Ecclesiastes 10:4 - Exposition

If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee . "Spirit" ( ruach ) is here equivalent to "anger," as 8:3 ; Proverbs 29:11 . The idea seems to be that a statesman or councilor gives wise advice to a monarch, which the latter takes in bad part, and shows strong resentment against the person who offered it. Now, when a man knows himself to be in the right, and yet finds his counsel rejected, perhaps with scorn and reproach added, he is naturally prone to feel sore, and to show by some overt act his sense of the ill treatment which he has received. But what says wisdom? Leave not thy place ( makom ); i.e. position, pest, office. Do not hastily resign the situation at court to which you have been appointed. Some, not so suitably, take the expression, "leave thy place," figuratively, as equivalent to "give way to anger, renounce the temper which becomes you, lose your self-possession." But Wright, from the analogous use of matstsale and maamad in Isaiah 22:19 , confirms the interpretation which we have adopted. Compare the advice in Ecclesiastes 8:3 , where, however, the idea is rather of open rebellion than of a resentment which shows itself by withdrawal. Origen ('De Princip.,' 3.2) explained "the spirit of the ruler" to be the evil spirit; and Gregory, commenting on this passage, writes ('Moral.,' 3:43), "As though he had said in plain words, 'If thou perceivest the spirit of the tempter to prevail against thee in aught, quit not the lowliness of penitence;' and that it was the abasement of penitence that he called 'our place,' he shows by the words that follow, 'for healing [Vulgate] pacifieth great offences.' For what else is the humility of mourning, save the remedy of sin?" (Oxford transl.). For yielding pacifieth great offenses . Marpe, "yielding," is rendered "healing" by the versions. Thus ἴαμα ; euratio (Vulgate). But this translation is not so suitable as that of Symmachus, σωφροσύνη , "moderation." The word is used in the sense of" gentleness," "meekness," in Proverbs 14:30 ; Proverbs 15:4 ; and the gnome expresses the truth that a calm, conciliating spirit, not prone to take offence, but patient under trying circumstances, obviates great sins. The sins are those of the subject. This quiet resignation saves him from conspiracy, rebellion, treason, etc; into which his untempered resentment might hurry him. We may compare Proverbs 15:1 and Proverbs 25:15 ; and Horace, 'Cam.,' 3. 3, "Justum et tenacem propositi virum," etc.

"The man whose soul is firm and strong,

Bows not to any tyrant's frown,

And on the rabble's clamorous throng

In proud disdain looks coldly down."

(Stanley.)

They who regard the "offenses" as those of the ruler explain them to mean oppression and injustice; but it seems plain from the run of the sentence that the minister, not the monarch, is primarily in the mind of the writer, though, of course, it is quite true that the submission of the former might save the ruler from the commission of some wrong.