40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 10:1-20 (Episode 429)

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

Dead flies ruin perfume like a sinner ruins wisdom. Fools have a lot to say. Childish kings feast in the morning. And your gossip is taken up by winged creatures. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: ·      Junk Drawer Jesus by Matt Poppvits The Inklings: Apostles and Apologists of the Imagination with Sam Schuldheisz Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing hey you got to sign up that inklings academy it's out and it's good i mean have you seen the trailer if you haven't seen the trailer i mean if you've seen the trailer you're probably taking the academy i mean the trailer is that good i mean the trailer that don't make you want to take that academy you're just not you need to go to the doctor get your heart checked you know see if you're alive

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Get Matt's book. And we're going to get into Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Now, look, man, he's still on a downer right now. I mean, you know he was talking about death coming for everyone. He's been talking about that. Every time he tries to tell you something good, it's like he remembers that he is going to die. And the first word of chapter 10, Chad, of course, is dead. Yeah, dead flies at that, which is what a great way to start out a chapter.

Of course, I mean, the chapter divisions are somewhat arbitrary. but that is a that is probably one of the better better beginnings of a chapter dead flies make the perfumer's ointment stink so quite a quite a beginning so uh this is i think this is one of these cases where our chapter divisions probably aren't very helpful uh because he's continuing a thought that he began at the end of the of the previous chapter so let me pick up with nine, 17 and 18. And yeah, I know we talked about those in the last episode, but just to kind of bring you up to speed. If you're not listening to these, like one after the other, this is a reminder where we closed last time. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the

shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one center destroys much good okay so we have this idea of you know what what do we say one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel or something something along those lines i mean we my mom told me that you know she one bad apple ruins the whole barrel yeah did she ever tell you your parents ever tell you that when they maybe you were hanging out with someone they thought maybe you shouldn't be hanging out with you're like it's fine they're like one bad apple it's cool it spoils the whole barrel i i think i Mine, what I always heard was, if you hang out with dogs, you're going to get fleas, I believe is what his way was. It's not the same kind of proverbial truth, but that was what, in my part of Texas, that was kind of the proverb.

None of these are like flattering ways to talk about people. No, they're not. So he finishes chapter nine by saying this one sinner, it's all it takes, you know, is one bad apple. one sinner is going to mess up a whole lot of good stuff and then he he continues this with that opening of chapter 10 we have uh this you know a perfumer's done done his or her work made this ointment you know mixed i don't know how this works but you know they're doing their their craft and they get this all together you know maybe they make a bottle maybe they more than that and uh something goes wrong and flies get in there and you know you can imagine my wife didn't wear

much perfume but if she was looking at perfume bottle and there's a one dead fly not to yeah not to mention two or three well that's gonna ruin it all and that's kind of picking up the same idea uh it doesn't take a lot to doesn't make a lot of bad to mess up a whole lot of good I mean, Jesus and Paul both pick up the same idea with the image of leaven, of course, you know, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, which is, I think there may be as one positive use of that image, but most of those images are negative. So you get the idea, basically, whether you're talking about dead flies and ointment or one apple with a whole bunch of other apples or a little yeast, a little leaven and yeast, it's all communicating the same truth. And that is, in the words of Ecclesiastes, at the end of this first verse, a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. I mean, aside from the Proverbs, we've all experienced this, you know, where you get a good thing going and somebody comes along and they mess it all up, right? We've all experienced this firsthand in traffic.

Like, you can have 5,000 cars on the road, and one guy looking at his phone winds up rear-ending somebody else during rush hour on the interstate. Now, all it takes is his one act to affect negatively every other commuter's life in the hundreds, if not the thousands of people. The thing I like best about that is that it's always someone else. It is always someone else. Yeah. It's never us. No. We wouldn't be the fly in the perfume or the bad apple,

but you've got to watch out for them. The thing that's interesting about this is that Solomon does say, like, oh, it just takes one sinner, which is true. Of course, this, I think, is a callback all the way to Genesis, which I think we talked about last time. It did just take one sinner. That's all it took. But it turns out that that one sinner also, now we're all sinners.

