I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves. Sermons
I. THE ELEVATION OF FOOLISH FAVORITES TO POWER IS INJURIOUS TO THOSE SO PROMOTED, Men who might have been respectable and useful in a lowly station are corrupted and morally debased by their elevation to posts of undeserved dignity and emolument. Their heads are turned by the giddy height to which they are raised. II. THE ELEVATION OF FOOLISH FAVORITES TO POWER IS INJURIOUS TO THE PRINCES WHOM THEY PROFESS TO SERVE. What kings and rulers need is to be told the truth. It is important that they should know the actual state and needs of the nation. And it is important that any weakness or wrong bias, natural or acquired, should be corrected. But the fools who are set in high places make it their one great rule of conduct never to utter unpalatable truth. They assume the faultlessness of their master; they paint the condition of his subjects in glowing colors, and give the ruler all the credit for national prosperity. Their insincerity and flattery are morally injurious to the prince, who by the companionship of the wise might have been morally benefited. III. THE ELEVATION OF FOOLISH FAVORITES TO POWER IS INJURIOUS TO THE COMMUNITY. The example of injustice thus presented is discouraging to the upright and depressing to the reflecting. The throne becomes unpopular, and the people generally are demoralized. The evil is no doubt greater in despotic than in constitutional states, for these latter afford fewer opportunities for rapacity and oppression. Yet nothing more injuriously affects the community generally than the spectacle of a court which prefers folly to wisdom, fashion to experience, vice to virtue, frivolity to piety. - T.
I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. I. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS COMMON.1. In the political realm. We see small-minded men occupying influential offices in the State. 2. In the ecclesiastical department. 3. In the commercial department. How often do we see little men by trickery, fraud and lucky hits become the great men of the market. 4. In the literary department. II. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS INCONGRUOUS. 1. It does not agree with what we might have expected under the government of a righteous God. That the race is not always to the morally swift and the battle to the morally strong is an undoubted anomaly in the government of God. 2. It does not agree with the moral feelings of humanity. Whilst there is a perversity in man which leads him to hurrah the successful and the prosperous, there is, nevertheless, down deep in the heart of all men a feeling that such a scene as that indicated in the text is something terribly incongruous, a great moral enormity. III. THIS SOCIAL SCENE IS TEMPORARY. 1. Such a social scene does not exist in the other world. Death destroys all these adventitious distinctions and moral incongruities. 2. Such a social scene will not always exist here. (D. Thomas, D. D.) People SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Foot, Horseback, Horses, Princes, Riding, Rulers, Servants, Slaves, WalkingOutline 1. observations of wisdom and folly7. death in life 9. and the day of judgment in the days of youth, are to be thought on Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 10:4 5057 rest, physical Library The Way to the City'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.'--ECCLES. x. 15. On the surface this seems to be merely a piece of homely, practical sagacity, conjoined with one of the bitter things which Ecclesiastes is fond of saying about those whom he calls 'fools.' It seems to repeat, under another metaphor, the same idea which has been presented in a previous verse, where we read: 'If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Fences and Serpents "For they that are after the Flesh do Mind," Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners Or, a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ, to his Poor Servant, John Bunyan Ecclesiastes Links Ecclesiastes 10:7 NIVEcclesiastes 10:7 NLT Ecclesiastes 10:7 ESV Ecclesiastes 10:7 NASB Ecclesiastes 10:7 KJV Ecclesiastes 10:7 Bible Apps Ecclesiastes 10:7 Parallel Ecclesiastes 10:7 Biblia Paralela Ecclesiastes 10:7 Chinese Bible Ecclesiastes 10:7 French Bible Ecclesiastes 10:7 German Bible Ecclesiastes 10:7 Commentaries Bible Hub |