Ecclesiastes 10:20

Curse not the king; no, not in thy thought,.... Though he is a child, and unskilful in government, gives himself to his passions and pleasures, and neglects the affairs of the kingdom; yet be so far

Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. Thought - literally, consciousness.

Curse not the king. Having spoken of the miscarriages of kings, he now gives a caution to their subjects, that they should not thence take occasion to speak irreverently or contemptuously of them, or wish or design any evil against their persons or government; for though vices may be condemned, wheresoever they are, yet both reverence and obedience are due to magistrates, as they are God’ s vicegerents and ordinances, notwithstanding their vices, as is manifest from , &c.; , &c. In thy thought; in the most secret manner, by giving way to such thoughts or affections; for these will very probably break forth into such words and practices. Curse not the rich; the princes or governors under the king, who are commonly rich; or any other rich men, who can oppress or punish thee by their wealth, as well as kings can do it by their power. In thy bed-chamber, where thy wife or servant may hear thee, and afterwards through folly or passion discover it to thy ruin. A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter; the king will hear of it by unknown and unsuspected hands, as if a bird had chanted to be at the window when thou didst speak the words, and did hear them, and carry the report of it unto the king. It is a proverbial expression, as when we say, Hedges have ears, and, The walls will speak. Hence kings are said to have long ears.

Ecclesiastes 10:20 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.Ver. 20. Curse not the king, no not in thy thought.] Or, In thy conscience; but in this or any other kind, “ Turpe quid acturus, te sine teste time.” - Auson. The present government is ever grievous, and nothing more usual than to grudge against it; but take heed of wishing hurt to rulers (thought is not free), much more of uttering it, though in hugger mugger. Kings have long ears, heavy hands; walls also and hedges have ears. Some may overhear thee, as Mordecai did the two traitors, or thou mayest unwittingly and unwillingly betray thyself, as our gunpowder plotters. That which hath wing, &c.] It was a quill, a piece of a wing, that discovered that hellish plot. Wilful murder and treason will out by one means or other. Those two traitors sent by Mohammed to kill Scanderbeg, falling out between themselves, let fall something that brought all to light and themselves to punishment. The like befell that gentleman of Normandy that confessed to a priest his intent to have killed King Francis. ’Aειτοπαρον, βαπυ - Thucyd. Turkish History, fol. 460. French History.

(20) Thought.—A word of later Hebrew, found only in Daniel and Chronicles. That which hath wings.—Literally, master of wings; and so also Proverbs 1:17. (Comp. “master of the tongue,” Ecclesiastes 10:11.)

Verse 20. Curse not the king] Do not permit thyself even to think evil of the king; lest thy tongue at some time give vent to thy thoughts, and so thou be chargeable with treason. For a bird of the air shall carry the voice] Does he refer here to such fowls as the carrier pigeon, which were often used to carry letters under their wings to a great distance, and bring back answers? The Targum turns it curiously: "Do not speak evil of the king in thy conscience, nor in the secret of thy heart, nor in the most hidden place in thy house, curse not a wise man; for Raziel calls daily from heaven upon Mount Horeb, and his voice goes through the whole world; and Elijah, the great priest, goes, flying through the air like a winged eagle, and publishes the words which are spoken in secret by all the inhabitants of the earth." Civil government is so peculiarly of God, that he will have it supported for the benefit of mankind; and those who attempt to disturb it are generally marked by his strong disapprobation. And though there have been multitudes of treasons hatched in the deepest secrecy; yet, through the providence of God, they have been discovered in the most singular manner. This shows God's care for government.

20. Curse not the king, no not in thy thought] The words paint, as from a painful experience, the all-pervading espionage, which, as in the delatores of the Roman Empire, associates itself naturally with the police of a despotic government. The wise man must recognise that espionage as a fact and gives his counsel accordingly, but it is not the less clear that the counsel itself conveys, in its grave irony, a condemnation of the practice. It may be noted that the addition of “curse not the rich” makes the irony clearer, and takes the maxim out of the hands of those who would read in it the serious condemnation of all independence of thought and speech in face of the “right divine of kings to govern wrong.” For the purposes of the teacher, in the maxims in which the irony of indignation veils itself in the garb of a servile prudence, the rich man and the king stand on the same level. in thy bedchamber] This is, as in 2 Kings 6:12, like the “closet” of Matthew 6:6, proverbial for the extremest retirement. a bird of the air shall carry the voice] The figure is so natural, answering to the “walls have ears” of the Rabbinic, German, English proverbs, that any more special reference scarcely need to be sought for, but it is interesting to note the close parallel presented by the familiar Greek proverb of “the cranes of Ibycos.” For the reader who does not know the story it may be well to tell it. Ibycos was a lyric poet of Rhegium, circ. b.c. 540. He was murdered by robbers near Corinth and, as he died, called on a flock of cranes that chanced to fly over him, to avenge his death. His murderers went with their plunder to Corinth, and mingled with the crowd in the theatre. It chanced that the cranes appeared and hovered over the heads of the spectators, and one of the murderers betrayed himself by the terror-stricken cry “Behold the avengers of Ibycos!” (Suidas Ἴβυκος. Apollon. Sidon in the Anthol. Graec. B. vii. 745, ed. Tauchnitz). Suggestive parallels are also found in Greek comedy. οὐδεὶςοἰδεντὸνθησαυρὸντὸνἐμὸνπλὴνεἴτιςἄρʼ ? ὄρνις.“No one knows of my treasure, save, it may be, a bird.”Aristoph. Birds, 575. ἡκορώνημοὶπάλαιἄνωτιφράζει.“Long since the raven tells me from on high.”Aristoph. Birds, 50. Possibly, however, the words may refer to the employment of carrier pigeons in the police espionage of despots. Their use goes back to a remote antiquity and is at least as old as Anacreon’s “Ode to a pigeon.” The pigeon speaks: Ἐγὼδʼ ? ΑνακρέοντιΔιακονῶτοσαῦτα,ΚαὶνῦνὁρᾶςἐκείνουἘπιστολὰςκομίζω.“Now I render service dueTo Anacreon, Master true,And I bear his billets-doux.”Frequently they were employed to keep up communication between generals, as in the case of Brutus and Hirtius at the battle of Mutina. “What availed it,” says Pliny, in words that coincide almost verbally with the text (Hist. Nat. x. 37), “that nets were stretched across the river while the messenger was cleaving the air” (“per c�lum eunte nuntio”).

20. Curse not the king — Having said in rebuke of the tyrant all that is prudent, admonition of prudence is again given to the subject.