Ecclesiastes 9:14-18

There was a little city, and few men within it.

The little city and the poor wise man

The little city, as first introduced to our notice, is in sore straits. The legion of the foe seem innumerable, while the garrison is reduced to a mere handful. They are fast being brought to extremities, and in a few short hours the unfortunate little city will be, in all human probability, subjected to all the horrors of capture by storm, and will be ultimately razed to the ground. At first sight it may seem rather paradoxical to compare this great world of ours, with its almost innumerable inhabitants, its vast area, its enormous resources, to the little city with few men within it. But do we not, comparatively speaking, take too exalted a view of this little world? For relatively little it is, after all--but an insignificant fraction of God’s great universe. But further, inasmuch as the city spoken of here is represented as being ultimately delivered from its peril, we are hardly justified in applying the figure to humanity at large, for whom indeed deliverance has been provided, but has not by it been accepted. The little city joyfully accepting the benefit of deliverance is a much fitter type of the spiritual Church of Christ, viewed in the foreknowledge of God as a complete whole, redeemed and delivered by the wisdom and love of the poor wise man who has cast in his lot with her: and this is indeed “a little city, and few men within her.” So that the parallelism thus limited is by no means strained or unintelligible. Now, we know nothing of the circumstances to which the little city owed its danger--it may or may not have been its own fault; but we do know the cause of the peril in which the human family has been involved, and that the blame rests entirely with ourselves. Man has rebelled against the sovereign will of God; the defiant cry of humanity through the long dark ages has still been, “We will not have this Man to reign over us.” The result of all has been that we have forced God into the position of a foe, although He is in His heart our best and truest friend. God would be false to His own position in the universe were He to permit rebellion against His authority: He would be practically abdicating His throne, and this He will never do. Do you know what it is to have reached the point of self-despair? have you found yourself surrounded by the mighty bulwarks? have you felt what it is to have no escape? Not until then, believe me, will you be disposed to value the deliverance procured by “the poor wise man.” To him we will now turn our attention. He was but a poor man; but he had a patriot’s heart and a wise man’s head; and, moved doubtless by love for his compatriots, by some extraordinary and unlooked-for effort of wisdom, he delivered the city. How did he do it? Here again we have no information, but it is suggestive to notice that an incident very similar to the one described here actually took place in the time of Solomon’s father, and must in all probability have made so deep an impression on his own mind that it is scarcely possible that his mind did not recur to it as he wrote these words, though in this case the humble deliverer was a woman, not a man (2 Samuel 20:15). The guilt of one man here had involved the whole town in peril, because his guilt was imputed to them; but at the suggestion of the wise woman, the guilt was laid on the head of one, himself the guilty party, and one man died for the people, and the whole city perished not. But our Wise Man, Himself the Innocent, offered Himself, with a wisdom which was the child of love, that the guilt of our city might first be imputed to Him the Innocent, and that further His innocence might be imputed to our city, so that by His own voluntary self-sacrifice one man might die for the city, and the city itself might be safe. The wise woman saved the city at the cost of another’s life; but our poor Wise Man has saved His Church at the cost of His own; and in the moment of our despair we see the hostile bulwark withdrawn, the engines of war removed. We too are saved by the interposition of One who, “though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.” He too was found in the city with no outward distinction of rank or title. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” Born in a remote province, in an obscure town, brought up in retirement as a peasant’s son, what was He to the Caesars and Herods of His day? But now I hasten on to the sequel, for I am speaking to the delivered ones to-day. What became of the poor wise man? Did they make him king or governor? Did he continue to be the most prominent figure in the little commonwealth which he had saved? Nay, but he disappears again into his old obscurity, he retires to the back street--to his cellar or his garret. “No man remembered that same poor man.” Ah, blood-bought souls, ye ransomed from ruin by the death of the Deliverer, is this true of any of us? Having been delivered from impending ruin by the Christ, have we learned to forget the Deliverer, and to live very much as if we had delivered ourselves? (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)

