eating and drinking become objects in themselves. Kleinert, well: as men, and not as gluttons. The Masora makes, under bashti,' the note לית, i.e., שׁתי has here a meaning which it has not elsewhere, it signifies drunkenness; elsewhere it means the weft of a web. The Targ. gives the word the meaning of weakness (חלּשׁוּת), after the Midrash, which explains it by בּתשׁישׁוּ (in weakness); Menahem b. Saruk takes along with it in this sense נשׁתה, Jeremiah 51:30. The Talm. Shabbath 10a, however, explains it rightly by בּשׁתיּה שׁל־יין.