Ecclesiastes 10:8-11 He who digs a pit will fall into it,
and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.
9 He who quarries stones is hurt by them,
and he who splits logs is endangered by them.
10 If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge,
he must use more strength,
but wisdom helps one to succeed.
11 If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
there is no advantage to the charmer.
INTRODUCTION
In the way of bringing you up to speed (if you’re just joining us) or reminding you of where we’ve been (if you’ve been with us through our time in this book), there are probably three main things to keep in mind regarding Ecclesiastes as a whole.
- It is a divinely inspired, thorough examination of “life under the sun” by the Preacher (anonymous, but in the voice of King Solomon). With God’s help, more than anyone else ever has, he considered the way things work in this world; as seen with ordinary senses and understood through ordinary reason.
- The Preacher did so with a strong sense of God as sovereign over all the affairs of the world, but with a narrow sense of how that works. He unflinchingly believed that God is real and in charge, but lacked clarity on what that meant exactly.
- Combining those two things (careful observation and belief in divine sovereignty) led to three main conclusions (all of which are interconnected):
- Nothing in this world can truly satisfy.
- All is vanity (mystery, enigma, ultimately unpredictable). It’s impossible to make sense of much of what we experience and there is nothing in the world that always works in the same way.
- Nevertheless, careful observation reveals that there are certain ways to make more satisfaction more likely. Wise people see this and act accordingly. Fools miss it and, therefore, act contrarily and destructively. Sharing those ways is largely the point of the Preacher’s proverbs, including our passage for this morning.
- Nothing in this world can truly satisfy.
When we read Ecclesiastes in light of the whole counsel of God, though, we see that its main contribution is its unmatched ability to reveal our need for a higher wisdom and deeper satisfaction than can be found through ordinary, earthly means. To read Ecclesiastes as we ought, therefore, is to feel frustrated at the limits of mankind—at our inability to understand or gain lasting joy—and therein to feel compelled to look elsewhere for those things. It is out of that realization that C.S. Lewis’ famous quote was born, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy [as was the case with the Preacher], the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world [as is revealed in Jesus Christ].”
With all of that in mind, the big idea of this passage is that folly (acting contrary to the way the world really is) leads to all kinds of problems in our ordinary lives. In many ways, the folly of fools creates the problems they face. And the main takeaway is to act in wisdom—wisdom that comes from careful observation of the world, from listening carefully to others, and ultimately from the supernaturally revealed Word of God.
THE PREACHER’S PROVERBS CONCERNING FOLLY
Again, if I were to summarize the Preacher’s message from these verses in the least number of words possible, it would be something like this: Folly causes trouble.
In order to drive that point deep inside his readers, the Preacher determined to use the literary tool of poetry. And as is often the case, it is the imagery of the poetry that allows it to do so.
Consistent with what I shared last week (the third point from the TLI curriculum on biblical poetry), one commentator notes of our passage, “When the Bible uses images like this, we need to slow down to understand them, puzzling over them like riddles instead of skimming over them like stories” (Ryken, PTW, 238).
The first big riddle to puzzle over surrounding the images of these four verses is whether they (1) continue to address folly and wisdom or if the Preacher (2) has shifted gears to address the simple fact that bad things happen in this world (to the wise and foolish alike).
The second possibility is certainly true—bad things do happen to everyone, no matter how we order our lives. In that way, sometimes even the most careful pit-diggers will fall into their pits and wall-breakers will get bitten by something hiding in the wall. Sometimes, no matter how OSHA compliant a quarryman or lumberjack is, a stone/tree will fall on them. And sometimes, well-kept axes get dull and snakes have minds of their own.
If that’s the right interpretation, the imagery helps us feel the deep frustration of the unpredictability of life—something the Preacher certainly lamented and something we’ve all certainly deeply felt.
In this regard, I remember my dad telling me about how he thought his career path was all set as a supervisor for a steel castings company that had been around for generations, a company his dad worked at and retired from. And then the Japanese discovered how to manufacture steel castings with far greater precision and at significantly less cost. The factory that he worked in and imagined retiring from shut down virtually overnight. Through no folly on his part, my dad found himself without the job he thought he’d have for the rest of his life.