And so if it only takes one sinner to destroy all the wisdom, what can you do with a whole world full of them, right? I mean, you have no chance. It's not like there's just one sinner running around ruining everything for the rest of us. Yeah, now we have a world in which wisdom and honor are far outweighed by folly and everything that accompanies it. So that's the first verse. And he goes on in these next few verses to string together a whole lot of proverbs. And this can be a little bit confusing. In fact, I think can be is probably not the right way to put that.

It is a little bit confusing because this is not the way that Koheleth has been communicating through most of his book. He's been pretty straightforward. I mean, you can like it or you can not like it. But at least what he is communicating tends to be pretty straightforward. now he switches gears and he's been doing these these this last chapter two where he begins to put together these proverbial truths which on the surface are for the most part understandable i mean you can understand you can say okay this is the proverb this is the the truth the the more underlying or abstract truth that's communicated in proverbial form that is usually pretty

straightforward. What's not as easy to understand is how these Proverbs fit within the overall message of Ecclesiastes, and on top of that, how they cohere together. So are we looking at just a bunch of random Proverbs that he decided to put in this chapter? Probably not. That wouldn't make any sense. Uh, you know, he's probably looking for some sort of unifying theme. So we have to ask, okay, what is that unifying theme? And that does become a bit of a challenge. And I surveyed, I think three commentaries this morning on, on these chapters and some of them take a more general approach. Some of them take a more specific approach. So I think it was Dwayne Garrett's commentary. He's arguing that what Solomon is doing in chapter nine is basically

giving advice to those who are in leadership positions. So this is how, if you're a ruler, this is how you should make your decisions. This is how you should conduct your life so that you don't go down the path of folly, but you stay on the path of wisdom. The other ones argue, and I tend to gravitate this way too, that this isn't really specifically wisdom advice to rulers, but it's more wisdom advice to the general reader. And it's teaching us about the way of folly, the way of wisdom, as well as some very particulars within that, such as the need not to procrastinate and to lean upon the providential care of God. Even if you don't know the outcome of something, you trust that in one way or another, God

is going to bring good out of it. So that's the direction that I go, that we're learning about wisdom, folly, as it applies, not just kind of to the to the rulers but to the general general reader so he starts out then by presenting this general truth of how a little bit of folly can outweigh wisdom and honor and then he goes on verse two to say a wise man's heart inclines him to the right but a fool's heart to the left um this is this fits with not just the old testament but the new testament focus upon the the right being good and the left not being not being good uh this is this is all over the place for instance you know if you have uh something at your someone at your right hand that's the

position of honor when you're giving a blessing you typically do that with your with your right hand. If you jump ahead to the Gospels, it's the believers who are on the right hand of Christ, and the unbelievers who are on the left. So typically, right is positive, good, the place of blessedness, and the left has these kind of negative connotations to it. So in this case, you're going to have the wise of heart, they are inclining to the right, and the fool's heart is inclining to the left. In other words, I mean, it's kind of a straightforward truth that the wise are going to go one way and the fools are going to go another way. They're not going to share the same pathway because they have different goals and they have different aims and different

motivations for doing what they do. And then he continues with verse three to talk more about the fool. He says, even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense. And he says to everyone that he is a fool i think what he means by that is it his his foolishness is so obvious i mean it's just it's it's it's unmissable and all he has to do is walk along the road and everybody knows that this guy is a fool by what he says by the way he acts by the decisions that he makes it is patently obvious that we're dealing here not with a with a wise person but with a fool, so that he says to everyone that he's a fool means that in his actions, in his speech, in what he does do and what he doesn't do, he's clearly communicating that

he belongs in the category of those who are on the left, those who are walking the path of foolishness. Yeah, I mean, the idea here is that a wise man walks one way and a foolish man walks another way, and you can tell by the way he walks that you wouldn't be going that way if you were wise because i could tell just by the road you're on that you are in fact a fool uh without you saying anything right it'd be like if you uh saw a guy you walk up on a guy and he's uh sticking his hand in a rattlesnake pit i don't have questions about whether or not this is a wise man or not uh his actions are screaming to me that he's a fool yeah yeah yeah all you have to do is

scroll through social media to see a lot of evidence of the path of foolishness and the path of wisdom. So that's verse three. Verse four is going to pick up with a little bit different theme. He says, if the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest. This probably isn't just calmness, but as one scholar by the name of Fox. He's a well-known scholar on wisdom literature. He argues this is also

the ability to soothe or to calm. So not just maintaining a calm composure, but being able to communicate that to the ruler. So if a ruler is angry against you,

then don't storm out, don't leave, don't retreat, but instead remain calm, keep your composure, and use that to kind of calm him down so that you don't make a bad situation even worse. I mean, we probably all experience things like that.

