Ecclesiastes 9:15

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....

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,...

NOW THERE WAS FOUND IN IT A POOR WISE MAN,.... Christ, who is man, though not a mere man, but God as well as man; who was so in purpose, covenant, and promise, before his incarnation, since truly and really so; and "poor", as it was foretold he should be, and who became so for the sake of his church and people, Zechariah 9:9; yet "wise", even as man, being filled with wisdom, in which he increased, and gave such evident proofs of; on whom the spirit of wisdom rested, and in whom the treasures of it were hid, Luke 2:40 1 Thessalonians 2:3; he was found here by God his Father, who exalted one chosen out of the people, and made him Head over the church, who is the firstborn among many brethren,...

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

THERE WAS FOUND. [some one] was found. POOR. unfortunate. Hebrew. _misken._ See note on Proverbs 6:11. POOR WISE. Some codices, with three early printed editions, Aramaean, Septuagint, and Vulgate, read "poor but wise". MAN. Hebrew. _'ish_. App-14....

_and he by his wisdom delivered the city_ The history of the siege of Abel-beth-Maachah in 2 Samuel 20:14-20 presents a suggestive parallel, but there the wisdom that delivered the city was that of a woman....

DISCOURSE: 842 WISDOM NOTIONALLY APPROVED, BUT PRACTICALLY DISREGARDED 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. Now there was found in it a poor wise man: and he by his wisdom delivered the city: yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard_. WHETHER the account here given us was an actual occurrence, or only a parabolic representation, we will not undertake to determine: but certainly the event described may easily be supposed to have taken place, and to have come to the knowledge of Solomon. In fact, a precisely similar event had taken place within the memory of Solomon; the only difference being, that the city was saved by