Ecclesiastes 10:11

Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment,.... See Jeremiah 8:17.

Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better. Without enchantment - if "enchantment" is not used. And a babbler (a babbling calumniator) is no better.

Without enchantment; if not seasonably prevented by the art and care of the charmer; which practice he doth not justify, but only mention by way of resemblance. See on . A babbler, Heb. a master of the tongue; which may be understood, either, 1. Of the detractor or slanderer, who like a serpent bites secretly; who may be so called, because he takes liberty to use his tongue as he lists, without any regard either to the offence of God, or to the injury of others; like them who said, Our lips are our own; who is lord over us? But I do not see either why this phrase should be limited to the detractor, which equally belongs to all abusers of the tongue in any other way; or how this particular vice of detraction comes to be inserted here among things of a quite differing nature. Or, 2. Of an eloquent person, who may well be called a master of the tongue, or of speech, nothing being more usual in the Hebrew, than to call a man master of that which he excels in, or hath a full and free power to use. And this clause is and may be rendered thus, And there is no excellency or profit to the master of the tongue, i.e. the most eloquent person, who doth not understand and in due time use the charmer’ s art, cannot by all his eloquence afterward hinder the biting of the serpent, or mischievous effects of it; and so this agrees with the principal scope of the chapter, which is to show the necessity and usefulness of wisdom, and the mischief of folly.

Ecclesiastes 10:11 Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.Ver. 11. Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment.] It is for want of wisdom that the babbler, or tongue master (as the original hath it), is nothing better than the most poisonous serpent; nay, in some respects, worse; for one serpent stings not another, as backbiters do their best friends. And whereas serpents may be charmed, or their poison kept from the vitals, contra sycophantae morsum non est remedium, as the proverb hath it, there is no help to be had for the biting of a sycophant: his tongue is "full of deadly poison," saith St James. Again, serpents usually hiss and give warning (though the Septuagint here read non in sibilo, the Vulgate, in silentio, in silence and without hissing, for without enchantment), so doth not the slanderer and detractor. He is a silent serpent, and like the dogs of Congo, which bite, but bark not. And therefore, as all men hate a serpent and flee from the sight of it, so will wise men shun the society of a slanderer. And as any one abhors to be like to that old serpent the devil, so let him eschew this evil. Purchas’ s Pilgrim.

(11) This also is a difficult verse. Literally translated it is, If the serpent bite for lack of enchantment, there is no advantage to the master of the tongue. It seems best to follow the LXX. and other interpreters, and take the “master of the tongue” to mean the snake charmer, who possesses the “voice of the charmer” (Psalms 58:5). The whisperings of the snake charmer, so often described by Eastern travellers, are referred to also in Jeremiah 8:17, and in a passage, probably founded on the present text (Sir 12:13), “Who will pity a charmer that is bitten with a serpent?” The mention of the serpent in Ecclesiastes 10:8 seems to have suggested another illustration of the advantage of wisdom in the different effects of snake-charming, as used by the expert or the unskilful. The phrase, “master of the tongue,” seems to have been chosen in order to lead on to the following verses, which speak of the different use of the tongue by the wise man and the fool. Enchantment.—According to the primary meaning “whispering” (2 Samuel 12:19; Isaiah 26:16). No better.—No advantage to. (See Note on Ecclesiastes 1:3.)

Verse 11. The serpent will bite without enchantment] בלא לחש belo lachash, without hissing. As a snake may bite before it hiss, so also will the babbler, talkative person, or calumniator. Without directly speaking evil, he insinuates, by innuendoes, things injurious to the reputation of his neighbour. Gif the eddir bite in silence, noyhing lasse than he hath that privily backbiteth. - Old MS. Bible. "A babbler of his tongue is no better than a serpent that styngeth without hyssynge." - COVERDALE. The moral of this saying is simply this: A calumniator is as dangerous as a poisonous serpent; and from the envenomed tongue of slander and detraction no man is safe. The comparing the serpent, נחש nachash, to a babbler, has something singular in it. I have already supposed that the creature mentioned, Genesis 3:1, was of the genus simia. This has been ridiculed, but not disproved.

11. Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment] Literally, If the serpent will bite without enchantment, i.e. in the absence of skill to charm it. It is hardly necessary to dwell at length on a topic so familiar as the serpent-charming of the East. It will be enough to say that from time immemorial in Egypt, Syria, Persia, India, there have been classes of persons who in some way or other have gained a power over many kinds of snakes, drawing them from their retreats, handling them with impunity, making them follow their footsteps like a tame dog. The power was really or ostensibly connected with certain muttered words or peculiar intonations of the voice. We find the earliest traces of it in the magicians of Pharaoh’s court (Exodus 7:11). So the “deaf adder that cannot be charmed” becomes the type of those whom no appeal to reason or conscience can restrain (Psalms 58:5; Jeremiah 8:17; Sir 12:13). The proverb obviously stands in the same relation to the “breaking down of walls” in Ecclesiastes 10:8, as that of the “blunt axe” did to the “cutting down trees” of Ecclesiastes 10:9. “If a serpent meets you as you go on with your work, if the adder’s poison that is on the lips of the traitor or the slanderer (Psalms 140:3; Romans 3:13) is about to do its deadly work, are you sure that you have the power to charm? If not, you are not likely to escape being bitten.” The apodosis of the sentence interprets the proverb. “If a serpent will bite in the absence of the charmer, there is no profit in a babbler (literally, a lord or master of tongue, see note on ch. Ecclesiastes 5:10), who does not know the secret of the intonation that charms it.” No floods of wind-bag eloquence will-avail in the statesman or the orator if the skill that persuades is wanting.

Rather: “If a serpent without enchantment (i. e., not being enchanted) bites, then there is no advantage to the charmer”: i. e., if the charmer is unwisely slack in exercising his craft, he will be bitten like other people.

11. The serpent will bite — Hebrews, If the serpent bite for lack of enchantment, the charmer has no advantage from his art. Our version strangely neglects the If.