Ecclesiastes 10:16-20

¹⁶ Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning!

¹⁷ Blessed are you, O land, when your king is the son of nobles, and your princes feast at the proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness!

¹⁸ Because of laziness the building decays, and through idleness of hands the house leaks.

¹⁹ A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry; but money answers everything.

²⁰ Do not curse the king, even in your thought; do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom; for a bird of the air may carry your voice, and a bird in flight may tell the matter.

child (v.16) — young in age or prone to immature behavior.

proper time (v.17) — at a time that doesn’t distract from their duties—as opposed to the behavior of the king in v.16.

Just as a house leaks and rots (v.18) because the owner is too lazy to maintain it, so a kingdom goes to ruin because of an indolent and foolish ruler. — Grace, page 1180.

__________

“Child” (v.16) should read as … “servant,” i.e., “a slave”; that is to say, a slave to vice. “Son of nobles” (v.17) should read as … “a free man”; that is, free from the bondage of vice and folly. The contrast is, at base, between folly and wisdom, not between childhood and nobility. When magistrates “eat in the morning” (v.16) it is, in the East, an evidence of neglect of duty; for that is the time when princes administer justice at the gate of a city. Honest princes (v.17) “eat in due season”; that is, they do not neglect duty in order to indulge appetite. The fabric of government and of the state (v.18), here compared to a neglected house, suffers serious damage when members of the government neglect duty and give themselves over to debauchery and pleasure (v.19). “Money answereth all things” (v.19), i.e., “money responds to all things”: that is, money can procure all the luxuries needed for banquetings and revelings. Verse 19 is, perhaps, to be understood as the drunken reply of the princely revelers to the rebuke contained in verse 18. — Williams, page 447.

answers (v.19) = supplies

It is hard to know exactly what is meant by “money answereth all things.” Some think it refers to money that supplies the aforementioned wine and food. Others think it refers to an unjust ruler who takes bribes. Perhaps it is best to simply take the words at face value—a reflection on the attitude of a person who lives life “under the sun” (without regard to God or eternity) and believes that money truly is the answer to every problem. — Grace, page 1180.

bird (v.20) — Maybe the source of the saying “a little bird told me …”