Ecclesiastes Chapter Ten, The Seat Of The Heart

Ecclesiastes 10:2 A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, but a fool’s heart at his left. [3] Even when a fool walks along the way, he lacks wisdom, and he shows everyone that he is a fool.

Verse 2 is a reference to strength. The right hand is always a reference to strength in Scripture. Take the name Benjamin, for instance. Jacob named his final son Benjamin, which means in the Hebrew, “Son of the right hand,” or “son of my strength,” Genesis 35:18. Furthermore, when Jesus answered the Sanhedrin as to whether He was the Christ, He told them, “Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven,” Matthew 26:64.

So, what does it mean for a wise man’s heart to be at his right hand, as opposed to the left? His heart is in the seat of strength. He is not governed by the seat of his emotions. Rather, he governs his emotions by the seat of his intellect and will. The intellect provides the building material for what a man believes is true; emotion creates support, what we call conviction, to uphold a man in maintaining this truth despite persecution or tribulation. Mind you, verse 1 reminds us that even the wise and honored may fall to folly, and their weak heart will lead them astray from time to time. But this is not to be the norm in a man whose heart is in his right hand. We are to harness the wild emotion that would lead us on any and every whim that kindled a passionate fire in our bosom, regardless of its origin or outcome. “Listen to your heart,” is some of the most perverse “wisdom” someone can spew out. It is heinous, shallow, harmful, and petty. The heart, unbridled, will seek its pleasures and outside confirmation does nothing good to hinder the rationale for their achievement.

We are reasoning creatures, and the preacher wants us to be masters of our hearts, and not have confidence in the flush of emotion that changes easily from mood to mood. Truth is steadfast. It does not change, and God desires those who embrace it to become unchanging in their understanding, as He is. “For I am the Lord, I do not change,” Malachi 3:6. We serve a God that is, “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning,” James 1:17. We are convinced by reasonable argument and evidence. When the intellect seizes upon truth, emotion undergirds it, so that our passion, rightly channeled, may support our convictions.

The fool whose heart is at his left hand is the opposite of the wise man. He walks, led by impulse and emotion. His rationale is defined by his mood or temperament. He is a creature of instinct, intuition, stimulation and carnal sensation. His intellect is weak; not that such a man is a fool because he is stupid. No, he is a fool because despite his intelligence he does not reign in his emotions and allows them to think for him. His inflamed passion leads to wonderfully awful outcomes and choices. Emotion provides an unstable pillar, and the fool employs intellect in an effort to buttress what cannot be rightly held aloft. He bends the intellect to support his emotional conclusions. Like a husband who sees another woman and chases her, because he has “fallen out of love” with his wife; he will use every self-justification in his arsenal to paint the portrait of a man who is a victim of circumstance. It could not be that he could have resisted and overcome the temptation to commit adultery. He no longer loved the woman he married, that lively “spark” wasn’t there any longer. Who could blame him for wanting to rekindle it with a new love?

Verse 3 continues to consider the fool. The preacher gives the fool the benefit of the doubt, even allowing such a one to walk along the way. The way tends to mean the right path in Scripture. “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Isaiah 30:21. In this instance, keeping the verse in context, it is not God’s way, but rather an orderly path in life according to wisdom. Remember, the preacher is not considering life above the sun, or the reality of God. He is merely looking at daily human life with its possibilities and potential. Giving the fool a free pass into the way, he admits regardless of entry, the fool still lacks wisdom. His conduct and conversation will give him away to everyone, that despite whatever happy chance got him in the right path, he is a fool regardless and he cannot hide his true nature. Proverbs states, “Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool lays open his folly,” Proverbs 13:16.

The verse in Proverbs treats the fool’s conduct almost like an exposed wound. He lays it open for all to see. If you saw a grievously injured man walking toward you, nothing he could say would refute the evidence your senses behold. As the saying goes, “you read him like an open book.” And so he is, wearing his heart on his sleeve, easily understood while quickly misunderstanding because heated emotion leads to rash conclusions. The wise man’s thoughts are a closed book; not because he refuses to share them, but he would rather keep them orderly and distribute them in like fashion. The fool lays it out, bloodying and contaminating everything he touches. We all play the fool sometimes, but we shouldn’t make light of it. The notion of the fool in the preacher’s time was a high insult. It wasn’t mild mockery or chiding. It was almost tantamount to a death sentence to its bearer. That is why we read, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him,” Proverbs 22:15. The corrective rod is seen as evil today, but letting a foolish child grow into a foolish adult is seen as loving and nurturing. How backward and evil our collective thinking has become! But Scripture still stands as the litmus test of what is wise. And the fool, even though he might stagger into the way, will not deceive any astute observer. And for those who do observe, “And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh,” Jude 22, 23.