20 Don't curse the king, no, not in your thoughts; and don't curse the rich in your bedroom: for a bird of the sky may carry your voice, and that which has wings may tell the matter.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Curse - Compare Ecclesiastes 7:21-22.
Curse not the king - Do not permit thyself even to think evil of the king; lest thy tongue at some time give vent to thy thoughts, and so thou be chargeable with treason.
For a bird of the air shall carry the voice - Does he refer here to such fowls as the carrier pigeon, which were often used to carry letters under their wings to a great distance, and bring back answers? The Targum turns it curiously: "Do not speak evil of the king in thy conscience, nor in the secret of thy heart, nor in the most hidden place in thy house, curse not a wise man; for Raziel calls daily from heaven upon Mount Horeb, and his voice goes through the whole world; and Elijah, the great priest, goes, flying through the air like a winged eagle, and publishes the words which are spoken in secret by all the inhabitants of the earth."
Civil government is so peculiarly of God, that he will have it supported for the benefit of mankind; and those who attempt to disturb it are generally marked by his strong disapprobation. And though there have been multitudes of treasons hatched in the deepest secrecy; yet, through the providence of God, they have been discovered in the most singular manner. This shows God's care for government.
Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a (l) bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
(l) You cannot work evil so secretly that it will not be known.
Curse not the king; no, not in thy thought,.... Though he is a child, and unskilful in government, gives himself to his passions and pleasures, and neglects the affairs of the kingdom; yet be so far from rebelling against him, and doing him any injury, or speaking ill of him, as not even to wish him any ill; or, within thine own breast, imprecate any evil upon him, but rather pray for him, wish him well, and do everything to promote the welfare of his person and government, and this both for the Lord's sake, and for conscience's sake; and therefore curse him not "in thy conscience" (m), as some render it. Jarchi interprets this of God the King of the world; see Job 2:9; and Jerom of Christ; who should not be blasphemed, lest the angels, that go about the earth, should carry it to heaven;
and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber; subordinate rulers and magistrates, the king's ministers and counsellors, who are commonly rich; even those luxurious princes, before described, who give up themselves to eating and drinking, and spend the public money in profuse feasts and entertainments: yet a man should be careful how he speaks against them; and not only be cautious of what he says about them, in a vilifying way, in companies and clubs where disaffected persons speak their minds freely; but even in his own house, where his servants may hear him; nay, even in his bedchamber where only his wife and children are;
for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter; an hyperbolical expression; showing that, by some strange and unthought of ways and means, treason, though so very secret, should be brought to the knowledge of the king and his ministers; as if a bird, sitting at the window, or flying by at the same time, should hear and carry it to them: sometimes this is by means of spies and informers, that kings have in all places, to bring them news of the behaviour and sentiments of men, of whom such understand the passage; or by means of such, that bear an ill will to them, or are faithful subjects to the king. With the Persians were certain officers, called the king's ears, and the emperor's eyes; by means of whom the king was believed to be a god, since, by the ears and eyes of others, through those spies, he knew all that was done everywhere (n). Some interpret it of angels, good or bad: Jarchi, of the soul of man, which at last flies to heaven, which he thinks is the bird of the air; and of an angel that is associated to him, his guardian angel; meant, as he supposes, by that which hath wings, or "the master of wings" (o).
(m) , Sept. "in conscientia tua", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Cocceius, Gejerus. (n) Apuleius de Mundo. (o) "dominus alarum", Piscator.
thought--literally, "consciousness."
rich--the great. The language, as applied to earthly princes knowing the "thought," is figurative. But it literally holds good of the King of kings (Psalm. 139:1-24), whose consciousness of every evil thought we should ever realize.
bed-chamber--the most secret place (2-Kings 6:12).
bird of the air, &c.--proverbial (compare Habakkuk 2:11; Luke 19:40); in a way as marvellous and rapid, as if birds or some winged messenger carried to the king information of the curse so uttered. In the East superhuman sagacity was attributed to birds (see on Job 28:21; hence the proverb).
"Curse not the king even in thy thought; and in thy bed-chamber curse not the rich; for the birds of the air carry away the sound, and the winged creature telleth the matter." In the Books of Daniel and Chronicles, מדּע, in the sense of γνῶσις, is a synon. of השׂכּל and חכמה; here it is rightly translated by the lxx by συνείδησις; it does not correspond with the moral-religious idea of conscience, but yet it touches it, for it designates the quiet, inner consciousness (Psychol. p. 134) which judges according to moral criteria: even (gam, as e.g., Deuteronomy 23:3) in the inner region of his thoughts
(Note: Hengst., not finding the transition from scientia to conscientia natural, gives, after Hartmann, the meaning of "study-chamber" to the word מדּע; but neither the Hebrews. nor the Aram. has this meaning, although Psalm 68:13 Targ. touches it.)
one must not curse the king (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:4.) nor the rich (which here, as at 6b, without distinction of the aristocracy of wealth and of birth, signifies those who are placed in a high princely position, and have wealth, the nervus rerum, at their disposal) in his bed-chamber, the innermost room of the house, where one thinks himself free from treachery, and thus may utter whatever he thinks without concealment (2-Kings 6:12): for the birds of the air may carry forth or bring out (Lat. deferrent, whence delator) that which is rumoured, and the possessor of a pair of wings (cf. Proverbs 1:17), after the Chethı̂b (whose ה of the art. is unnecessarily erased by the Kerı̂,
(Note: הכּן with unpointed He, because it is not read in the Kerı̂; similarly החנית (1-Samuel 26:22). Cf. Mas. fin. f. 22, and Ochla veochla, No. 166.)
as at Ecclesiastes 3:6, Ecclesiastes 3:10): the possessor of wings (double-winged), shall further tell the matter. As to its meaning, it is the same as the proverb quoted by the Midrash: "walls have ears."
(Note: Vid., Tendlau's Sprichwrter, No. 861.)
Geier thinks of the swallows which helped to the discovery of Bessus, the murderer of his father, and the cranes which betrayed the murderer of Ibycus, as comparisons approaching that which is here said. There would certainly be no hyperbole if the author thought of carrier-pigeons (Paxton, Kitto) in the service of espionage. But the reason for the warning is hyperbolical, like an hundred others in all languages:
"Aures fert paries, oculos nemus: ergo cavere
Debet qui loquitur, ne possint verba nocere."
Thy thought - In the most secret manner. The rich - Princes or governors. A bird - The king will hear of it by unknown and unsuspected hands, as if a bird had heard and carried the report of it.
*More commentary available at chapter level.