Ecclesiastes 10 Bible study: A little folly

The chapter opens with a picture and a saying: "Dead flies cause the oil of the perfumer to produce an evil odor; so does a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor" (10:1) (tap folly). The verse just before it, the last of chapter 9, has the same shape: "Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good" (9:18). In both, something small is set against much: a little folly, one sinner. Outweigh is yaqar, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "precious, rare, splendid, weighty", and oil is shemen, the word behind perfume in "A good name is better than fine perfume" (7:1). Then the chapter turns to the heart: "A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, but a fool’s heart at his left" (10:2) (tap heart). Here is what almost everyone misses: the next verse has the same word a third time, though the WEB gives it another way. "Yes also when the fool walks by the way, his understanding fails him, and he says to everyone that he is a fool" (10:3). In Hebrew his understanding is libbo, his heart, and fails is chaser, the word of "he lacks nothing" (6:2). Both fools in 10:3 are sakhal (tap fool).

סִכְלוּתsikhlutsay sikh-LOOT

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "folly". Strong's: "silliness". "so does a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor" (10:1), and "The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness" (10:13): folly and foolishness are both sikhlut. The Hebrew Bible has the word only in Ecclesiastes: six times spelled as here (2:3, 2:12, 2:13, 7:25, 10:1, 10:13), these two the last, and once, in 1:17, with a different first letter. Strong's gives it as "from 5528", the verb sakhal, be foolish, and gives the same for sakhal, fool, in 10:3 (tap fool), and for sekhel, the Folly of 10:6, a word the Hebrew Bible has only there.