Again, if that’s what the Preacher has in mind, it’s true and important and visceral enough.
However, there are a couple of clues in the passage that suggest the first possibility is the most likely.
The first and main one is the context of vs.8-11. That the passages directly before (10:1-7) and after (10:12-15) are clearly about folly and wisdom suggests that ours is too.
The fact that serpent imagery bookends the passage is another indication that it is not merely about “bad luck.”
And the fact that v.10 speaks directly to wisdom (and indirectly to folly) is another strong indication that our passage is a continuation of the Preacher’s observations on folly/wisdom rather than a new commentary on how bad things happen to everyone.
With that, this morning we’ll see two main “features” of folly: (1) It leads to problems by failing to anticipate highly anticipatable problems and (2) It leads to problems by failing to recognize the importance of timing.
Folly Leads to Problems by Failing to Anticipate (8-9)
The first four lines of the Preacher’s poem give four different images. The images are drawn from four ancient professions. Each highlights a way a fool’s folly might show up as they go about doing their job.
Again, there are four lines in these two verses, each with a separate image, but all are meant to drive home the same basic point: The folly of fools fails to anticipate the anticipatable causes avoidable trouble.
Let’s begin at the beginning. The first line (8a) reads…
8 He who digs a pit will fall into it…
When I was a kid, my dad, uncles, and cousins would spend a week riding 2, 3, and 4 wheelers in the state forests of upper, lower Michigan for a week every summer. As you can imagine, during that time 7-10 guys create a good deal of trash. One of our jobs as kids was to dig a trash pit. Over time, we decided to take the pit-digging assignment as a challenge—to dig the biggest, deepest pit possible. As we got older, our ability to do so grew and so, therefore, did the size of the pit.
I’m sure I’m remembering it as bigger than it was (there were no cell phones or pocket cameras back then to record such a feat), but I’m sure we got to 5’ wide and 10’ deep.
Although I can’t recall anyone actually falling into the pits we dug (even though we tried hard to get one another to fall in), throughout the course of our digging, we took countless piles of dirt in the face, eyes, and mouth. We were hit by one another’s shovels and buckets more times than I can remember. In our haste, the sides of the pit fell in again and again. In other words, our folly and its trouble was everywhere.
In a lot of ways, this is that. Whenever fools are involved in the construction of a thing, there is a high likelihood that the thing itself will reveal the fool’s folly, as the fool fails to anticipate something he should have anticipated.
Non-fools know that if you did a pit, you need to be careful of falling into it. Likewise, non-fools know that the bigger the pit, the more careful you need to be. Knowing these things, anticipating them and the trouble they’d cause, non-fools have that running continually in the back of their minds in order to avoid it.
Fools, on the other hand, are often consumed (as were my cousins and I) with having fun or avoiding working hard or thinking about what’s next. And insodoing, fools make themselves far more likely to fall into the very pit they dig.
In some ways, then, this opening line is an echo of Psalm 7. As I read vs.14-16 listen for the parallels with our passage and the interplay between folly and wickedness.
Psalm 7:14-16 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. 15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. 16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.
That leads to the second line (8b) and the second illustration. Again, the point is the same, even though the image is different.
8 …and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.
In parts of the world where snakes are prevalent, they hide out everywhere—in holes in the ground, in rock piles, and in cracks in walls. Fools go about life as if things aren’t as they are. Of course, anyone might be bitten by a snake, but fools are especially susceptible because they are characterized by being oblivious to their surroundings. While everyone else knows to be on the lookout, fools are perpetually surprised by being snake-bitten while working where snakes live. Fools fail to anticipate things that are highly anticipatable.
Do you know anyone like this? They are always surprised by the hardship that befalls them, they tend to blame other things (or other people) for it, and they can’t understand why they don’t get a lot of sympathy.
