NOTES for Ecc 10:1-20

The whole of chapter 10 of Ecclesiastes is devoted to reflections on what wisdom is and how much better it is than folly. Ecclesiastes' central thought is expressed in the chapter's first verse: ‘Dead flies spoil... the perfumer's ointment.’ Wisdom, like life itself, appears to Ecclesiastes to be a very fragile thing. He speaks of this in the last verse of chapter 9: ‘Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.’ In chapter 10, Ecclesiastes likens wisdom to goodness and life, and folly to evil and death. It is easy to spoil wisdom with a small dose of folly, but very hard to overcome folly's consequences. In the same way, a small dose of evil can easily destroy life, while overcoming death is impossible.

Among Ecclesiastes' counsels, his words about meekness stand out; he sees it too as an expression of wisdom. ‘Meekness covers even great offences,’ says the Russian Synodal translation, rather awkwardly here. The modern translation offers the interpretation, ‘One who controls himself will be forgiven much.’ The ancient translations, however—the Septuagint and, following it here, the Vulgate and the Slavonic translation—say, ‘For healing (curatio) will appease great sins.’ This concerns meekness as a quality of spiritual health, and so, on Ecclesiastes' lips, the concept is synonymous with wisdom and life. Thus we see here an Old Testament anticipation of Christ's words, ‘Blessed are the meek...’