Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 verse 14 Holy Bible
There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.
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There was a little town and the number of its men was small, and there came a great king against it and made an attack on it, building works of war round about it.
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There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and encompassed it, and built great bulwarks against it:
read chapter 9 in DARBY
There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
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read chapter 9 in WBT
There was a little city, and few men within it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.
read chapter 9 in WEB
A little city, and few men in it, and a great king hath come unto it, and hath surrounded it, and hath built against it great bulwarks;
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - There was a little city. The substantive verb is, as commonly, omitted. Commentators have amused themselves with endeavoring to identify the city here mentioned. Thus some see herein Athens, saved by the counsel of Themistocles, who was afterwards driven from Athens and died in misery (Justin., 2:12); or Dora, near Mount Carmel, besieged unsuccessfully by Antiochus the Great, B.C. 218, though we know nothing of the circumstances (Polyb., 5:66); but see note on ver. 13. The Septuagint takes the whole paragraph hypothetically, "Suppose there was a little city," etc. Wright well compares the historical allusions to events fresh in the minds of his hearers made by our Lord in his parable of the pounds (Luke 19:12, 14, 15, 27). So we may regard the present section as a parable founded on some historical fact well known at the time when the book was written. A great king. The term points to some Persian or Assyrian potentate; or it may mean merely a powerful general (see 1 Kings 11:24; Job 29:25). Built great bulwarks against it. The Septuagint has χάρακας μεγάλους, "great palisades;" the Vulgate, Extruxitque munitiones per gyrum. What are meant are embankments or mounds raised high enough to overtop the walls of the town, and to command the positions of the besieged. For the same purpose wooden towers were also used (see Deuteronomy 20:20; 2 Samuel 20:15; 2 Kings 19:32; Jeremiah lit. 4). The Vulgate rounds off the account in the text by adding, et perfects est obsidio, " and the beleaguering was completed."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) Idle attempts have been made to find a historic reference in this passage. What is here told is so like the story (2 Samuel 20) of the deliverance of Abel-beth-Maachah by a wise woman, whose name, nevertheless, has not been preserved, that we cannot even be sure that the writer had any other real history in his mind.
