Ecclesiastes 10:16-20 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child,
and your princes feast in the morning!
17 Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility,
and your princes feast at the proper time,
for strength, and not for drunkenness!
18 Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.
19 Bread is made for laughter,
and wine gladdens life,
and money answers everything.
20 Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
or some winged creature tell the matter.
INTRODUCTION
One of my favorite professors would begin each course he taught by making the provocative claim that “This is the most important course you will take as a student here.” He did so to get our attention as he introduced the nature and significance of the course.
The first class I had with him was one on modern political philosophy. When pressed to defend his claim in this class, he said that mere political philosophy is simply an attempt to discern the best way to organize a society for the maximum benefit of its citizens. We’re all here, he reasoned, and we all want to get the most out of life, so what more important question is there than how to do so.
That sounds a bit like Ecclesiastes, doesn’t it? Maybe even more than it initially seems.
Like the Preacher in this passage, the moderns were not primarily concerned with ultimate truths. They were not seeking to govern based on divine decree or even natural law. Many of them were simply trying to figure out what worked best. To do so, they considered many of the same things as the Preacher and with much the same (under the sun) perspective as the Preacher.
In that way, it’s not hard to understand why some of them came to the same sorts of conclusions as the Preacher concerning the way ordinary people ought to relate to their king and him to them.
The big idea of this passage, like the big idea of a good deal of modern political philosophy I learned from Dr. Leibowitz, is that wisdom is needed to rule and be ruled under the sun. The main takeaways are to learn that wisdom and to look to God as the one true King.
THE PREACHER’S PROVERBS CONCERNING KINGS
Again, the main banner over this small handful of proverbs is wisdom concerning kings and how their people should think about and relate to them.
In a very simplistic way, the outline of these five verses is simply this: No, yes, no, yes, no. Or, bad, good, bad, good, bad. In other words, the Preacher begins with some things that we should try to avoid in our rulers, he moves to naming some things that we should seek in them, and then alternates back and forth through one and a half more cycles.
That structure seems intended to help us feel the weight of both the bad and good aspects of kings. And so, rather than simply list and comment on the bad and then list and comment on the good, we’re going to go back and forth with the Preacher; beginning, once again, with some things to avoid if at all possible.
Avoid: Bad Kings Who Are Too Immature and Selfish (16)
The Preacher starts off by naming two things that make for particularly bad rulers. Both are a sign of nearly certain citizen-suffering and both probably need some explaining.
16 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child,
and your princes feast in the morning!
Child-kings and princes who feast before noon. What do those things mean and why are they considered “woes” (cries of grief, calamity, or misery)?
Given the fact that kings in the Preacher’s day were functional sovereigns (their word was absolute law for the land), the last thing anyone would want was an immature or immoral king.
Imagine a person who could outlaw certain colors of clothing or foods just because he felt like it on a given day. Imagine a someone with the absolute power to take from you whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted (including your land, your possessions, your young daughter, or even your wife) on nothing more than an impulse. Imagine a governor who was able to end your life with the wave of his hand; no checks and balances, no chance to appeal, and no penalty for injustice.
For it to be a good thing for someone to have that kind of power, they would need to be exceptionally mature and moral.
Again, then, it doesn’t take a particularly active imagination to think of the pain, suffering, and damage a childish king could do. That’s the heart of the Preacher’s first line in v.16.
16 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child…
One commentator gives a rather humorous example of this from history.
“A notable example from European history is Charles XII, who became the king of Sweden when he was only a teenager. The wild behavior of Charles and his friends included riding on horseback through his grandmother’s apartment, knocking people to the ground in the city streets, and practicing firearms by shooting out the windows of the palace. In response, the leading preachers of Stockholm all agreed to preach from Ecclesiastes 10:16 on the same Sunday, pronouncing woe on a land with a child for a king and princes that feasted in the morning.”
Brad shared a more tragic version of this, one probably more like what the Preacher had in mind.
