Ecclesiastes 10:7
I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves.
Sermons
A Social Scene in Human LifeD. Thomas, D. D.Ecclesiastes 10:7
The Wholesome Influence of Wisdom and the Baneful Effects of FollyJ. Willcock Ecclesiastes 10:2-15
Social ParadoxesD. Thomas Ecclesiastes 10:5-7














The evil which the writer of Ecclesiastes here condemns is one of which the history of every nation affords many examples. Princes' favorites have too often been chosen from amongst the worthless herd who seek their own elevation and advantage by ministering to the vices of the young, profligate, and powerful. How many a reign has been marred by this mischief! How many a king has been misled, to his own and his country's harm, by the folly of choosing companions and counselors not for wisdom, sincerity, and patriotism, but because those chosen are of congenial tastes and habits, or are flatterers and parasites!

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
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Foot, Horseback, Horses, Princes, Riding, Rulers, Servants, Slaves, Walking
Outline
1. observations of wisdom and folly
7. 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
     8328   quietness
     8458   peacemakers

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
'... Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.'--ECCLES. x. 8. What is meant here is, probably, not such a hedge as we are accustomed to see, but a dry-stone wall, or, perhaps, an earthen embankment, in the crevices of which might lurk a snake to sting the careless hand. The connection and purpose of the text are somewhat obscure. It is one of a string of proverb-like sayings which all seem to be illustrations of the one thought that every kind of work has its own appropriate and peculiar
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

"For they that are after the Flesh do Mind,"
Rom. viii. s 5, 6.--"For they that are after the flesh do mind," &c. "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." There are many differences among men in this world, that, as to outward appearance, are great and wide, and indeed they are so eagerly pursued, and seriously minded by men, as if they were great and momentous. You see what a strife and contention there is among men, how to be extracted out of the dregs of the multitude, and set a little higher
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

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
In this my relation of the merciful working of God upon my soul, it will not be amiss, if in the first place, I do in a few words give you a hint of my pedigree, and manner of bringing up; that thereby the goodness and bounty of God towards me, may be the more advanced and magnified before the sons of men. 2. For my descent then, it was, as is well known by many, of a low and inconsiderable generation; my father's house being of that rank that is meanest, and most despised of all the families in
John Bunyan—Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Ecclesiastes
It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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