If someone is angry at you, not even a ruler, but say it's your boss, okay? Your boss is angry at you because of whatever you've done. Well, maintaining calm and composure and trying to communicate that and responding not in kind, but responding in a calm and a peaceful sort of way It tends to kind of calm things down, and he's applying it here in the case of a king or a ruler. So it's another way he's teaching wisdom to us, in other words.

I know this, that I'm a pretty good arguer, so I can win arguments reasonably well. However, I have never won an argument with my brother, like ever. and this is not because he is always right and i'm always wrong this is not the case he's wrong all the time but he has never lost his cool or gets frustrated or is loses his temper ever and uh it actually makes you give up like he he like you could be so riled up about something and he just won't go there with you and he wins the argument because uh his ability to stay so calm throughout the whole thing and at first it's extremely frustrating until you finally just give up well that's that's the good way to approach a lot of situations in life uh to to use social

media again as an example i mean you don't have to spend more than five seconds on social media to see to witness at least in written form people yelling at each other and the more the debate goes on the more heated the the rhetoric becomes and so the the best way is either just don't argue or if you do be calm be uh composed be gentle and a lot of times that will simply diffuse the situation so what's also true is that even in reality sometimes when uh when that's going on the other person gets more and more angry because you're not getting angry you're not responding yeah and even if they even if you don't end up sort of getting them to calm down or they storm off or whatever and they say all these things what's certainly true is in the eyes of

everyone watching you have prevailed yes so the person might not like admit that like you know you you know does that mean here he's saying like hey you know for calmness will lay great offense to rest and maybe that person might walk off enraged and stuff but for everyone else they'd be like oh well you see how unhinged this other guy was like i clearly do this guy's being much more thoughtful and he's probably right because I mean look at how he was responding to this it's a much better way to be yeah definitely

also it's the worst feeling ever if you do like lose it on somebody if you're making an argument and you finally just like throw your hands up and are frustrated and you gave them like just a huge tongue lashing and you walk away but you know you lost

you know that you lost once you did that and you know that everyone else knows you lost too and it's the worst that is the worst it's a sting to the ego for sure so um he goes on from there to uh give more advice with regard to specifically regard to living under a ruler and how things are often topsy-turvy in in this world he says in verse five and five through seven there's an evil that i've seen under the sun like an error or as it were an error proceeding from the ruler so this is something that Koheleth has observed. A ruler does something which is translated here as

an error. The Hebrew there, shagagah, could be like an inadvertent sin or an unintentional mistake, something like that, could be from negligence, forgetfulness, or accident, whatever it is, some kind of error. And so what is this? Folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place i have seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves so here you got you get a couple of categories and uh this may be offensive to modern sensitivities but just kind of keep in mind that he's working here with with categories so you got on the one hand you've got uh folly kind of personified here and in that same category category would be slaves so solomon as using those as the people who should not be honored and as those who are lowly and then the

in the other category are the rich and and princes and he's using these as examples of those who are characterized by those who should receive honor and those who are are wise so those are two categories he's working with you can disagree or agree or like or not like the way that he he he's treating this but these are his categories he's working with so he says everything is often upside down because you have this ruler who's made an error and he's taken foolish people and he's elevated them to high places and then he's taken the rich people who in co-healthist view should be in these high places and now they're sitting in a low place and then he's seen slaves who should be walking on the ground riding on horses which should be reserved for princes

