Ecclesiastes 10:20

20. Curse not the king Having said in rebuke of the tyrant all that is prudent, admonition of prudence is again given to the subject. It has been remarked that the lack in Hebrew of the little words called particles causes even connected discourse to appear isolated, as if made of separate and distinct propositions. A translation into English or any modern tongue requires the insertion of these. Thus this verse needs to be introduced with Yet, Still, or However. Rich, should be the prince. Reference is here made to the system of espionage which largely prevailed under eastern governments. It was so close and manifold that the figures employed in this verse are not too forcible to express its adroitness and circumstantiality.

As the general subject of discreet behaviour in the trying times produced by bad rulers occupies so large a proportion of this brief book, we may, on dismissing it, again say that its moral weight as against the Solomonic authorship is very serious. The books of Scripture, though written for all time, got their special form and matter from and for some particular time. So much of exhortation to patient endurance under misgovernment could not possibly have been inspired by any thing known to have existed in the golden age of Solomon. But there was hardly a year in the interval between 450 B.C. and 330 B.C. when such wisdom of the serpent and harmlessness of the dove was not wanted in almost every province of the Persian empire.