Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in a low place.
Parallel Translations
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Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in a low place.
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Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
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Folly is set on great heights, and the rich sit in low place.
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 10:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 28:12 When the righteous triumph, there is great glory; but when the wicked rise, men hide themselves.
- Proverbs 29:2 When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan.
- Esther 3:1 After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him.
- Psalms 12:8 The wicked walk on every side, when what is vile is exalted among the sons of men.
- Judges 9:14-20 “Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘Come and reign over us.’ “The bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’ “Now therefore, if you have dealt truly and righteously, in that you have made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done to him according to the deserving of his hands (for my father fought for you, risked his life, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian; and you have risen up against my father’s house today and have slain his sons, seventy persons, on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother); if you then have dealt truly and righteously with Jerubbaal and with his house today, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you; but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem and from the house of Millo and devour Abimelech.”
- 1 Kings 12:13-14 The king answered the people roughly, and abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
- Proverbs 28:28 When the wicked rise, men hide themselves; but when they perish, the righteous thrive.
- James 2:3-5 and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool” haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They that are rich in wisdom and virtue.
They that are rich in wisdom and virtue.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 10:6 Folly is set in great dignity, and…
Ecc 10:6 Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
Ver. 6. Folly is set in great dignity.] Sedes prima et vita ima, {a} these suit not. Dignitas in indigno est ornamentum in luto. Royalty itself, without righteousness, is but eminent dishonour. When a fool is set in dignity, it is, saith one, {b} as when a handful of hay is set up to give light, which with smoke and smell offendeth all that are near. When as the worthy sit in low place, it is as when a goodly candle (that on a table would give a comfortable and comely light) is put under a bushel.
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And the rich in low place,] i.e., The wise, as appears by the opposition, who, in true account, are the only rich, {Jas 2:5} "rich in faith," {1Ti 6:18} "rich in good works," {Luk 12:21} rich to Godward, who hath highly honoured and advanced them, though vilipended and underrated by men; digni etiam qui ditentur, worthy they are also to be set in highest places, as being drained from the dregs, and sifted from the brans of the common sort of people. Dignity should wait upon desert, as it did here in England, in King Edward VI’s days, that aureum saeculum, in quo honores melioribus dabantur, as Seneca {c} hath it, that golden age in which honours were bestowed on those that best deserved them. But in case it prove otherwise, as it often doth - the golden bishopric of Carthage fell to the lot of leaden Aurelius, and little Hippo to great St Augustine; Damasus, the scholar, was advanced to the see of Rome when Jerome, his master, ended his days in his cell at Bethlehem - yet virtue is its own competent encouragement, and will rather choose to lie in the dust than to rise by wickedness. Cato said he had rather men should question why he had no statue or monument erected in honour of him, than why he had. The wise historian observed that the statues of Brutus and Cassius, eo praefulgebant quod non visebantur, {d} were the more glorious and illustrious, because they were not brought out with other images in a solemn procession at the funeral of Germanicus. God pleaseth himself, saith Basil, in beholding a hidden pearl in a disrespected body. {e} A rich stone is of no less worth when locked up in a wicker casket, than when it is set in a royal diadem.
{a} Salvian.
{b} Cartwright.
{c} Sen. Epist., 91.
{d} Tacit. Annal.
{e} Abstrusum in despecto corpore margaritum conspicatus.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Folly is set in great dignity; foolish and unworthy…
Folly is set in great dignity; foolish and unworthy persons are frequently advanced by the favour or humour of princes into places of highest trust and dignity, which is a great reproach and mischief to the prince, and a sore calamity to all his people. The rich; wise and worthy men, as is evident, because these are opposed to fools in the former clause; such as are rich in endowments of mind. The ground of the expression may be this, that rich men are capable of all the advantages of men or books for the attainment of wisdom, and therefore are supposed to be wise in some measure.