But instead, the princes are walking on the ground like like they are slaves. And I think in the overall structure of Koheleth, what he's the reason he's using this is to point to the fact that the world in which we live, this life under the sun is often is often exemplified by things being topsy turvy, being upside down, not the way that they that they should be. And so don't be surprised when you encounter things in life where a fool is in this high position, and a wise man is in a low position, and those who should be honored are dishonored, and those who should be dishonored are honored. Welcome to life under the sun. Yeah, I don't think this is—I think this is the sort of slaves and princes and stuff. this is all just him painting a picture not that a prince because he is a prince like how man his feet better never touch the ground uh but more that uh that people that you would assume should be honored many much of the time or not and people that you would assume don't deserve any honor are

yeah that's man i think i think today's world and how uh people that uh are infamous for all kinds of dishonorable actions are often those who become famous and not infamous but famous and and honored and the limelight is on them right uh this is uh this is the way it works in in the world so uh verse eight picking up from there he goes on to say he who digs a pit will fall into it and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall. He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them. If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge,

he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed. If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer. Now, these proverbs are an example of how, uh i know when i first read through these i was like okay what's his point you know i i kind of i get the proverbs but how does this fit into his into his overall into his overall argument and i think what's going on is this so he begins by in verse eight by talking about those who are engaging in in acts of folly well they it ends up just boomeranging boomeranging back to to hurt

them it's an axiomatic truth in the scriptures that for instance if you dig a pit you're going to fall into it if you set a trap for somebody else or a snare for somebody else you're going to get caught in that so you end up reaping what you what you've sown and that's kind of what is being communicated in that first verse so if you act in ways that are congruent with a foolish life that very foolishness will be your downfall. And then he goes on in verse 9 to say, okay, but here's what also happens in this world. You can be doing the right thing. You can be doing your job. You can be doing that which is in accordance with what you should do, acting wisely, and you could still get hurt because you could be quarrying stones, and that's your job, but you could get

hurt by these stones. You could be splitting logs, and you could be endangered by this work. so he's using proverbs to illustrate the fact that yeah some things are fairly certain in this world like if you act according to folly then that folly will hurt you but there's other things in life which are out of your control you can be doing the right thing you can be doing your job and at the same time then something bad could befall you so how how should you proceed well one way is by making sure that you are you're prepared so that's what he's communicating here in verse 10. If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he has to use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed. So, of course, if you have someone with an axe and they're wanting

to cut a bunch of logs, well, the wise person is going to sharpen the axe first. Of course, that's how it's designed to be used. And this proverbial truth then applies to all of life, that we should be prepared. Rather than rushing into something, do it with forethought and with with preparation and then he concludes this particular section with another proverb that talks about how we shouldn't uh we should have foresight we should we should be thinking ahead be ready for something because if the serpent bite before its charm there's no advantage to the charmer so just like in that case you you charm the you charm the serpent uh so that doesn't bite you, so you do what's necessary ahead of time to prepare for something so that no bad may

result. Now, on the surface course, these proverbs are fairly straightforward, but I think they flow into the argument because he's been putting before us the way of wisdom and the way of folly, but he also wants to make sure that we realize that there are situations in life where doesn't matter how wise you are bad things can still befall you just like if you're splitting logs you could be cut or if you're coring stones you could be you could be hurt yeah i do think this last one is kind of funny though like hey man don't don't live your life like a fool don't don't be so foolish that you'd be like somebody who was like i'm gonna be a snake charmer and then uh not have trained any snakes to be charmed you just like sit down with a snake one

day and decide you're gonna everyone gather around i'm gonna charm this snake it's a pretty it's a pretty good illustration of like living a foolish life yeah yeah that's a quick way to get to the hospital real fast okay so uh picking up with 12 um the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor that could be that could also be translated as like his his words are gracious something along those lines but it's contrasted them with the lips of a fool so if the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor then the lips of a fool what do they do well they eat him up they they consume him so better to be wise and to use your speech to win favor rather than being a fool and uh end up just speaking words that come back to to bite you that consume you so again just

kind of building on this theme of the wise way and the foolish way. The beginning, verse 13, the beginning of the words of his mouth, that is the fool, the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness. So just like he did a few verses prior, where he first contrasts the wise and the foolish, and then he expounds more upon the fool, so he does here. Not only do the lips of a fool consume him, even the beginning of his words are foolishness. And if that beginning is foolishness, well, what is going to be the end except evil madness? This fits, of course, with not just Proverbs, but all over the Bible, where it talks about the speech of the fool or how the words of

