Ecclesiastes 9:14

There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: A LITTLE CITY ... So Abel, which the wisdom of one woman saved from destruction by Joab, who cast up a bank against it, when the rebel Sheba was in it (). BULWARKS - military works of besiegers. Verse 15. A POOR WISE MAN. As to the temporal advantages of true wisdom, though it often saves others, it receives little reward from the world, which admires none except the rich and great. NO MAN REMEMBERED ... - (.)...

13-18 A man may, by his wisdom, bring to pass that which he could never do by his strength. If God be for us, who can be against us, or stand before us? Solomon observes the power of wisdom, though it may labour under outward disadvantages. How forcible are right words! But wise and good men must often content themselves with the satisfaction of having done good, or, at least, endeavoured to do it, when they cannot do the good they would, nor have the praise they should. How many of the good gifts, both of nature and Providence, does one sinner destroy and make waste! He who destroys his own soul destroys much good. One sinner may draw many into his destroying ways. See who are the friends and enemies of a kingdom or a family, if one saint does much good, and one sinner destroys much good....

Verse 14. THERE WAS _A LITTLE CITY, AND FEW MEN WITHIN IT_] Here is another proof of the vanity of sublunary things; the _ingratitude of men_, and the _little compensation_ that _genuine_ _merit_ receives. The little history mentioned here may have either been a _fact_, or intended as an instructive fable. A _little city_, with _few to defend_ it, being besieged by a _great king_ and a powerful army, was delivered by the _cunning and address on a poor_ _wise man_; and afterwards his _townsmen_ forgot their _obligation to_ _him_. Those who _spiritualize_ this passage, making the _little city_ the CHURCH, the _few men_ the APOSTLES, the _great king_ the DEVIL, and the _poor wise man_ JESUS CHRIST, abuse the text. But the _Targum_ is not less whimsical: "The _little city_ is the human body; _few men in it_, few good affections

A parable probably without foundation in fact. Critics who ascribe this book to a late age offer no better suggestion than that the “little city” may be Athens delivered 480 b.c. from the host of Xerxes through the wisdom of Themistocles, or Dora besieged 218 b.c. by Antiochus the Great. Ecclesiastes 9:16 are comments on the two facts - the deliverance of the city and its forgetfulness of him who delivered it - stated in Ecclesiastes 9:15....

EXPOSITION ECCLESIASTES 9:1 One fate happens to all, and the dead are cut off from all the feelings and interests of life in the upper world. ECCLESIASTES 9:1 This continues the subject treated above, confirming the conclusion arrived at in Ecclesiastes 8:17, viz. that God's government of the world is unfathomable. FOR ALL THIS I CONSIDERED IN MY HEART EVEN TO DECLARE ALL THIS; literally, _for_ _all this laid up in my heart, and all this I have been about _(equivalent to _I sought_)_ to clear up_._ _The reference is both to what has been said and to what is coming. The ki,...

[THERE WAS] A LITTLE CITY, AND FEW MEN WITHIN IT,.... Which some take to be a piece of history, a real matter of fact; that as the city of Abel, when besieged by Joab, was delivered by the counsel of a wise woman, 2 Samuel 20:15; so there was a city, which Solomon had knowledge of, which was delivered from the siege of a powerful king, by the wise counsel of a poor wise man: though others think it is only a fiction, fable, or parable; the moral of which is, that political wisdom, even in a poor mean person, is sometimes very useful and serviceable, though it does not meet with its proper merit. Many of the Jewish writers understand the whole allegorically and figuratively; so the Targum, by "the little city", understands the body of man; by "few men in it", the little righteousness there is in the heart of man; though, according to the Midrash, Jarchi, and Alshech, they are the members o

2. PRAISE OF WISDOM AND PHILOSOPHY, THEFINAL WORD AND THE GREAT CONCLUSION CHAPTER 9:13-18 Before he had declared that wisdom is strength. He comes back to this statement and gives an illustration of it. He is in a calmer mood, but what does his meditation amount to? Only to show that this also is vanity....

ECCLESIASTES 8:16 TO ECCLESIASTES 9:16. LIFE'S RIDDLE BAFFLES THE WISEST QUEST. The parenthesis in Ecclesiastes 8:16_ b_ describes the ceaseless effort of the keen student of life, or perhaps the fate of the toiler who is too tired to sleep; with Ecclesiastes 8:17; cf. Ecclesiastes 7:24; Job 11:6, and from the Christian standpoint Romans 11:33

A LITTLE CITY. For the application of verses: Ecclesiastes 9:14, note the following illustrations: poor (2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 1:2; Philippians 1:6); wise (1 Corinthians 1:24); delivered (1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 1:25); none remembered ...

_there was a little city_ The city has been identified by one commentator (Hitzig) with Dora, which was besieged unsuccessfully by Antiochus the Great in b.c. 218 (Polyb. 9:66). Josephus describes it, in his narrative of its siege by Antiochus Sidetes (_Ant._xiii. 7, § 2), as "a city hard to be taken," but we know nothing of any special incidents corresponding to the allusion in this passage. The term "_great_king" fits in with the hypothesis, as also does the fact that the siege was raised, but that is all. The spiritualising interpretations which have found favour with Jewish and Christian commentators, in which the history represents something like the attack of Satan on the town of Mansoul (as in Bunyan's _Holy War_), must be rejected as altogether arbitrary and fantastic. _and built great bulwarks against it_ The "bulwarks," as in the Old Testament generally, are the out-works of th...