Ecclesiastes 10:15

The labour of the foolish wearieth everyone of them,.... The labour of fools, both in speaking and doing, weary those who have any concern with them, and themselves likewise, since all their labour

The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city. The labour of the foolish wearieth.

Fools discover their folly, as by their words, of which he hath hitherto spoken, so also by their actions, and by their endless and fruitless endeavours after things which are too high and hard for them. For he is ignorant of those things which are most easy and most necessary for him, as of the way to the great city whither he is going, or obliged by his business to go, which being a great and beaten road, is known even to children and natural fools.

Ecclesiastes 10:15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.Ver. 15. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them.] While he laboureth in vain, and maketh much ado to little purpose. He meddleth in many things, and so createth himself many crosses; he will needs be full of business, and so must needs be full of trouble, since he wants wit to manage the one and improve the other. "Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way." And again, "Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels," saith God to such as had "wearied him also with their iniquities, and made him to serve with their sins." Yea, even then, when they think they have done him very good service. Thus Paul, before his conversion, persecuted the saints so eagerly, and was so mad upon it, as himself speaketh, that, like a tired wolf, wearied in worrying the flock, he lay panting as it were for breath; and when he could do no more, yet "breathed out threatenings." Thus Bonner would work himself windless almost in buffeting the martyrs, and whipping them with rods, as he did Mr Bartlet Green, Mr Rough, and many others. So the philosophers wearied themselves and their followers in their wild disquisitions after, and discourses of tile chief happiness; which, because it lay not in their walk, therefore ab itinere regio deviantes ad illam metropolim non potuerunt pervenire, saith Cassian; wandering from the King of heaven’ s highway, they could never be able to get to that metropolitan city, called Jehovahshammah, or "the Lord is there." "They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in." Fools many times beat their, wings much, as if they would fly far and high, but with the bustard, they cannot rise above the earth; or if they do, they are soon pulled down again by the devil to feed upon the worst of excrements, as the lapwing doth, though it hath a coronet on the head, and is therefore fifty made a hieroglyphic of infelicity. Acts and Mon. 1684, 1843. A genus of birds (Otis) presenting affinities both to the Cursores and the Grallatores or waders; remarkable for their great size and running powers. The great bustard (Otis tarda) is the largest European bird, and was formerly common in England, though now extinct, or found only as a rare visitant. Pierius.

(15) To go to the city.—Evidently a proverbial expression; “is not able to find his way on a plain road.” (Comp. Isaiah 35:8.)

Verse 15. He knoweth not how to go to the city.] I suppose this to be a proverb: "He knows nothing; he does not know his way to the next village." He may labour; but for want of judgment he wearies himself to no purpose.

15. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them] The word for “labour” as in chap. Ecclesiastes 1:3; Genesis 41:52; Job 3:3, as with our word “travail,” carries with it the connotation of trouble as well as toil. He labours to no result, for he is destitute of common sense. Not to know “the way to the city” is clearly a proverbial phrase for the crassa ignorantia of the most patent facts of experience that lie within all men’s experience. If a man fails to see that, how will he fare in the difficulties which lead him as into the “bye-ways” of life? We are reminded of the saying, attributed, if I remember rightly, to the Emperor Akbar that “None but a fool is lost on a straight road,” or of Shakespeare’s “The ‘why’ is plain as way to parish Church” (As You Like It, ii. 7). he knoweth not how to go to the city] The words probably imply a reminiscence of a childhood not far from Jerusalem as the city of which the proverb spoke. Isaiah’s description of the road to the restored Jerusalem as being such that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8) supplies an interesting parallel. The ingenuity of interpreters has, however, read other meanings into the simple words and “the city” has been taken (1) for the city’s ways and customs, its policy and intrigue which the “fool” does not understand, (2) for the city of God, the new Jerusalem, or some ideal city of the wise, while (3) some, more eccentric than their fellows, have seen in it a hit at the Essenes who, like the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:7), shunned the life of cities and dwelt in the desert country by the Dead Sea. Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child] The gnomic temper which we have seen in Ecclesiastes 10:7 still continues, and passes from the weaknesses of subjects and popular leaders to those of rulers. It is, of course, probable that the writer had a specific instance in his thoughts, but as the Hebrew word for “child” has a wide range including any age from infancy (Exodus 2:6; Judges 13:5) to manhood (Genesis 34:19; 1 Kings 3:7), it is not easy to fix the reference. In Isaiah 3:12 a like word appears to be used of Ahaz. The old school of interpreters saw in it Solomon’s prophetic foresight of the folly of Rehoboam (1 Kings 12:1-11). One commentator (Hitzig) connects it, with some plausibility, with the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes who was but fifteen years of age on his father’s accession to the throne (Justin xxx. 2) and whose government, as described by Justin (“tribunatus, prefecturas et ducatus mulieres ordinabant”) resembled that painted by Isaiah (Ecclesiastes 3:12), the queen mother Agathoclea (see Note on ch. Ecclesiastes 7:26) and her brother being the real rulers.

The sense is: “The fool wearies himself with ineffectual attempts, he has not sufficient knowledge for the transaction of ordinary business.”

15. Labour of the foolish wearieth — Not merely the talk, but the acts of the fool. These all work to his injury.