one's mouth are revelatory of the heart. A foolish heart is going to speak foolish words. And he's not done verse 14 is going to go on to talk more about foolish speech what does a fool do a fool multiplies words though no man knows what is to be and who can tell him what will be after him so not only is a fool just talking and talking and talking as if he knows what's going on he not only doesn't know what's going on but he doesn't know what is going to be after him so he's speaking of that of which he has no knowledge and speaking from ignorance he reveals the fact that he is indeed a fool. And then he finishes out this section about fools by saying in verse 15, the toil or the labor of a fool wearies him. So he's not finding any pleasure

in his work. You know, he doesn't enjoy it. He doesn't want to do it. The toil or the labor of a fool wearies him. Then this is kind of, I think this is funny. He says, he does not know the way to the city. And I think what he means there is this guy is so lost morally, ethically. He's so confused. He's so turned around. He's so empty of knowledge that he can't even give you directions to where the city's at. So I think that's what that means. He doesn't know the way to the city. So don't ask this guy even for directions. Don't inquire of him about even the most mundane of matters, because all he's going to do is lead you astray. Yeah. And this city is a good example of that. I mean, hey, do you know where that huge city is and how to get there? He's going to send

you off into the swamp somewhere with these directions. And this is kind of like a fool multiplies words. No man knows what it is to be. This is the proverbial know-it-all, right? The A know-it-all usually knows nothing. This is how this works, right? Where somebody that would give you the answers to everything and has thoughts on everything, they are multiplying a lot of words, but this is the last person to listen to.

So probably this guy is very eager to give you directions to the city. Yeah, never trust someone who has all the answers to everything. Well, you know, that guy will give you directions to the city, but he'll tell you about a secret shortcut that... will inevitably lead you to your death. To where you do not want to be, yeah. There's a main road over there. Most people go that way, but let me tell you,

I've discovered a better way. There's a shortcut. Right. Yeah. Yeah, we all know where those shortcuts end up. Okay, so that takes us through verse 15. Verse 16, then. Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child.

The Hebrew there is na'ar, which can be translated child, boy, lad, young man. The emphasis here, though, is that it's not really on physical age, but more on immaturity. So woe to you, O land, when your king is immature, we might say, and your princes feast in the morning. So that's the one side, the woe to you. What is the happier you? happier you will land when your king is the son of the nobility and your princes feast at the proper time so once more the two ways you got a woeful land where you've got an immature ruler and you got princes who are feasting in the morning in other words they're doing things

at improper time rather than being engaged in the duties that they should be engaged in they're living it up i mean right away in in the morning what they want to do they just want to have a party, more or less. But the happy land is when the king is the son of the nobility. In other words, this is Kohala's category for those who are mature, those who belong in these places of honor. So you've got a happy land when your king is mature and he's the right kind of king, and your princes feast at the proper time for strength and not for drunkenness. So everything in its proper time and everyone in their proper place according to the wisdom that they have. And he's going to go on to verse 18 to talk more about fools and kind of the long-term effects of

walking that path. And he does so through this image. Verse 18 says, through sloth the roof sinks in and through indolence the house leaks. I think what he's getting at there is there's not always a kind of precipitous bad thing that happens when someone acts foolishly oftentimes this is kind of a a slow decay that takes that takes time but eventually the end result is the same so it's kind of the image of it you know you got a you got a roof that uh is leaking and the next thing you know it's leaking in four or five different places and over time if you don't fix it it's going to fall in on you. So is a life that is characterized by foolishness.

One foolish leak leads to another one, leads to another one, and eventually the whole thing collapses around you. Now, verse 19 is a challenge. It seems out of place, right? You've had to drop something on you that you're like, wait, I feel like the Bible has told me the opposite of this.

Yeah, so here's the verse. bread is made for laughter and by bread here it's lahm in Hebrew which is isn't, I mean sometimes it is just bread but it's also the word just for food food in general. So bread or

food is made for laughter and wine gladdens life and drumroll money answers everything. There you go. This is just practical wisdom here man. If you got a lot of food and you got a lot of wine and you got a lot of money, everything's going to be good.

Everything's good. Yeah. You got the answer for not just some things, but everything. So this is, yeah, this is interpreted a couple different ways. One positive, one negative. So there are those who would say that this verse means that the wise, they have money. And that allows them to pay for the food and wine that brings joy to their life. So that's kind of the positive interpretation.