Sit in low place; neglected and despised, or removed from those high places to which their merits had raised them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Folly is set in great dignity,.... Or "in great…
Folly is set in great dignity,.... Or "in great heights" (q); in high places of honour and truest; even foolish and wicked men; men of poor extraction, of low life, and of mean abilities and capacities; and, which is worse, men vile and vicious, as Doeg the Edomite, Haman the Amalekite, and others;
and the rich sit in low places; men not only of fortune and estates, and above doing mean and little actions, and so more fit for such high places; but men rich in wisdom and knowledge, of large capacities and of great endowments of mind, and so abundantly qualified for posts in the administration of government; and, above all, men rich in grace, fearing God, and hating coveteousness, as rulers ought to be, Exo 18:21; and yet these sometimes are neglected, live in obscurity, who might otherwise be very useful in public life. The Targum interprets this and the following verse of the Israelites in exile and poverty among the Gentiles for their sins; so Jarchi.
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(q) , Sept. "in celsitudinibus amplis", Piscator, Amama, Gejerus; "in sublimitatibus amplis", Cocceius; "in altitudinibus magnis", Rambachius; "in great height", Broughton.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The rich - Wise and worthy men, rich in…
The rich - Wise and worthy men, rich in endowments of mind.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The “evil” of Ecc 10:5 is here specified as…
The “evil” of Ecc 10:5 is here specified as that caprice of a king by which an unworthy favorite of low origin is promoted to successive dignities, while a noble person is degraded or neglected.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Rich. Such were chosen magistrates, Exodus xviii. 21., and…
Rich. Such were chosen magistrates, Exodus xviii. 21., and Proverbs xxviii. 16., and xxx. 21.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain rich--not in mere wealth, but in wisdom, as the…
rich--not in mere wealth, but in wisdom, as the antithesis to "folly" (for "foolish men") shows. So Hebrew, rich, equivalent to "liberal," in a good sense (Isa 32:5). Mordecai and Haman (Est 3:1-2; Est 6:6-11).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 6. Folly — That is, the foolish man.
6. Folly — That is, the foolish man.
Great dignity — Hebrew, Many high stations. The Roman emperors and the kings of France, as well as eastern rulers, have promoted worthless favourites to the most important offices, leaving the wise and good in obscurity.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. Folly is set in great dignity, and the…
6. Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place] For “great dignity,” literally great heights. The “rich” here are those who by birth and station are looked on as the natural rulers of mankind. Such men, like the ἀρχαιόπλουτοι (the “men of ancestral wealth”) of Greek political writers, (Aristot. Rhet. ii. 9; Aesch. Agam. 1043) a wise ruler associates with himself as counsellors. The tyrant, on the other hand, like Louis XI. exalts the baseborn to the place of honour, or like Edward II. or James I. of England, or Henry III. of France, lavishes dignities on his minions. So the writer may have seen Agathoclea and her brother; all-powerful, as mistress and favourite, in the court of Ptolemy Philopator (Justin xxx. 1).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich…
Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. This is an instance of the error intimated in the preceding verse. A tyrannical ruler exalts incompetent persons, unworthy favorites, to "great heights" (ejn oyesi megaloiv, Septuagint), as it is literally puts them into eminent positions. "Folly" is abstract for concrete, "fools." And the rich sit in low place. "The rich" (ushirim) are not simply those who have wealth, however obtained, but men of noble birth; ajrcaioploutoi, as Plumptre appositely notes, persons of ancestral wealth, who from natural position might be looked upon as rulers of men. Such men would seek eminent stations, not from base motives of gain, but from an honorable ambition, and yet they are often slighted by unworthy princes and kept in low estate. (comp. 1Sa_2:7, 1Sa_2:8; Pro_19:10; Ecc_11:5, Ecc_11:6) The experience mentioned in this and the following verses could scarcely have been Solomon"s, though it has been always common enough in the East, where the most startling changes have been made, the lowest persons have been suddenly raised to eminence, mistresses and favorites loaded with dignities, and oppression of the rich has been systematically pursued.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.