Vers. 5-7. But rulers themselves under the sun are not free from folly, and this shows itself in the disorder that actually proceeds from them. Orders and ranks are not in harmony. Folly is exalted, and those with whom dignities accord are in lowly place. It is another view of the present confusion, and how fully the coming of the Highest showed it out! A stable, a manger, rejection, and the cross, were the portion under the sun of the King of kings. That fact rights everything even now, in one sense, to faith for the path closest to the King must be really necessarily the _highest_, though it be in the sight of man the lowest. Immanuel, the Son of David, walking as a servant up and down the land that was His own--The Lord Jesus, The Son of Man, having less than the foxes or birds of the air, not even where to lay his head,--Christ, the Son of God, wearied with His journey, on the well of Sychar,--this has thrown a glory about the lowly path now, that makes all the grandeur of the great ones of the earth less than nothing. Let the light of His path shine on this scene, and no longer shall we count it an evil under the sun for folly and lawlessness to have the highest place, as men speak, but rather count it greatest honor to be worthy to suffer for His name, for we are still in the kingdom and patience of the Lord Jesus Christ,--not the Kingdom and Glory. That shall come soon. Vers. 8-10. But then, Ecclesiastes continues, is there complete security in the humbler ranks of life? Nay, there is no occupation that has not its accompanying danger. Digging or hedging, quarrying or cleaving wood,--all have their peculiar difficulties. Although there, too, wisdom is still evidently better than brute strength. Vers. 11 to 15 turn to the same theme of comparison of wisdom and folly, only now with regard to the use of the tongue. The most gifted charmer (lit. master of the tongue) is of no worth _after_ the serpent has bitten. The waters that flow commend the spring whence they issue. Grace speaks for the wise: folly, from beginning to end, proclaims the fool; and nowhere is that folly more manifested than in the boastfulness of assertion as to the future. "Predicting words he multiplies, yet man can never know "The thing that shall be; yea, what cometh after who shall tell? "Vain toil of fools! It wearieth him,--this man who knoweth naught "That may befall his going to the city." This seems to be exactly in line with the apostle James: "Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain: ye who know not what shall be on the morrow."