What’s more, as I mentioned earlier, serpents are virtually synonymous in the Bible with folly, treachery, and evil. Wherever we find a serpent mentioned, from the Deceiver in the Garden in Genesis to the great dragon of Revelation, it almost always points to something beyond itself; something distracting if not sinister or wicked.
To be clear, if you ever encounter a talking or fire-breathing serpent, wisdom would tell you to avoid it if at all possible and to not do what it says no matter what.
We don’t want to read too much into this here, but we also don’t want to miss it. There is significant interplay between folly and evil. Be careful, Grace, of allowing either into your life or you’re likely to have both and all the trouble that comes with them.
The third line intended to drive the point home—that fools experience problems that come from failing to anticipate things they should—is found at the beginning of v.9. Another image and in it another reminder of the fate of fools.
9 He who quarries stones is hurt by them…
As I tried to slow down and work through this image, it was hard not to think of the quarry we’d pass each time we visited my aunt and uncle in Chicago. Over the years of my childhood, it kept getting bigger and bigger. I can’t even guess how big it was/is—hundreds and hundreds of feet wide and certainly over a hundred feet deep. It was so big that they needed to make substantial roads for the massive machines to get in and out of it with whatever it was that they were extracting.
As a foolish kid, I imagined all kinds of ways to “have fun” in the quarry. Racing the massive excavation vehicles up or down the quarry roads was chief among them. Not far behind that daydream was another of being in charge of the explosives they used to free the materials. I used to do the dumbest things imaginable with the tiniest amount of gunpowder contained in fire crackers. I can’t even imagine how much damage I would have done with the kind of explosive power needed to free the massive rocks of that quarry. It’s impossible to imagine a scenario in which I wouldn’t have been hurt by the stones of the quarry if I’d been able to act on my foolish impulses.
Fools are defined by failing to anticipate the highly anticipatable. And encountering falling rocks while working in a quarry is about as anticipatable as it gets. Wise people are always watching out for them. Fools aren’t and are shocked when they are struck by one.
Finally, the fourth line (9b),
9… and he who splits logs is endangered by them.
Oh boy. I don’t like using myself as an example so much, but it’s hard to overstate the folly of my “youth”. I have such a deep well of examples to draw from in each of these that it’s hard not to—this one especially.
I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve gotten my chainsaw bar stuck in a tree I was trying to fell or the number of times my log piles have fallen over due to bad stacking. I’ve dropped massive trees in exactly the opposite direction I intended. I almost killed another dad and two of our sons by not anticipating something I should have in putting up a lean-to for our firewood. I have pants and boots with holes in them from the chainsaw. I dropped a tree on the road we live on and needed the assistance of our city’s director of public works to warn oncoming traffic. I broke my thumb misusing a log splitter. I took a limb to the face by misusing my pole saw. I could go on and on and on.
The sheer number of ways I’ve been injured by working with trees ought to make anticipating injury by working with trees the most obvious thing in the world for me. And yet, not yet. In all seriousness, “The fool who splits logs is endangered by them” might be the theme song of my life. But again, fools are marked by the trouble that comes from failing to anticipate the anticipatable.
Combining all four lines from both verses, we can see that there is a literal sense in which the proverbs of Ecclesiastes 10 are true (foolish pit-diggers do fall into their own pits, foolish wall-breakers do get bit by snakes, foolish quarrymen do get hurt by the stones they quarry, and foolish wood-splitters are in danger from the wood).
At the same time, vs.8-9 help us to see that there is also a way in which they represent a broader principle: Fools are marked by creating the conditions that cause them harm.
This is the abrasive man who is always surprised that people don’t want to be around him.
This is the neighbor who borrows tools and either brings them back worse off or not at all, and is surprised when his neighbors will no longer lend him their stuff.
This is the teenage girl who lies constantly and then is frustrated when she isn’t believed the time she does tell the truth.
This is the teenage boy who wants all the freedom of manhood without any of the responsibility and is perpetually annoyed that he has neither.
This is the glutton who eats trash for years and is later frustrated by chronic health problems.