The poor wise man

A very remarkable case this is indeed. Here is a little city, with few inhabitants, in a weak defenceless condition, and a powerful army at the gates; which is rescued out of the hands of its enemies, and snatched from the jaws of destruction just opened to devour it: war and slavery are driven far away, and peace and liberty at once restored. And all this is ejected by one “poor wise man.” What would the behaviour of the people be in such a case? Would not their hearts overflow with gratitude toward their deliverer? Would they not render to him all their service who had rendered to them all his; and vie with each other who should do him most honour? Nothing less I they did not so much as thank him. Nay, after the thing was over, he did not even enter into their thoughts--“No man remembered that same poor man.” This is a very affecting story, considered only in itself: but if we can find an interest in it, and make the case our own, it will be much more so. Let us ask, then, what is to be understood by the city, the great king that besieged it, and the poor wise man that delivered it? The first thing we meet with is “a little city with few men in it.” Is not this a description which suits well with the Church, or society of believers? (Matthew 5:14; Hebrews 11:10; Psalms 87:3). And few and weak indeed we are, in comparison of those that besiege and encompass us round about to destroy us. Who these are, we are next to consider. “There came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.” That the Christian state, of which this besieged city is a picture, is a state of warfare is known and acknowledged, when it is called the Church militant; and who it is that attacks it we all declare at our baptism, when we promise to fight manfully against “sin, the world, and the devil.” Sin and the world are but two instruments in this war: it is the devil who uses them; and, therefore, he is the great king that besieges this city and builds bulwarks against it. The bulwarks are raised; the city is ready to fall; and the enemy is about to enter: when lo, there is found in the city a poor wise man; and who is he? If we are the city, he that saves the city must be he that saves us; even our Lord Jesus Christ; than whom none ever was poorer or wiser: He was made poor for our sakes; and in Him were all the treasures of wisdom. This is He who by His wisdom delivers the city; who places Himself in the breach, as Moses did. At the sight of Him the infernal host was in an uproar; and for a time they seemed to overwhelm Him; they shouted for victory, and were hasting forward to the prey: the enemy of Israel, the spiritual Pharaoh, said, “I will pursue, I will overtake,” etc. And here, “except the Lord had kept the city, the watchman had waked but in vain.” Had he been an earthly conqueror, the day had been lost. For, to the everlasting confusion of His enemies, He who lay down in his grave the poor wise man, the despised and afflicted Galilean, arose from the dead “the Lord mighty in battle; and of the subject of death became the King of Glory.” And now, would you think it possible that after all this no man should remember that same poor man? that they should entirely forget him? that they should all forget him? Who at the hearing of this monstrous act of ingratitude is not filled with indignation? Yet we have done all this: we have had this mighty deliverance vouchsafed to us--and we have forgotten it! We have forgotten Him, who so remembered us that He forgot Himself, and made no account of all those sorrows and sufferings, from His birth in the manger to His death upon the cross, which He underwent for us men and our salvation. The first thing we ought; to remember and confess is this, “That we got not the land in possession by our own sword,” etc. You have now seen how well this parable of Solomon bears an application to the salvation of us citizens of the Church by Jesus Christ; and how it agrees with the same in every particular. There is another ease of the kind, in which the event was quite contrary; and the case of the one city should never be thought of without the other. You have seen the example of a city saved by a poor wise man. I can tell you of another city lost for want of him. The city of Jerusalem fell into the condition of our city in the parable. A great king came against it and encompassed it with armies, and built great bulwarks against it, and prevailed so as to overthrow it to its very foundations, and scatter all its inhabitants. There was found in it none to save; no poor wise man to prevent its destruction. There had been one; but they had cast him out, and refused to he saved by him: for the sake of his poverty they had despised his wisdom; so their destruction was inevitable. And so will it be of all those who east out their Saviour: yea, the time will come when the whole world shall perish for want of Him. (W. Jones, M. A.)