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The situation looked hopeless. A great king had turned his armies and laid siege to a small city with very few men. Every reasonable calculation pointed to one outcome: The city would fall. And yet it did not. Inside those walls was a poor wise man, and he, by wisdom alone, delivered the city. Not by might, not by worldly knowledge, and not by financial bartering. By wisdom.
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes concludes this short story by declaring, “Wisdom is better than weapons of war” (Eccl. 9:18). But what is wisdom? Biblical wisdom is the skill of living well before God in this present world. It is a skill because godly wisdom is not a natural ability, and it does not come through the accumulation of knowledge. Wisdom, as the Bible presents it, is the God-given skill to navigate all of life—its ordinary routines, its heartbreaking sorrows, and its baffling uncertainties—in a way that demonstrates fear of God.
The Preacher’s high praise of wisdom comes in the context of an unpredictable world. Just before commending the poor wise man, he describes life’s unpredictable realities: The race does not always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor riches to the intelligent. Life regularly reminds us that we cannot control outcomes. It is precisely into that kind of world that the Preacher commends wisdom as the best portion.
Yet the Preacher is honest about something that should give us pause. The poor wise man saved the city, but “no one remembered that poor man” (9:15). His wisdom was despised. His words went unheard. He was neither celebrated nor consulted again. This somewhat unhappy ending is part of the lesson of the story. Godly wisdom is not appreciated in a foolish world.
Our own cultural situation makes this evident. We see around us confirmation of that unrighteousness by which many, claiming to be wise, have become fools (Rom. 1:22). Biblical wisdom that is rooted in the fear of God, shaped by His Word, and oriented toward His glory is not what our society esteems. We prize strength, platforms, wealth, and self-expression. We celebrate those who are swift and strong and loud. Speak wisdom to the crowd, and you invite the same response that the poor man received: forgotten, unheard, and despised.
The Bible’s most sobering illustration of this fact is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Our hearts, besieged by sin, are in a hopeless condition without Christ. But He became to us wisdom from God (1 Cor. 1:30)—the One in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Col. 2:3). But He too was despised and rejected, His words unheard. The world’s full hostility toward wisdom is the testimony of the cross.
None of this leads the Preacher to abandon his counsel. Unappreciated as it is, “wisdom is better than weapons of war.” The word to us is not discouragement but resolve: Seek wisdom, find wisdom, cling to wisdom, and be unsurprised when the world does not thank you for it.