Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ecclesiastes 10:15
The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them The word for "labour" as in chap. Ecclesiastes 1:3; Genesis 41:52; Job 3:3, as with our word "travail," carries with it the connotation of trouble as well as toil. He labours to no result, for he is destitute of common sense. Not to know "the way to the city" is clearly a proverbial phrase for the crassa ignorantiaof the most patent facts of experience that lie within all men's experience. If a man fails to see that, how will he fare in the difficulties which lead him as into the "bye-ways" of life? We are reminded of the saying, attributed, if I remember rightly, to the Emperor Akbar that "None but a fool is lost on a straight road," or of Shakespeare's "The -why" is plain as way to parish Church" (As You Like It, ii. 7).
he knoweth not how to go to the city The words probably imply a reminiscence of a childhood not far from Jerusalem as thecity of which the proverb spoke. Isaiah's description of the road to the restored Jerusalem as being such that "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein" (Isaiah 35:8) supplies an interesting parallel. The ingenuity of interpreters has, however, read other meanings into the simple words and "the city" has been taken (1) for the city's ways and customs, its policy and intrigue which the "fool" does not understand, (2) for the city of God, the new Jerusalem, or some ideal city of the wise, while (3) some, more eccentric than their fellows, have seen in it a hit at the Essenes who, like the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:7), shunned the life of cities and dwelt in the desert country by the Dead Sea.
Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child] The gnomic temper which we have seen in Ecclesiastes 10:7 still continues, and passes from the weaknesses of subjects and popular leaders to those of rulers. It is, of course, probable that the writer had a specific instance in his thoughts, but as the Hebrew word for "child" has a wide range including any age from infancy (Exodus 2:6; Judges 13:5) to manhood (Genesis 34:19; 1 Kings 3:7), it is not easy to fix the reference. In Isaiah 3:12 a like word appears to be used of Ahaz. The old school of interpreters saw in it Solomon's prophetic foresight of the folly of Rehoboam (1 Kings 12:1-11). One commentator (Hitzig) connects it, with some plausibility, with the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes who was but fifteen years of age on his father's accession to the throne (Justin xxx. 2) and whose government, as described by Justin (" tribunatus, prefecturas et ducatus mulieres ordinabant") resembled that painted by Isaiah (Ecclesiastes 3:12), the queen mother Agathoclea (see Note on ch. Ecclesiastes 7:26) and her brother being the real rulers. Grätz, adapting the words to his theory of the date of the book takes the word child as = servant, and refers it to the ignoble origin of Herod the Great.
thy princes eat in the morning The word "eat" is, of course, equivalent to "feast" or "banquet," and the kind of life condemned is the profligate luxury which begins the day with revels, instead of giving the morning hours to "sitting in the gate" and doing justice and judgment. Morning revelling was looked upon naturally as the extreme of profligacy. So St Peter repudiates the charge of drunkenness on the ground that it was but "the third hour of the day" i. e.9 a.m. (Acts 2:15). So Cicero (Philipp. ii. 41) emphasizes the fact "ab horâ tertiâ bibebatur." So Catullus (xlvii. 5)
"Vos convivia lauta sumtuose
De die facitis."
"Ye from daybreak onward make
Your sumptuous feasts and revelry."
So Juvenal (Sat.i. 49) "Exsul ab octavâ Marius bibit" ("In exile Marius from the eighth hour drinks"). So Isaiah (Ecclesiastes 5:11) utters his woe against those that "rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink."