Obey the King

Wisdom brightens a person's face and softens severity because it helps interpret difficult matters rightly. On that basis the Teacher advises keeping the king's command, not acting rashly in his presence, and recognizing the force of royal authority, while also noting that a wise heart knows how to respond at the proper time and in the proper way.

W¹ho is like the wise man? Who knows the interpretation of a matter? A man’s wisdom brightens his face, and the sternness of his face is changed. ²Keep the king’s command, I say, because of your oath before God. ³Do not hasten to leave his presence, and do not persist in a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. ⁴For the king’s word is supreme, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?” ⁵Whoever keeps his command will come to no harm, and a wise heart knows the right time and procedure.

Though there is a right time and procedure for every matter, human misery remains heavy because no one knows what will happen or can be told the future with certainty. People cannot control the wind, the day of death, or the consequences of wickedness, and the Teacher has seen how one person may dominate another to mutual harm within such limits.

⁶For there is a right time and procedure to every purpose, though a man’s misery weighs heavily upon him. ⁷Since no one knows what will happen, who can tell him what is to come? ⁸As no man has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has authority over his day of death. As no one can be discharged in wartime, so wickedness will not release those who practice it. ⁹All this I have seen, applying my mind to every deed that is done under the sun; there is a time when one man lords it over another to his own detriment.