Ecclesiastes 4:13-16 Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished.… It has been thought that Ecclesiastes must here be referring to some well-known event of his own times: but, if this be the case, the event has not yet been identified. Perhaps he is simply presenting an imaginary but possible case, for which there had been quite sufficient basis in many a political revolution. In those old kingdoms and empires it was always possible that even a beggar or prisoner might rise to the throne, whilst the monarch who had been born to the crown might, in his old age, perhaps through his own folly, become a poor man in his own kingdom. Such was the instability of the most exalted of earthly positions. And Ecclesiastes sketches the picture of the young upstart — a usurper wise and skilful enough to make himself the leader of a successful revolution, and to place himself in the stead of the old monarch. So great is the popularity of this usurper that he becomes the idol of the hour: millions flock around his standard, and place him on the throne. But even this popularity is, in turn, an evanescent thing; "those who come after him" (the people of a younger generation) "shall not rejoice in him." He, too, has only his day. It may be that, even during his lifetime, he loses the popular favour: and, at the best, he soon passes away in death, and is speedily forgotten. Thus the glory and fame even of monarchy itself is also "vanity and feeding on wind." It would not be difficult to find many a "historical parallel" to this picture. One of the most striking has occurred within the memory of some of us. When Louis Philippe, the aged King of France, who would not be admonished by the signs of the times, had at length to flee from his own kingdom in 1848, Louis Napoleon, who, not long before, had been for five years a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, appeared in Paris, and, throwing himself into the midst of political affairs, gradually became more and more popular, until in due time he became President of the Republic, and ultimately Emperor of France. We know how he was worshipped by the masses of the French people, how there was "no end of all the people" who flocked around him in their enthusiasm. And we know how, after many years of royal splendour, the collapse came suddenly at last, and how, after the defeat at Sedan, the nation, almost as one man, turned round and kicked the idol they had worshipped. Even one of our own poets had hailed him as "Emperor evermore!" But where is all his "glory" now? Surely "vanity of vanities" might well be inscribed on the tomb of Napoleon III. And, indeed, the career of many a man who has been borne along into high position on the wave of popular enthusiasm furnishes a most salutary lesson as to the real value of mere earthly fame and greatness. (T. C. Finlayson.). Parallel Verses KJV: Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished. |
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