One of the most egregious examples of a child being given the title of king might be Henry VI of England. In 1422, at a time when England was in control of a significant portion of France, Henry V died of dysentery at the age of 35, and crowned his 9-month-old son, Henry King of England. Henry VI was removed from his mother early and raised by advisors who never conditioned or groomed him to rule, rendering him ill-equipped to manage a very politically charged situation. He remained very child-like even into his adult years. This effectively created a power-vacuum. Because there were powerful families who had a great deal to lose without a proper King to manage English holdings in Europe, in 1455 England descended into a bloody and destructive civil war known as the War of the Roses that lasted 32 years – England had a child for a king. It is a fearful thing for a country to fall under the rule of anyone who lacks the necessary education, training, and wisdom to rule well and what child possesses such things?
It’s not impossible to have a good king who is a child (Josiah, who was only eight years old when he came to power in Judah, comes to mind), but it is very uncommon. For every Josiah, there are probably ten Charles XIIs and Henry VIs. For every happy kingdom with a child-king there are probably ten woeful kingdoms.
At the same time, the Preacher almost certainly had in mind immature rulers as well. We’ve all heard the term “man-child”. Men ruling as kings without the mind or maturity to do so are often as bad, if not worse, than an actual child doing so.
This is true for Kings, and it is true for governments like ours. Functional children in office have done unimaginable damage to our country throughout our history.
This is true for kings and governmental leaders, and it is true for fathers within the home. We are called to lead by example, away from folly and toward maturity and godliness. But woe to the families who are led by men who are steeped in immaturity and folly; who are more interested in leading toward fun than God’s glory; who are more interested in using their authority for selfish pleasure than the blessing of their family; who are functional children in adult bodies.
Men, don’t be like this. Learn from the wisdom of this proverb!
All of that, leads directly to the second line of v.16. Just as it doesn’t take a lot of deep thought to imagine how much pain, suffering, and damage an immature king could do, neither does it to imagine what an immoral king could do—one who is prideful, selfish, vengeful, spiteful, or petty.
16 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child,
and your princes feast in the morning!
What kind of princes feast in the morning? The kind that Isaiah 5:11 talks about, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them!”
They are the kind of princes, the sons of the king, who use their positions of power to serve their fleshly appetites instead of their people. They are drunk from morning to night. Woe to the nation that lacks rulers with the morality to rule well. Literally, millions have been murdered and millions more oppressed by leaders like this.
The poetic proverb of the Preacher is a warning against immature and immoral kings. It is a grievous thing to fall under the rule of either and worse still to fall under both.
And that is a reminder of the fact that God alone is a perfectly wise and good sovereign. He is the one true King. He can do (and does!) whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3). But what pleases God is always what’s best for His people. The frustration and pain we face at the hands of bad rulers is, like most things in Ecclesiastes, an instrument of God’s to point us to Him. Look to Him, therefore, Grace and not any earthly ruler as your true help and protection and provision.
Seek: Good Kings Who Are Noble, Appropriate, and Sober (17)
Avoid unwise and immoral kings if you can and seek instead kings who are noble, appropriate, and sober. That’s the heart of the three lines of v.17.
17 Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility,
and your princes feast at the proper time,
for strength, and not for drunkenness!
When a good family was in power, it was often a blessing for that power to stay in the hands of the good family. When a wise and moral leader trains his son well to lead with wisdom and morality, whole nations are blessed (happy). The biblical phrase, “He followed in the footsteps of his father,” can be a glorious thing indeed when the father is a noble king who hands his crown to a noble prince.
Similarly, when a good family is in power, the sons of the kings know their place and the place of all things before them. They feast at the proper time (in celebration of God’s kindness and blessing) and for the proper reasons (for strength to rule well, not for sinful pleasure).
Woe to those with bad kings, wrote the Preacher, but blessed are those with good kings. Heavy are the lives of those whose kings rule wickedly, but happy are those whose kings rule righteously.
Much of the OT puts these first two proverbs on display for all to see. As men ruled poorly (immaturely and immorally) the nation suffered. I read of this in graphic form recently in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 15:3-4 I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. 4 And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.
But the opposite is true as well. As kings led well (with nobility, appropriateness, and sobriety), the nation was blessed. Even the pagan Queen of Sheba couldn’t miss this of King Solomon’s reign.
1 Kings 10:7-9 Your [King Solomon] wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. 8 Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 9 Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.”
