Ecclesiastes 10:7

I have seen servants upon horses,.... Which being scarce in Judea, were only rode upon by princes and great personages, or such as were in affluent circumstances; and therefore it was an unusual and

I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. Servants upon horses - the world turned upside down.

Servants; men of a servile condition and disposition, who are altogether unfit for places of dignity. Upon horses; riding upon horses, as a badge of their dignity, as ,9 Jeremiah 17:25 . Princes walking as servants upon the earth, which was the case of his own father, .

Ecclesiastes 10:7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.Ver. 7. I have seen servants upon horses,] i.e., Servile souls, base spirited abjects, slaves to their lusts, homines ad servitutem paratos, as Tiberius said of his Romans, natural slaves born to be so, as the Cappadocians, "brute beasts made and taken to be destroyed." Hi perfricant frontem et digniores se dicunt quam Catonem, qui praetores fierent, as Vatinius did. These set a good face upon it many times, and leap into the saddle of authority, ride on strong and shining palfreys, ride without reins in the prosecution of their ambitious ends, till, unhorsed, with Haman, they that were erst a terror become a scorn. And princes walking as servants upon the earth.] In Persia at this day the difference between the gentleman and the slave is, that the slave never rides, the gentleman never goes on foot; they buy, sell, confer, fight, do all on horseback. When Doeg, Saul’ s herdsman, the Edomite, and Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite, were got on cock horse, there was no ho! with them, but they would needs ride to the devil. When Justinian II was emperor, Stephen the Persian being made Lord High Chamberlain, grew to that height of insolence that he presumed to chastise with rods the emperor’ s own mother, as if she had been some base slave. In the year of grace 1522 the boors of Germany rose up against their rulers, and would lay all level, that servants might ride cheek by joul, as they say, with princes. Sed miserabilis et lamentabilistandem huius stultitice exitus fuit, saith Lavater: But these fools paid dear for their proud attempt; and after a miserable slaughter of many thousands of them, were sent home by the weeping cross, ad beatos rastros, benedictum aratrum, sanctamque stivam, as Bucholcerus phraseth it, to handle again (instead of guns and swords) their blessed rakes, plough staves, and horse whips. Their general, Muncer, was tortured to death, being so mated and amazed that he was not able to repeat his creed, &c. Muscovites are noted to be slaves by nature, destitute of all gifts to rule or govern. - Quint., lib. ix. c. 2. Subita a diabolo dignitate perflati vias publicas mannisterunt. - Jerome. Func. Chron. Lavat. in hunc. loc. Bucholc. Ind. Chron.

(7) Considering that the importation of horses was a new thing in the reign of Solomon, we look on it as a mark of later age that a noble should think himself dishonoured by having to go on foot while his inferiors rode on horseback.

7. I have seen servants upon horses] The general fact of the previous verse is reproduced with more dramatic vividness. To ride upon horses was with the Parthians a special distinction of the nobly born (Justin xli. 3). So Mordecai rides on horseback through the city as one whom the king delighted to honour (Esther 5:8-9). So the Hippeis in the polity of Solon, and the Equites in that of Servius Tullius, took their place as representing the element of aristocratic wealth. So Aristotle notes that the keeping a horse (ἱπποτροφία) was the special distinction of the rich, and therefore that all cities which aimed at military strength were essentially aristocratic (Pol. iv. 23, vi. 7). So in the earlier days of European intercourse with Turkey, Europeans generally were only allowed to ride on asses or mules, a special exception being made for the consuls of the great powers (Maundrell, Journey from Aleppo, p. 492, Bohn’s Edition). Our own proverb “Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride to the devil” is a survival of the same feeling. The reign of Ptolemy Philopator and Epiphanes may have presented many illustrations of what the writer notes.

7. Servants upon horses — More of the same matter. The horse indicates pomp and triumph, as when Mordecai was honoured by Ahasuerus. Riding on horseback through the city, he was announced by the luckless Haman.