The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 190

Vers. 19-22.-The dangers and defences of a city. I. A OITY's DANGERS. 1. Either e:i;ternal or internal. Either attacking it from without or a1r.1ailing it from within. 2. Either personal or impersonal. A.rising from individuals, a.s e.g. from embattled hosts marching against the city, or from designing traitors proving unfaithful to the city; or proceeding from material causes, as e.g. from such physical conditions and surroundings as endanger the city's safety or the health of its inhabitants. 3. Either temporal or spiritual. Such as threaten its prosperity in trade and commerce, or such as menace its civil order, social well-being, and political stability. 4. Either few or many. Either one or two of the above-named perils happening at one time, or all of them together confronting the city. II. A crTY's DRFENCEB. 1. The prowess of its soldiers. The ten mighty men or rulers may he regarded as chiefs or generals (sallith being probably equivalent to the Assyrian salat, which signifies a stadtholder or commander; Schrader, 'Die Keilin- schriften und das Alte Testament,' p. 588), or viewed as civil governors like the Roman decemvirs (see Adam's 'Roman .Antiquities,' p. 130), or perhaps taken simply as persons of wealth and influence, like the ten men of leisure whom the Mishna (' Megillah,' i. 3) declares to have been necessary to constitute a great city with a synagogue. Either way, they may represent the first or outer line of defence to which a city usually resorts iu times of danger, viz. that of physical force, ex:pressed for the most part in armies and garrisons. The Preacher says not that such wall of defence is worthless, but merely that thero are defences better and more efficient than it. And though battalions and bullets, regiments and fleets, constitute not the highest instru- ments of safety to which a city or a nation can trust, yet they have their uses in averting, as well as their dangers in inviting, war (Luke xi. 2L). 2. The wisdom of its rulers. These the wise men arc now supposed to be; and the meaning is that a city's safety depends more upon the mental sagacity of those who guide its affairs than upon the extent and depth of its material resources; that "wise statesmen," for instance, "may do more" for it "than able generals" (Plumptrc), and skilful inv~ntors than herculean labourers (cf. eh. ix. 16, 18); and if more upon the mental sag~c1ty of its governors, much more upon their moral earnestness. The wisdom to which the Preacl>er alludes ill unquestionably that which fears God, keeps his COJllmandments, 011, VII, 1-20.] ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PRE.A.CHER. 171