Ecclesiastes 7:7

Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad,.... Which is to be understood either passively, when he is oppressed by others, or sees others oppressed; it raises indignation in him, disturbs his mind, and

Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart. Oppression maketh a wise man mad - recurring to the idea, Ecclesiastes 3:16; Ecclesiastes 5:8.

Oppression; either, 1. Active. When a wise man falls into the practice of this sin of oppressing others, he is besotted by it, and by the vast riches which he by his great wit gets by it. Or rather, 2. Passive. When a wise man is oppressed by foolish and wicked men, it makes him fret and rage, and speak or act like a madman; for the wisest men are most sensible of indignities and injuries, whereas fools are stupid, and do not much lay them to heart. A gift, a bribe given to a wise man, destroyeth the heart; deprives him of the use of his understanding, which is oft called the heart, as , or makes him mad, as was said in the former clause. So this verse discovers two ways whereby a wise man may be made mad, by suffering oppression from others, or by receiving bribes to oppress others. And this also is an argument of the vanity of worldly wisdom, that it is so easily corrupted and lost, and so it serves the main design of this book.

Ecclesiastes 7:7 Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.Ver. 7. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad,] viz., Till such time as he hath recollected himself, and summoned the sobriety of his senses before his own judgment - till he hath reasoned himself and prayed himself out of his distemper, as David did in Psalms 73:16-17 Anger is a short madness, fury a frenzy; and who so apprehensive of an injury as the wise man? and who so wise as not sometimes to be overcarried by his passion to his cost? Oppression may express that from the meekest Moses which he may sorely repent, but knows not how to remedy. Anger displays reason in the wisest sometimes, and especially in case of calumny - for the eye and the good name will bear no jests, as the proverb hath it. A man can better bear a thong on the back than a touch on the eye. You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it, but to be belied they cannot brook, nor from revenge contain themselves. How could we digest that calumny (might Erasmus well think then) that he basely casts upon our profession in his epistle to Bilibaldus? Ubicunque regnat Lutherus, ibi literarum est interitus: duo tantum quaerunt, censum, et uxorem: Wheresoever Luther prevails, learning goes down; wealth and wives is all they look after. How ill himself, with all his wisdom, could endure this kind of oppression, appears by his Hyperaspistes, and many other his apologies - for by his playing on both hands, Nec evangelicorum vitavit censuras, nec apud episcopos et monachos gratiam inivit, he was beaten on both sides, which made him little less than mad; and it was but just upon him. David’ s grief was that his enemies traduced and abused him without cause. Job and Jeremiah make the same complaint, and were much troubled. Defamations, they knew well, do usually leave a kind of lower estimation many times, even where they are not believed. Hence Paul’ s apologies and self-commendation, even to suspicion of madness almost. Hence Basil, in an epistle ad Bosphorum Episcop: Quo putas animum meum dolore affecit fama calumniae illius quam mihi offuderunt quidam, non metuentes Iudicem perditurum omnes loquentes mendacium? Tanto videlicet ut prope totam noctem insomnem duxerim: With what grief dost thou think, saith he, did that calumny oppress my mind, which some (not fearing the Judge that shall destroy all them that speak lies) did cast upon me? Even so much that I slept not almost all the night; so had the apprehended sadness possessed the secrets of mine heart. And a gift destroyeth the heart,] i.e., Corrupts it, makes it blind, and so destroys it; as the eagle lights upon the hart’ s horns, flutters dust in his eyes, and so by blinding him brings him to destruction. See Deuteronomy 16:19.

(7) Surely.—Rather, For. This change is required not only by literalness, but by the fact that the verse comes in a series of paragraphs, each commencing with the word “better,” as does the next verse. This verse therefore cannot introduce a new subject, but must be connected with what has gone before. But it is so hard to do this satisfactorily, that Delitzsch conjectures that a line may have dropped out, and that this verse may have begun with “Better: e.g., “Better is a little with righteousness, &c,” as in Proverbs 16:8. If this be thought too strong a remedy, we may explain the connection, that by listening to faithful rebuke rather than to the flattery of fools, a ruler may be checked in a course of oppression or corruption which threatens to undermine his understanding. As we understand the passage, he becomes mad who commits, not who suffers, the oppression.

Verse 7. Oppression maketh a wise man mad] This has been translated with good show of reason, "Surely oppression shall give lustre to a wise man: but a gift corrupteth the heart." The chief difference here is in the word יהולל yeholel, which, from the root הלל halal, signifies to glister, irradiate, as well as to move briskly, to be mad, furious, in a rage; and certainly the former meaning suits this place best. We cannot think that the wise man - he that is truly religious, (for this is its meaning in the language of Solomon,) can be made mad by any kind of oppression; but as he trusts in God, so in patience he possesses his soul.

7. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad] Literally, For oppression … The sequence of thought is obscure and the English rendering is an attempt to evade the difficulty by making what follows the beginning of a new section. One commentator (Delitzsch) cuts the knot by supposing the first half of the verse to have been lost, and supplies it conjecturally from Prov. 37:16 or Proverbs 16:8, “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right,” after which the conjunction “for” comes in natural order. Taking the text as it stands we may yet trace a latent connexion. The ‘song’ and ‘laughter’ of fools, i.e. of evil-doers, like those of Pro 1:10-18; Wis 2:1-20, leads to selfish luxury, and therefore to all forms of unjust gain. The mirth of fools, i.e. of the godless, is vanity, for it issues in oppression and in bribery. It is a question whether the “wise man” who is thus maddened by oppression is the oppressor or the oppressed. The balance seems to turn in favour of the former. The oppressive exercise of power is so demoralising that even the wise man, skilled in state-craft, loses his wisdom. There comes upon him, as the history of crime so often shews, something like a mania of tyrannous cruelty. And the same effect follows on the practice of corruption. It is true of the giver as well as the receiver of a bribe, that he loses his “heart,” i.e. his power of moral discernment.

Rather, oppression (or extortions) maketh a wise man foolish; and a bribe etc. If a wise man, being in a high position, exercises oppression (see Psalms 62:10), or practices extortion, he becomes a fool in so doing.

7. Oppression maketh… mad — The matter of reproof is continued. It is shown how one may be overtaken in a fault and need a wise friend’s monition.