nifold advantages.

Ver. 1. The least ingredient of folly spoils as with the corruption of
death the greatest wisdom. (There is only One whose name is as
ointment poured forth untainted.)

Ver. 2. The wise man's heart is where it should be. He is governed by
his understanding, (for the heart in the Old Testament is the seat of
the thought as well as of the affections, as the same word, "_lehv_,"
translated "wisdom" in the next verse shows), a fool is all askew in
his own being. His heart is at his left hand. In other words, his
judgment is dethroned.

Ver. 3. Nor can he hide what he really is for any length of time.
"The way," with its tests, soon reveals him, and he proclaims to all
his folly.

Ver. 4. Yielding to the powers above rather than rebelling against
them, marks the path of wisdom. This may be an example of the testing
of "the way" previously spoken of, for true wisdom shines brightly out
in the presence of an angry ruler. Folly leaves its place,--a form of
expression tantamount to rebelling, and may throw some light on that
stupendous primal folly when angels "left their place," or, as Jude
writes, "kept not their first estate, but left their habitation," and
thus broke into the folly of rebelling against the Highest. For let
any leave their place, and it means necessarily confusion and disorder.
If all has been arranged according to the will and wisdom of the
Highest, he who steps out of the place assigned him rebels, and discord
takes the place of harmony. The whole of the old creation is thus in
disorder and confusion. All have "left their place." For God, the
Creator of all, has been dethroned. It is the blessed work of One we
know, once more to unite in the bonds of love and willing obedience all
things in heaven and in earth, and to bind in such way all hearts to
the throne of God, that never more shall one "leave his place."

Vers. 5-7. But rulers themselves under the sun are not free from
folly, and this shows itself in the disorder that actually proceeds
from them. Orders and ranks are not in harmony. Folly is exalted, and
those with whom dignities accord are in lowly place. It is another
view of the present confusion, and how fully the coming of the Highest
showed it out! A stable, a manger, rejection, and the cross, were the
portion under the sun of the King of kings. That fact rights
everything even now, in one sense, to faith for the path closest to the
King must be re