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Ecc_9:16 Then said I, Wisdom [is] better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom [is] despised, and his words are not heard.
Ver. 16. Then said I, Wisdom is better, &c.] This he had said before, {Ecc_7:19 Pro_21:22} {See Trapp on "Ecc_7:19"} {See Trapp on "Pro_21:22"} but now upon this new occasion. Nunquam satis dicitur, quod nunquam satis discitur. {a}
Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised.] Jerome reads it thus, Et sapientia pauperis quae despecta est, et verba eius quae non sunt audita; that is, And the wisdom of the poor man which is despised, and his words which are not heard. According to which reading, the sense is, wisdom is better than strength, yea, even the despised wisdom of the poor man, &c. The Septuagint and Vulgate read it, Quomodo ergo sapientia pauperis contempta est et verba eius non audita! How therefore is the wisdom of the wise man despised, and his words not heard! As making a wonder and a strange thing of it. Too often it befalls God’s poor ministers, either to be rejected with scorn, or if heard, yet not regarded, much less rewarded, unless it be as Micaiah was by Ahab, and Jeremiah by his countrymen of Anathoth, Jesus Christ by the proud Pharisees, {Joh_7:14-15; Joh_7:27} St Paul by the ungrateful Corinthians; {1Co_4:7} "His bodily presence," said they, "is weak," his sermons without philosophy and rhetoric. {2Co_10:10}
{a} Seneca.