Ecclesiastes 10:12-14

Words and Works of Wise Men and Fools

10:12 The words of a wise person ¹  win him ²  favor, ³ 

but the words ⁴  of a fool are self-destructive. ⁵ 

10:13 At the beginning his words ⁶  are foolish

and at the end ⁷  his talk ⁸  is wicked madness, ⁹ 

10:14 yet a fool keeps on babbling. ¹⁰ 

No one knows what will happen;

who can tell him what will happen in the future? ¹¹ 

Proverbs 10:19

10:19 When words abound, transgression is inevitable, ¹² 

but the one who restrains ¹³  his words ¹⁴  is wise.

Proverbs 15:2

15:2 The tongue of the wise ¹⁵  treats knowledge correctly, ¹⁶ 

but the mouth of the fool spouts out ¹⁷  folly.

[10:12]  ¹ tn Heb “of a wise man’s mouth.”

[10:12]  ² tn The phrase “win him” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[10:12]  ³ tn Or “are gracious.” The antithetical parallelism suggests that חֵן (khen) does not denote “gracious character” but “[gain] favor” (e.g., Gen 39:21; Exod 3:21; 11:3; 12:36; Prov 3:4, 34; 13:15; 22:1; 28:23; Eccl 9:11); cf. HALOT 332 s.v. חֵן 2; BDB 336 s.v. חֵן 2. The LXX, on the other hand, rendered חֶן with χάρις (caris, “gracious”). The English versions are divided: “are gracious” (KJV, YLT, ASV, NASB, NIV) and “win him favor” (NEB, RSV, NRSV, NAB, MLB, NJPS, Moffatt).

[10:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “lips.”

[10:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “consume him”; or “engulf him.” The verb I בלע (“to swallow”) creates a striking wordplay on the homonymic root II בלע (“to speak eloquently”; HALOT 134-35 s.v בלע). Rather than speaking eloquently (II בלע, “to speak eloquently”), the fool utters words that are self-destructive (I בלע, “to swallow, engulf”).

[10:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “the words of his mouth.”

[10:13]  ⁷ sn The terms “beginning” and “end” form a merism, a figure of speech in which two opposites are contrasted to indicate totality (e.g., Deut 6:7; Ps 139:8; Eccl 3:2-8). The words of a fool are madness from “start to finish.”

[10:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “his mouth.”

[10:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “madness of evil.”

[10:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the fool multiplies words.” This line is best taken as the third line of a tricola encompassing 10:13-14a (NASB, NRSV, NJPS, Moffatt) rather than the first line of a tricola encompassing 10:14 (KJV, NEB, RSV, NAB, ASV, NIV). Several versions capture the sense of this line well: “a fool prates on and on” (Moffatt) and “Yet the fool talks and talks!” (NJPS).

[10:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “after him”; or “after he [dies].”

[10:19]  ¹² tn Heb “does not cease.” It is impossible to avoid sinning in an abundance of words – sooner or later one is bound to say something wrong.

[10:19]  ¹³ tn Or “holds his lips under control.” The verb חָשַׂךְ (khasakh) means “to withhold; to restrain; to hold in check” (BDB 362 s.v.). The related Arabic term is used in reference to placing a piece of wood in the mouth of a goat to prevent it from sucking (HALOT 359 s.v. חשׂךְ).

[10:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “his lips” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NIV “his tongue.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for speech.

[15:2]  ¹⁵ sn The contrast is between the “tongue of the wise” and the “mouth of the fool.” Both expressions are metonymies of cause; the subject matter is what they say. How wise people are can be determined from what they say.

[15:2]  ¹⁶ tn Or “makes knowledge acceptable” (so NASB). The verb תֵּיטִיב (tetiv, Hiphil imperfect of יָטַב [yatav, “to be good”]) can be translated “to make good” or “to treat in a good [or, excellent] way” (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 303). M. Dahood, however, suggests emending the text to תֵּיטִיף (tetif) which is a cognate of נָטַף (nataf, “drip”), and translates “tongues of the sages drip with knowledge” (Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Philology, 32-33). But this change is gratuitous and unnecessary.

[15:2]  ¹⁷ sn The Hiphil verb יַבִּיעַ (yabia’) means “to pour out; to emit; to cause to bubble; to belch forth.” The fool bursts out with reckless utterances (cf. TEV “spout nonsense”).