Ecclesiastes 9:16 Commentary and Bible Study

He draws two conclusions from this instance of deliverance, both of which are included in his quotation: the remarkable superiority of wisdom over strength, and the amazing failure of human beings to appreciate and reward wisdom. If anyone were to ask which would prevail – an army consisting of a superior force, trained to fight, and equipped with better weaponry, or a small city with few inhabitants and unprepared to defend itself – the answer would be obvious. The superior force will win every time; no one in that city will be able to stop the incursion. But this is not what happened on this occasion, and deliverance came from an extremely unlikely quarter. None of the leaders of the city were able to suggest a successful defence tactic, though their lives depended on it. Why not? They lacked wisdom to understand the situation, though in fact there was a solution all the time. The one who came up with the answer was a nobody in the city, and no one would have gone to him for advice. Wisdom lives in unexpected corners of the world, where the great ones do not think to look for it. Indeed, they do not even know that it exists or bother to search for it. If they do not know the answer, then they assume no one does, for surely they are the people and wisdom will die with them. Wisdom can achieve wonders which enable it to prevail over what seems to be insurmountable obstacles. This is an example of the same wisdom that Solomon has been commending to us all along, the wisdom which he had given his heart to search out.And yet, the poor man and his wisdom were forgotten by the people of that city. How did this happen? Solomon says that the poor man’s wisdom was despised and his words not heard, and clearly he does not mean that no one listened to him in the first place, for the city was saved because of his advice. He means that afterwards it was not given the credit it deserved and was forgotten. His few words which were so important at the time were forgotten afterwards when the need had disappeared. Why? Perhaps, partly because he was only a poor man and the leaders of the city did not want to give credit where they had failed to find an answer, and this poor man was not going to make a fuss about the way he was treated. Perhaps because after the danger had gone away, the people in their ingratitude did not bother to acknowledge their debt. They ought to have praised wisdom for what it could do, but they could not be bothered. Perhaps because fools do not recognise wisdom even when it is saving their lives.