The negative interpretation is that the fool kind of dithers his life away in food and drink, thinking that money is the answer to everything. Now, I'm a bit torn, but I lean toward the negative answer here that he's been talking a lot about fools in this section. So I think this is probably continuing that same negative disapproval of the foolish way, where you have a fool just thinking that life is all about food for laughter and wine for life and the accumulation of money, thinking that's going to be the answer to everything. So I mean, I don't think you can come down hard and fast on either side of that, just because the verse is a bit difficult. But that's where I leaned anyway. Yeah, I mean, he had no resurrection. Making sure you had enough to eat, enough to drink, and enough to pay for everything you want to have, I suppose.

I suppose if, you know, why does Jesus do this when he says, he doesn't do this with a lot of other, you can make an idol out of everything and anything, which we've talked about before. But the easiest one to make an idol out of is money. I mean, money is like a really easy one. And so you have Jesus do this thing where he says, you cannot serve two masters.

And then he could have said, he says, you cannot serve God, and you cannot serve, he could say anything there. Power. Yeah. Yeah, there's tons of things he could have said. Yeah, but he says money, right? Because I think that without God, money kind of is the best answer that you've got for whatever it is.

I mean, one, you're not going to go without, so that's good. I mean, your basic needs, money is going to take care of that problem. But money can buy influence. If you get into trouble, if you have a lot of money, you can have an easier time getting out of it. You can bribe people. Yeah, I mean, if there is no God, the next best thing is to have all the money. Yeah, I mean, people say that all the time. Like money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a boat, which makes you happy,

or it can buy you a second home, which makes you happier. can buy you whatever right so people do tend to uh if they're going to turn to something besides one true god well chances are money's going to be at least part of the pantheon yeah if not the chief if not the chief deity in that in that pantheon you know chad i mean money can't buy happiness but you know i'd rather be sad in a yacht than not in a yacht i mean yes precisely That's a joke, guys. No yachts. Don't have any yachts.

We don't have that. But, yeah, so I think that is sort of the thing, right? So if you are talking about life just under the sun, and if you're not giving any thought to God, and if this is all you've got, and then you're going to die one day and that's the end, yeah. I mean, having a lot of money will make the days of your miserable life the best miserable days they could probably be.

it's it is the and like i said i think it's the reason jesus says like these are the you're you're going to want to serve god that's great uh the biggest draw away to have your heart divided is going to be this other thing because it it's the thing that most seems like it will help you yeah yeah well it's the same thing with you know money the love of money is the is a root of all kinds of evil i mean he could have said you know the love of a lot of other things too right but it is money that he he focuses on there and then finishing out this chapter with verse 20 even in your thoughts do not curse the king nor in your bedroom curse the rich or a bird of the air will carry your voice or some winged creature tell the matter yeah now don't don't yeah don't don't

think just literally like there's listening birds but here but i mean we've all heard the proverb a little bird told me, you know, so that's, that in fact, uh, was characteristic of ancient Near Eastern, uh, proverbial literature as well. So you have this idea of a little bird, a bird of the air, some way in creature is going to tell the matter. So be careful. Even if you think it's just, you know, if you think the person that you're with, you can trust, or you're, uh, you know, in some, some safe place, uh, be, uh, be careful. My wife likes to say a secret is no longer a secret when two people know it yeah yeah this is exactly i mean now and now you have this thing too where this used to be like oh i might tell you something chad then you might let

it slip what i said and then you might tell that person now it's my word against your word about whether or not i said that thing right so like that's good but now you might text me something and now we have a different thing now it's my word against objective proof and my wife will be doing something

oh my gosh someone asked me about this thing what should I say maybe it'll be about asking her about somebody or whatever and I always say the same thing I'm like I don't know but however you answer it answer it in a way that you are 100% fine with the person that you're talking about reading

that is that is that's wisdom right there that's what i would that's what i would say like don't say anything that you're not fine with them receiving a screenshot of later yep because a bird of the air may carry that voice a little twitter bird a little twitter bird yes put that thing out there so all right we better uh wrap it up here uh we are just uh out of time so but uh we will finish ecclesiastes next uh next week um no matter what and uh no matter what yeah so uh that's that's the plan we'll see you then all right man see you then you