This is the church member who neglects meaningful fellowship and ministry and then finds themselves lonely and far from God.
This is the wife who continually disrespects her husband and is surprised that he looks for it in softball leagues or at the gym or in online games or debates.
This is the husband who fails to cherish his wife and is offended when she’s not particularly interested in physical intimacy.
This is the student who puts off studying or paper-writing until the day before the test or due date and blames his computer for acting up and “preventing” a good trade or on-time submission
This is the father who neglects his kids when they are younger and then feels wronged that they neglect him when they are older (Cats in the Cradle).
This is the bully who plays victim when he eventually gets punched in the mouth.
This is the person who maxes out credit cards with entertainment purchases and then starts an unexpectedly unsuccessful GoFundMe campaign for himself when a genuine emergency happens.
In each case, a fool dug a “pit” and fell into it. In each case a fool created the conditions that caused their suffering and was shocked by it. In each case a fool caused problems for himself by failing to anticipate what wisdom would have anticipated.
If this is you or someone you love, life is a lot harder than it needs to be. The world isn’t perfectly predictable, but there are many things that happen frequently enough that wisdom calls us to live in light of them.
Now of course we’ve all done these things on some level, at some point. If we read these first couple of verses as we ought, they are a warning to us, Grace. They are a call to watch out. And they are a charge to help each other see our folly before it’s too late. Let’s walk in wisdom and point others to it as well.
Even more significantly, though, these verses help us to see that we need more help than can be found in this world. Therefore, even more than to under the sun wisdom, let’s point one another to Jesus who came to fill us with true wisdom, to lift us out of the pit we dug for ourselves, to heal us from the serpent’s bite, to lift the rock off of us that we pulled down on us and be the rock we stand on, and to be crucified on a split log on our behalf. He came to restore all that our folly and sin have bent, broken, and destroyed.
Jesus came to meet us in our folly and to be our wisdom. He came to tell us what is to come on earth and in heaven and to lead us on the right path in anticipation of it. Look to Him, Grace. Praise Him.
Folly Leads to Problems by Failing to Recognize the Importance of Timing (10-11)
The final two verses of our passage speak to the trouble brought on by folly as well. Rather than the kind that comes from failing to anticipate the anticipatable, though, these two verses speak to the kind of trouble that comes from failing to recognize the importance of timing. The first focuses on problems that come from waiting too long to act and the second from those that come from acting too soon.
Fools fail to recognize the importance of timing and that causes them problems.
1. Waiting too long causes problems (10).
Again, the first timing issue mentioned by the Preacher is found in v.10. The imagery of this verse is meant to help us feel (and therein avoid) the folly of waiting too long to act.
10 If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge,
he must use more strength,
but wisdom helps one to succeed.
The picture here is that of an old school lumberjack—someone who made a living by dropping trees with an axe. He gets paid by the number and size of the trees he fells. Needing to provide for his family and his hobbies, therefore, he works hard. Stopping for anything seems like a bad idea. He might work through lunch and injury so as to stay ahead of the game.
Additionally, doesn’t want to be bothered by stopping to sharpen his axe. At first, he barely notices that it’s getting harder and harder to cut into the tree. In his youth and strength, he’s able to provide the additional effort required. Over time, however, his axe dulls to the point that he can no longer drop a tree regardless of the force he puts into his strikes. It takes him a good deal of wasted time to fully comprehend what’s happened. What’s more, he’s dulled his axe to the point that instead of requiring just a few quick passes on a whetstone to get back at it, he needs to head back to town to use the grinding wheel. His folly of waiting too long cost far more time and caused far more problems than if he had kept up with the sharpening little by little.
If I’m not really careful, this is a common struggle for me. By wanting to make sure I have my head all the way around a situation before acting on it, I am prone to frustrate others and have good opportunities pass me by.
This is kids having an accident because they don’t want to have to stop playing to go to the bathroom.
This is missing a warranty claim by not considering when it expired or getting stuck with a broken item because you were too distracted to return it within the 30-day window.
This is losing some kind of service (phone, internet, credit card, etc.) by not paying your bill on time.
