Ecclesiastes Chapter Ten, Role Reversal

Ecclesiastes 10:4 If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your post; for conciliation pacifies great offenses. [5] There is an evil I have seen under the sun, as an error proceeding from the ruler: [6] Folly is set in great dignity, while the rich sit in a lowly place. [7] I have seen servants on horses, while princes walk on the ground like servants.

Verse 4 is addressing the offense given to someone who lords over you, likely for negligence in duty. The solution, according to the preacher, is to continue at what you have been assigned to do. The key word to this passage is the term, “conciliation.” In the Oxford Dictionary it simply means, “make calm and content.” The KJV uses the word, “yielding” in its place. The Hebrew word is, “marpe,” and means, “lit. a medicine or deliverance, abstract, a cure or placidity.”

The idea is amending the offense by doubling down on what you are rightfully meant to do. You show your repentance by doing your all with your assigned work, smoothing the ire of your superior when he sees your efforts. The idea that the subordinate had done something wrong to begin with is cinched at the end of the verse, where we read, “for conciliation pacifies great offenses.” It is not unlike the dishonest steward in the parable Jesus taught in Luke 16:1-8. The steward was about to lose his job because of his work ethic, Luke 16:1. Motivated by his failure’s consequences, he used shrewd business skills to ingratiate himself to those that were indebted. So much so that the rich man who fired him commended the servant for his shrewd business acumen, Luke 16:8. We who serve have a responsibility to those who took the chance to employ us. We are to work hard and honestly; and if we lose favor we must redouble our efforts to demonstrate that a lapse of ability or a moment of poor judgment was all that it was. We may save our job and reputation by pacifying our employer through hard work to demonstrate our willingness to do what is asked of us.

Ecclesiastes 8:3 is a parallel passage to our current verse. “Do not be hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand for an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him.” We are told not to be hasty to go from the king’s presence in chapter 8. And now we are instructed not to leave our post. Abandoning our duty or job would be a validation of the incrimination that made our employer angry to begin with. In the case of the king, he appoints men he considers faithful and dutiful. A lapse in performance, or moral weakness reveal not only a flaw in his subordinate, but also in the king’s judgment. So, holding fast to our work to demonstrate our willingness to mend the slight not only can amend the wrong but justify our employer’s decision to professionally invest in us.

The next passage is described as both an evil and an error. Furthermore, this error proceeds from the seat of the throne. As verse 4 focused upon the ruler and his subordinates, verse 5 addresses an error brought in by the king. It proceeds, or goes forth, from the king and cascades to the lowest common denominator within the kingdom. What is this evil error?

The opening offense is that folly is set in great dignity, or, “many high places,” RSV. There is a contrast between verse 4 and this passage. The former verse explains about folly perpetuated by those who offended the ruler; whereas verse 6 sees the offense proceeding from the ruler and infecting those he governs. If one reads Kings and Chronicles thoughtfully, you will notice the pattern emerge as rulers change. When a godly king takes the throne, religious reform and moral improvement results. When a godless king takes the throne, the opposite certainly follows his reign. It is a natural progression. The king is the figurehead of the nation, and the people will be constrained or liberated depending upon his government. The end of Judah’s career makes for an excellent case study.

Josiah was the final godly king of Judah, 2 Chronicles 34:1. He was eight years old when he began to reign, and his religious reforms were expansive. At the age of sixteen, he began a personal relationship with Yahweh, 2 Chronicles 34:3. What happened next? “He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the graven and the molten images.” There was more. He broke down altars to Baal. He burned the bones of the priests that served foreign gods. He took it upon himself to restore the temple of God built by Solomon. And when Hilkiah the priest found the Torah and read it in the king’s presence, it only heightened his resolve to reform Judah more and appease the wrath of their offended Lord, to conciliate great offenses, 2 Chronicles 34:31-33.

Conversely, Hezekiah’s son Manasseh became king of Judah two generations prior to Josiah, meaning that Josiah was his grandson. Manasseh was twelve when he began to reign, and his list of accomplishments reads like a complete inversion of what his grandson was endeavoring to do. One might say, and it is true, that Josiah spent his professional career undoing the calamitous damage Manasseh and his son Amon did prior to his rule. What were these offenses that began with the king? He rebuilt the high places Hezekiah (his own father) destroyed. The high places were places of pagan worship where gods other than Yawhweh were sacrificed to, 2 Chronicles 33:3. Doing so, he re-implemented the worship of Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven: a direct reference to astrology. Sinking lower, Manasseh, “burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards,” 2 Chronicles 33:6. Finally, he desecrated the Lord’s temple by putting an idol in it, 2 Chronicles 33:7.

An error proceeding from the ruler can have horrific consequences. Rather than coming from the people and controverted by the ruler, the ruler endorses error and basically sends an invitation for the people to join him. In religious circles this is a potent poison especially. How many William Millers, Joseph Smiths, Ellen Whites, Charles Russells, John Calvins, et al., have begun something they believed was right, but ended up packaging deceptive error as truth and foisting it upon millions of people who accepted and practiced falsehood? All who teach are in danger of this fallacy. That is why, for Christians, cleaving to the word of God and submitting to the Holy Spirit are not optional; it is requisite.

Folly is set in great dignity. What is foolish, pointless, harmful, erroneous, sits in a place of splendor to be admired. Modernity has its share of folly. Darwinian Evolution has all but eroded the notion of special creation from even studious Christians’ minds. Psychology and Psychiatry with its attendant clergy competes with, and sadly often colludes with Christendom to contend with “mental issues” that the Bible alone is apparently incapable of addressing or answering. Gender has become a laughing stock as male and female are joined by a growing list of spontaneously generated alternatives, confusing even their proponents to no end. And those in authority, our leadership in this country, helms the ship that delivers this poison to a society already choking to death on worldly philosophy and materialism.

The rich sit in lowly places. Christians are commanded to be, “rich in good works,” 1 Timothy 6:18. The materially rich are not to trust in uncertain riches, but rather in God, “who gives us richly all things to enjoy,” 1 Timothy 6:17. The saints are to be spiritually rich, sharing one’s wealth with others for the benefit of all. But like the wise woman from the preacher’s lament in Ecclesiastes 9:13-18, these riches are not esteemed. Folly is praised (see Ecclesiastes 8:10), and riches, representing serious and sober acquisition, are spurned. The ensuing result is that the lowly are exalted, while the noble are treated as inferiors. Of such people, Scriptures tells us that, “the world was not worthy,” of having them, Hebrews 11:38. Isaiah writes, “The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil,” Isaiah 57:1. This reversal of fortunes, an error the ruler propagates, vindicates human thinking in believing that the exaltation of folly is good. Those who spurn its embrace are in turn spurned. In short, moral laxity breeds perversity. Those in power must act with the responsibility they are endowed with, to uphold standards as the figurehead of the nation. This does not mean enforcing policies that strip people of individual freedom; it simply means a stand by the rulership to clearly indicate that good is not evil, and vice versa. In a country where actors and musicians seem to wield influence proportionate to or greater than actual politicians, one can see the servant/prince reversal keenly at work. Rewarding the practice of folly will of course yield foolish results.