properly · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
knoweth
יָדַ֖עya.Da'
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
go
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
city
עִֽיר'Ir
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away f…
Jeremiah 50:4-5 In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weepi…
Psalms 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
Psalms 107:7 And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
Ecclesiastes 10:3 Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.
Isaiah 35:8-10 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be fo…
Ecclesiastes 10:10 If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.
Isaiah 44:12-17 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 10:12-15
Solomon, having shown the benefit of wisdom, and of what great advantage it is to us in the management of our affairs, here shows the mischief of folly and how it exposes men, which perhaps comes in as a reflection upon those rulers who set folly in great dignity.
I. Fools talk a great deal to no purpose, and they show their folly as much by the multitude, impertinence, and mischievousness of their words, as by any thing; whereas the words of a wise man's mouth are gracious, are grace, manifest grace in his heart and minister grace to the hearers, are good, and such as become him, and do good to all about him, the lips of a fool not only expose him to reproach and make him ridiculous, but wi…
labour . . . wearieth-- (Isa 55:2; Hab 2:13).
knoweth not how to go to the city--proverb for ignorance of the most ordinary matters (Ecc 10:3); spiritually, the heavenly city (Psa 107:7; Mat 7:13-14). MAURER connects Ecc 10:15 with the following verses. The labor (vexation) caused by the foolish (injurious princes, Ecc 10:4-7) harasses him who "knows not how to go to the city," to ingratiate himself with them there. English Version is simpler.
John Gill on Ecclesiastes 10:15
The labour of the foolish wearieth everyone of them,.... The labour of fools, both in speaking and doing, weary those who have any concern with them, and themselves likewise, since all their labour is vain and fruitless;
because he knoweth not how to go to the city; to any city, the road to which is usually broad, and plain and easy to be found, and yet cannot be found by the foolish man; showing, that he that talks of abstruse things, things too high and wonderful for him, which he affects to know, must needs be a stranger to them, since things the most easy to be understood he is ignorant of, and wearies himself to find; or he does not know how to behave himself in a city, among citizens,…
By "town" he does not mean a place but the deed according to the law. The fool does "not even know the way to town." But the one who says, "Even if we live on earth, our citizenship is in heaven," "knows the way to the town" in which he is a true citizen. And further: "As we have heard, so we have received in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God."
It is we, who make rough with the nasty and hard stones of our desires the right and smooth paths of the Lord; who most foolishly forsake the royal road made stony with the flints of apostles and prophets, and trodden down by the footsteps of all the saints and of the Lord Himself, and seek trackless and thorny places, and, blinded by the allurements of present delights, tear our way with torn legs and our wedding garment rent, through dark paths, overrun with the briars of sins, so as not only to be pierced by the sharp thorns of the brambles but actually laid low by the bites of deadly serpents and scorpions lurking there. For "there are thorns and thistles in wrong ways, but he that feareth the Lord shall keep himself from them." And thus wandering from the king's highway, they can never arrive at that metropolis, whither our course should ever be directed without swerving. And this also Ecclesiastes has pretty significantly expressed saying: "The labour of fools wearies those who know not how to go to the city;" viz., that "heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all."
"The toil of fools exhausts them, as one who does not know the way to town. "Join these lines with the verse above; either to those verses that speak in general about fools, who know not God, or in particular to that one which argues about heretics. Read in Plato for example: unravel the tricks of Aristotle, read Zeno and Carneas more diligently, and you will prove to be true what is written here: the toil of fools exhausts them. For they seek the truth in fact with all their enthusiasm, but since they have no leader or anyone to lead the way on their journey, they are led by their human instincts to think that they can understand wisdom, and thus they do not arrive at the town; the Psalm speaks of this too: "Lord, you will scatter their image in your town" [Ps. 72, 20.]. For the Lord will scatter in the town all shadows and strange appearances or characters, in which they clothe themselves in their many doctrines. In another place the Psalm says of this: "the force of a river causes the city of God to rejoice" [Ps. 45, 5.]. And in the Gospel: "a town built on a mountain cannot be hidden" [Matth. 5, 14.]. And in Isaiah: "I am a strong city, a city which is attacked" [Is. 27, 3. (According to the LXX.)]. And all the wise men and heretics of this world are trying to attack this city of truth and wisdom, although it is strong and fortified. And that which I have said about philosophers can also be said of heretics, that they toil in vain, and are exhausted in their enthusiasm for the Scriptures, when they wander in the desert and are not able to find the town. The Psalmist also mentions their madness too, saying, "they wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in." [Ps. 107, 4.]
Dictionary and topics
Fool · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Ecclesiastes 10:15
"The labour of the foolish wearieth him who knoweth not how to go to the city." If we do not seek to explain: labour such as fools have wearies him (the fool), then we have here such a synallage numeri as at Isa 2:8; Hos 4:8, for from the plur. a transition is made to the distributive or individualizing sing. A greater anomaly is the treatment of the noun עמל as fem. (greater even than the same of the noun pithgam, Ecc 8:11, which admitted of attractional explanation, and, besides, in a foreign word was not strange). Kimchi, Michlol 10a, supposes that עמל is thought of in the sense of עמל יגיעת; impossible, for one does not use such an expression. Hitzig, and with him Hengst., sees the occas…
The audience for this speech might have been an assembly of government workers. How should one rule when power and wealth invite a lack of accountability?
10:15 Fools are so unaccustomed to work that when they actually try to work, they become exhausted.
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 10:15
The labor of the fools exhausts them. Their foolishness causes them labor,28Fools busy themselves to understand profound and mysterious matters, when they lack comprehension of even simple matters. They are compared to those who wish to enter a city but do not know the way. They stumble and grow weary without achieving their goal. (Ibn Ezra) which wearies them, because they did not learn the ways of the approaches to the city, and he becomes weary by entering by way of pits and marshes, and he is wearied by his feet sinking into the mire; i.e., the laziness of those who abandon the Torah causes them wearying labor in Gehinnom.
For he does not know the way. To the path of truth, to part from…
