Verse 1. The Bible is not given to teach us philosophy, but religion: not to show us the way to science, but the way to holiness and heaven. Notwithstanding, therefore, the extent and variety of Solomon’s knowledge in botany, in natural history, and other departments of science, we have in preservation none whatever of his discoveries or his speculations on such subjects.—Wardlaw.
The Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear Solomon’s wisdom. Did she come so far upon uncertain reports, and shall not we receive with gladness his instructions, since he is come to us to be our teacher?—Lawson.
Verse 2. The general idea of wisdom is, that it consists in the choice of the best ends, and of the best means for their attainment. This definition admits of application both in a lower and higher department. In the first place it may be applied to the whole conduct of human life,—in all its daily intercourse and ordinary transactions, and amidst all its varying circumstances. . . . To accommodate our conduct to these variations—to suit to all of them the application of the great general principles and precepts of the Divine law, and “to guide our affairs with discretion in them all,” requires “wisdom.” And for enabling us to act our part rightly, creditably, and usefully, from day to day, there is in this book an immense fund of admirable counsel and salutary direction.
And then, secondly, the knowledge of wisdom may be taken in its higher application—to interests of a superior order, to spiritual duties, to all that regards true religion and the salvation of the soul. Wisdom, in this book, is generally understood in this its highest application, as might indeed be expected in a book of instructions from God. How important soever may be the successful and prudential regulation of our temporal affairs, yet in a Divine communication to man, as an immortal creature, we cannot conceive it to be the only, or the principal subject.—Wardlaw.
Verse 3. “To perceive the words of understanding” is a phrase which may be interpreted as meaning the power of justly distinguishing between good and evil counsel—between that which is right in its principle and salutary in its operations, and that which is unsound and pernicious.—Wardlaw.
All through Ecclesiastes and throughout the present book, the more mental aspects of sin are always made prominent—piety is called wisdom. The saints are the wise. The impenitent man is a fool. Nothing could be more natural than that just here there should be the broad assertion that knowledge is piety. Nothing could be more seminal. A new heart comes from a new light. If a man sees, he believes, he loves, he hopes, he serves, he repents, he rejoices; and this as but new forms of the one blessed illumination.—Miller.
Verse 4. There are none that need to be politicians more than they that desire to serve God because they have to deal with the most politic enemies. . . . No gift is worse taken, though never so well bestowed, than this is, where there is no feeling of the want of it. The simple seeth not his defects, the young man thinketh that he seeth great abundance of ability in himself.—Jermin.
The teacher offers to save the young and inexperienced from the slower and more painful process of learning by experience.—Plumptre.
Over the gates of Plato’s school it was written: “Let no one who is not a geometrician enter.” But very different is the inscription over these doors of Solomon: “Let the ignorant, simple, foolish, young, enter.”—Cartwright.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 5, 6.