For all kinds of reasons, fools fail to recognize that by waiting too long to decide on a thing, they are effectively deciding on a thing and that causes as many problems as making overly hasty decisions—which leads to the next and final point.
2. Moving too soon causes problems (11).
As potentially deep and trouble-making as that ditch is, there’s another ditch that can be equally deep and trouble-making on the other side of the road of wisdom. Again, the second ditch that fools are prone to fall in is that of moving too soon.
The image given to us by the Preacher to drive that point home is one of a snake charmer. I’m reading “charmer” synonymously with “trainer”—someone who can get a snake to respond to certain commands.
11 If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
there is no advantage to the charmer.
We’re meant to imagine someone training a snake—most likely for entertainment purposes. I don’t know a lot about snake training, but I imagine that it’s much like training any other animal (only harder?). In that way, it takes a while to condition a snake to properly respond to certain incentives and disincentives.
Hold still and get a mouse. Move and get a whack on the head. Over and over and over.
In addition to getting a snake to do what you want, there’s the need to make sure it will do what you want every time you want it to. And, of course, the more dangerous the animal (like a poisonous snake) and the more vulnerable the audience (like small kids), the more important that second step is.
When a snake is trained, the trainer can make money from showing off his training. He is incentivized, therefore, to train it quickly. Fools pay little attention to this and rush to profit from their work. The result of moving forward too soon is that the snake, not yet fully trained, is far more likely to bite his trainer or his audience. And that, of course, is no small amount of trouble.
This is the fifteen-year-old who, after a single driving lesson is certain they’re ready for a solo, road trip.
This is the person who immediately posts a hot take online.
This is the person who is quick to give advice to others before even hearing the whole story.
In bringing these two verses together we see that fools bring problems upon themselves by failing to recognize the importance of timing and in that they either act too slowly or too quickly.
Therefore, wisdom means not being hasty, but it also means recognizing that we’ll never have all the information we need or all the wisdom it would take to sort through it. God alone possesses those two things. Wisdom, therefore, calls us to be as careful, thoughtful, prayerful, and corporate as the particular decision calls for—no more and no less.
In other words, it should not take us as long to decide what pants to wear golfing as it takes to decide on whether or not to amend our church’s doctrinal statement. It shouldn’t take us as long to choose the restaurant for an informal friend gathering as it does on whether or not to purchase the property to the north of us or add a new entry or plant a new church. It shouldn’t take us as long to decide whether to start with the Magician’s Nephew or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as it should take us to decide on who to marry.
For all kinds of reasons, fools can’t balance the speed of a decision with the importance of a decision and therein bring significant trouble upon themselves (and often others).
CONCLUSION
So what do we do with all of this? What do we do with the fact that fools bring unnecessary trouble upon themselves by failing to anticipate the anticipatable and failing to properly consider the timing of things? How do we respond in faith? How do we respond as God would have us? How do we respond in such a way as to glorify God?
In conclusion, let me quickly name a few practical responses:
- Pray. Ask God to help you to see things as they are. Ask Him to drive out your folly and drive in wisdom.
- Have good friends, surround yourself with older, wiser people, and be at DG each week so your elder can easily get to know you. In other words, put yourself around the people God has designed to have and give wisdom and recognize folly. And within each of those relationships make it as easy as possible for them to point out your folly. Ask them if they see any before they must point it out to you.
- Be brave and kind. Be willing to speak the truth in love. If you see something, say something for the help and protection of others. But do it as you would want it done to you.
- Work hard to get good at your job. Learn the things that should be anticipated. Don’t make excuses. Assume responsibility. Whether at home, raising kids or at work, making money, read the right books, pay attention in training, look to those who have been doing the work longer, be eager for feedback and correction.
- Look to Jesus. He is, once again, true wisdom, wisdom incarnate. And He is, once again, our rescue from and forgiveness of folly and its trouble. Turn to Him in faith, learn and obey His Word, lean on His understanding, trust in His sacrifice for your sins, and rely on His Spirit to empower you.