Ecclesiastes 10:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The unbeliever is like someone who misses the most obvious facts about life. If you lived on the land outside the city, your family would make periodic visits to the nearest population centre. As a child, you would accompany your father on these visits, and of course it would be one of your earliest childhood memories. You knew the way from home to the town: everyone knew the way. The city was a most desirable place in ancient times – the opportunity for education and the sophisticated conversation. It was a place where you could buy things not available in the countryside, and so you would go and stock up with what you needed for a few months. Nevertheless, the fool does not know the way. This could have been a proverbial expression about extreme ignorance, but we can imagine a foolish farmer who is in this position. He is unwilling to take advice and ends up doing everything the hard way. In one particular his stupidity is demonstrated: he lives outside the city and needs to visit it to sell his produce, but is ignorant of the way to get there. One might have thought that everyone knew this much, but not the fool. If you never went to town, you could work the land on your smallholding and just about make out by what you produced for yourself, but you could not sell anything to make extra profit. He works hard to produce the goods, but what is the use when he does not know the way to market.