Seek kings, therefore, who are noble, appropriate, and sober-minded.
Avoid: Bad Kings Who Are Lazy and Indolent (18)
We considered v.18 last week in the context of a fool’s work. The further context is a foolish king’s work.
Good rulers are always about the business of blessing their people. Good rulers are working to hold back evil and promote good (Romans 13). Good rulers are defined by making their kingdoms places where God’s will can be lived out in freedom and peace (1 Timothy 2).
Bad rulers on the other hand not only actively undermine their subjects’ well-being (as we saw in v.16), they also passively do so through laziness and neglect.
18 Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.
Perhaps the king isn’t doing anything intended to harm, but it’s just as bad to neglect doing things that are necessary for the survival and thriving of their subjects: building and maintaining roads, maintaining a well-trained and well-equipped police and military, creating areas designed to incentivize buying and selling goods, encouraging marriage, procreation, and good education, promoting genuine good and fear of the Lord, etc.
When those things are neglected, societies crumble as much as (even if not as quickly as) societies that are actively harmed by their rulers. Good Kings, rulers, dads, or anyone entrusted by God with leading, are never to be passive, but always active in doing good.
In a society like ours, then, when we vote, we need to be thinking in terms of what the people on the ballot stand for, and also what they have accomplished. It’s one thing to talk about doing good things. It’s another thing altogether to possess the wisdom, hard work, discipline, skill, and perseverance to accomplish good things.
Similarly, ladies, when you are looking for a husband, look for a man who has a crystal-clear sense of good and demonstrates consistent initiative at doing it. Look for a man who is a hard worker. Look for a man who is driven in a godly direction. Look for a man who already takes good care of all the things under his care.
Men, in every area that leadership has been entrusted to you by God, know God’s will for you and take initiative in seeing it done in the world. Do not be passive. Do not abdicate learning or fulfilling your God-given roles. Reject or repent of laziness or neglect.
Avoid bad kings (and leaders) who are lazy and indolent.
Seek: Good Kings Who Use things Properly (19)
A fourth word for rulers and ruled, for leaders and led (similar to that of v.17): Everything in its proper place, at its proper time, and for its proper purpose.
19 Bread is made for laughter,
and wine gladdens life,
and money answers everything.
Everything that has been made, has been made by God for a good purpose. Only inside that purpose can things be properly ordered, beneficial, and honoring to God. And outside of its God-given purpose things are always disordered, harmful, and in rebellion against God.
A wise pastor once asked a man struggling with lust, “Do you make fires in your living room?” If his answer is “Yes, right in the middle of the floor,” he’s in big trouble and will likely burn his whole house down. If, on the other hand, his answer is “Yes, in my fireplace,” he’ll know a special kind of warmth and appeal. Same fire, big difference in location and result.
The same thing is true for bread, wine, and money. Each are part of God’s design for particular purposes, and particular times. The Preacher names proper uses of each and in that, he expands a bit on the appropriate use of things from v.17.
One of God’s intentions for giving us bread is that it would go with laughter. In this way, bread is likely a symbol of a feast or banquet. As we saw, bad kings are always and only feasting and laughing; morning to night. Good kings, again, aren’t marked by feastlessness or asceticism or stoicism, but by proper celebrations at proper times. Bread and other good foods (and drinks, as we’re about to see) are a part of that in proper proportion.
One of God’s intentions for giving wine is that it would enhance gladness. Wine, like bread, is tied to celebrations. Wine, like bread, is given to us by God for certain, limited reasons and within them it is a blessing. Outside its proper purpose, however, it will burn a man’s whole life down—hence, the myriad biblical warnings against drunkenness.
And two of God’s intentions for money are that it would reveal our treasure and provide for good. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. Money is often used to indulge sinful and worldly pleasures. But money, according to God’s design, has proper uses as well.
Money answers everything, then, in two important senses. First, it answers every question about what is most important to us. It really is that simple, Grace. If I ask you to tell me what you love the most, your credit card bill will answer that question with a kind of honesty that your words might not. Money is nothing more than the means to acquire our heart’s desires. The issue is never the money, therefore. The issue is always the desire of the heart, which money merely reveals.
