Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Ecclesiastes 10:11

Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment Literally, If the serpent will bite without enchantment, i.e.in the absence of skill to charm it. It is hardly necessary to dwell at length on a topic so familiar as the serpent-charming of the East. It will be enough to say that from time immemorial in Egypt, Syria, Persia, India, there have been classes of persons who in some way or other have gained a power over many kinds of snakes, drawing them from their retreats, handling them with impunity, making them follow their footsteps like a tame dog. The power was really or ostensibly connected with certain muttered words or peculiar intonations of the voice. We find the earliest traces of it in the magicians of Pharaoh's court (Exodus 7:11). So the "deaf adder that cannot be charmed" becomes the type of those whom no appeal to reason or conscience can restrain (Psalms 58:5; Jeremiah 8:17; Sir 12:13). The proverb obviously stands in the same relation to the "breaking down of walls" in Ecclesiastes 10:8, as that of the "blunt axe" did to the "cutting down trees" of Ecclesiastes 10:9. "If a serpent meets you as you go on with your work, if the adder's poison that is on the lips of the traitor or the slanderer (Psalms 140:3; Romans 3:13) is about to do its deadly work, are you sure that you have the power to charm? If not, you are not likely to escape being bitten." The apodosis of the sentence interprets the proverb. "If a serpent will bite in the absence of the charmer, there is no profit in a babbler (literally, a lord or master of tongue, see note on ch. Ecclesiastes 5:10), who does not know the secret of the intonation that charms it." No floods of wind-bag eloquence will-avail in the statesman or the orator if the skill that persuades is wanting.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Ecclesiastes 10:11

Old Testament

New Testament