Second, money answers everything in that it is a God-appointed means of providing for every earthly need. It is a means of worship—cheerfully giving our first fruits for kingdom use. It is a means of acquiring the food, shelter, and clothing we need to carry out the Great Commandments and Commission. It is a means of serving others—sacrificially giving to provide them whatever they lack. And it is a means of God’s blessing us—through it, providing the opportunity to feast with bread and wine and milk and honey.
Good kings, good presidents and governors, and good dads know and submit entirely to God’s design for bread, wine, and money. They do not use them for their own purposes, in their own ways, or at their own times. They know that God’s ways always provide the straightest path to the greatest good and they do not veer off that path.
Grace, seek, therefore, good leaders who use all things properly. Pray for them according to God’s command (1 Timothy 2:1-2). And if the Lord grants you a position of leadership, seek to be a good leader who uses all things properly—for the glory of God and the absolute best for those you’re called to lead.
Avoid: Thinking or Speaking Bad about Kings (20)
Finally, under the sun wisdom calls us to avoid speaking or even thinking curses upon our rulers. Look at v.20.
20 Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
or some winged creature tell the matter.
For us, as Christians, there needs to be two important tracks running here. First, there is, as the Preacher primarily means, tremendous (under the sun) wisdom in keeping your mind guarded and your mouth shut when it comes to criticizing someone who could put you to death at will. Treasonous thoughts have always had a way of getting to the ears of those in power—even before cell phones recording everything and the internet to publish everything instantly throughout the whole world (some “bird of the air” sounds like Twitter).
Again, there is wisdom in this. Be careful about what you say. And if God’s Word necessitates saying something disparaging about those in authority (which it certainly does at times), make sure you’re willing to pay the cost for it.
On the other hand, where and whenever God puts us in a position of leadership, let us hold that office very differently. Let us be patient, humble, and just. Let us lead boldly, but listen carefully when those in our charge have concerns.
The second track that ought to be continually running in us as we consider the leadership over us comes from above the sun wisdom. God’s Word teaches that we ought to be careful of cursing the king because it is a fearful thing to speak poorly of God’s appointed. As we saw at the beginning of chapter 10, and as we learn from the Apostle Paul, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment” (Romans 13:1-2).
There is a way in which Christians will be distinctly honoring and obedient to our authorities. There is a distinct way in which Christians will speak well of our authorities whenever we can. For, even bad authorities are “from God” and “have been instituted by God.” There is judgment from God, therefore, for all who improperly resist the authorities “God has appointed.”
Grace, let us fear God and honor the emperor (1 Peter 2:17). Let us honor our parents. Let us speak well of and submit joyfully to our elders. Let us use our words (as we saw last week) to build up and give grace to all, and especially those with God-delegated authority over us. Let us be quick to listen and slow to speak. Let us look toward our leaders as God has called us to and avoid thinking and speaking curses concerning them in every way possible. Let us let them lead with joy and not with groaning for that is of no advantage to us. Let us pray for them continually, asking for the fear of the Lord to be upon them and the righteousness, courage, and beneficence of God to be in them always.
CONCLUSION
The big idea of this passage is that wisdom is needed to rule and be ruled under the sun. The main takeaways are to learn that wisdom and to look to God as the one true King.
In that, Grace, as is often the case, God flips everything upside down in His kingdom. Instead of a woe, the greatest news of all time is that the king of Kings came as a baby to bring an unending and infinitely joyful feast. The Son of God is the feast! and the strength! and the all-consuming satisfaction! Jesus never rests making intercession for us and He never neglects good. He is the bread of life and the joy of the Lord. His blood is the living wine and He is the greatest treasure. Though we cursed the King, He became the curse on our behalf and we have become the ones to carry that good news and to tell of that matter.
All the rulers of heaven and earth belong to Him. Trusting in that with all we have is the beginning of wisdom and life and joy. It is the key to living under whatever under the sun authority God assigns to us. And it is our true and certain hope of the kingdom to come.
Look to Jesus as the one true King, therefore Grace Church. Learn the wisdom of faithful surrender. Learn to seek Him as King overall and therein learn to honor and obey all that He places over us without fear, even as we pray that they would fear, honor and obey Him.