I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth: therefore enjoy pleasure;” and behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?”
I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made myself great works. I built myself houses. I planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. I made myself pools of water, to water from it the forest where trees were grown. I bought male servants and female servants, and had servants born in my house. I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all who were before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got myself male and female singers, and the delights of the sons of men: musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I didn’t keep from them. I didn’t withhold my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced because of all my labor, and this was my portion from all my labor. Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly; for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness—and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all. Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory forever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!
So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind. I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skillfulness; yet he shall leave it for his portion to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what does a man have of all his labor and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24, 25 Solomon maketh this discourse with himself, as though he…
Solomon maketh this discourse with himself, as though he would try whether there were contentation in ease and pleasures.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Ecc 2:1 I said in mine heart, Go to…
Ecc 2:1 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also [is] vanity.
Ver. 1. Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.] The merry Greeks of the world think that they have the only life of it; that there is no such happiness as to ‘laugh and be fat,’ to ‘sing care away,’ and to lie carousing and melting in sinful pleasures; yea, though they perish therein, as the Duke of Clarence did in his butt of malmsey. {a} But a little time will confute these fools, saith Solomon, and let them see that it is better to be preserved in brine than to rot in honey. Flies and wasps use to come to honey and sugar, and such sweet things; so doth Beelzebub, the god of flies, to the hearts of epicures and voluptuaries. Behemoth haunteth the fens. {Job 40:21} Here, therefore, this wise man was utterly out, and made an ill transition from the search of wisdom to the pursuit of pleasures; from the school of Socrates, to the herd of Epicurus. For though these hogs may grunt out their "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die," yet, if death but draw the curtain, and look in upon them, all the mirth is marred, and they put into as great an agony as Belshazzar was at the sight of the handwriting that was against him.
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{a} A strong sweet wine, originally the product of the neighbourhood of Monemvasia (Napoli di Malvasia) in the Morea; but now obtained from Spain, the Azores, and the islands of Madeira and the Canaries, as well as from Greece.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–26 I said in mine heart; being disappointed of my…
I said in mine heart; being disappointed of my hopes from knowledge, I resolved in my own mind to try another course.
I will prove thee, O my soul, I will try whether I cannot make thee happy, with mirth; by allowing to myself the free enjoyment of the present and sensible delights of human life.
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Enjoy pleasure; take thy fill of pleasure, and expect satisfaction thence.
Is vanity; is vain, and unable to make men happy, because sensible pleasures are mean and unsuitable to the noble and heaven-born soul of man, and if excessively used, apter to cloy and glut men than to satisfy them, and are frequently mixed with, and most commonly end in, bitterness, as being the great instruments and occasions of sin, and of all its fatal consequences.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 12, 17 Solomon here, in pursuit of the summum bonum -…
Solomon here, in pursuit of the summum bonum - the felicity of man, adjourns out of his study, his library, his elaboratory, his council-chamber, where he had in vain sought for it, into the park and the playhouse, his garden and his summer-house; he exchanges the company of the philosophers and grave senators for that of the wits and gallants, and the beaux-esprits, of his court, to try if he could find true satisfaction and happiness among them. Here he takes a great step downward, from the noble pleasures of the intellect to the brutal ones of sense; yet, if he resolve to make a thorough trial, he must knock at this door, because here a great part of mankind imagine they have found that which he was in quest of.
I. He resolved to try what mirth would do and the pleasures of wit, whether he should be happy if he constantly entertained himself and others with merry stories and jests, banter and drollery; if he should furnish himself with all the pretty ingenious turns and repartees he could invent or pick up, fit to be laughed over, and all the bulls, and blunders, and foolish things, he could hear of, fit to be ridiculed and laughed at, so that he might be always in a merry humour. 1. This experiment made (Ecc 2:1): "Finding that in much wisdom is much grief, and that those who are serious are apt to be melancholy, I said in my heart" (to my heart), "Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; I will try if that will give thee satisfaction." Neither the temper of his mind nor his outward condition had any thing in them to keep him from being merry, but both agreed, as did all other advantages, to further it; therefore he resolved to take a lease this way, and said, "Enjoy pleasure, and take thy fill of it; cast away care, and resolve to be merry." So a man may be, and yet have none of these fine things which he here got to entertain himself with; many that are poor are very merry; beggars in a barn are so to a proverb. Mirth is the entertainment of the fancy, and, though it comes short of the solid delights of the rational powers, yet it is to be preferred before those that are merely carnal and sensual. Some distinguish man from the brutes, not only as animal rationale - a rational animal, but as animal risibile - a laughing animal; therefore he that said to his soul, Take thy ease, eat and drink, added, And be merry, for it was in order to that that he would eat and drink. "Try therefore," says Solomon, "to laugh and be fat, to laugh and be happy." 2. The judgment he passed upon this experiment: Behold, this also is vanity, like all the rest; it yields no true satisfaction, Ecc 2:2. I said of laughter, It is mad, or, Thou art mad, and therefore I will have nothing to do with thee; and of mirth (of all sports and recreations, and whatever pretends to be diverting), What doeth it? or, What doest thou? Innocent mirth, soberly, seasonable, and moderately used, is a good thing, fits for business, and helps to soften the toils and chagrins of human life; but, when it is excessive and immoderate, it is foolish and fruitless. (1.) It does no good: What doeth it? Cui bono - of what use is it? It will not avail to quiet a guilty conscience; no, nor to ease a sorrowful spirit; nothing is more ungrateful than singing songs to a heavy heart. It will not satisfy the soul, nor ever yield it true content. It is but a palliative cure to the grievances of this present time. Great laughter commonly ends in a sigh. (2.) It does a great deal of hurt: It is mad, that is, it makes men mad, it transports men into many indecencies, which are a reproach to their reason and religion. They are mad that indulge themselves in it, for it estranges the heart from God and divine things, and insensibly eats out the power of religion. Those that love to be merry forget to be serious, and, while they take the timbrel and harp, they say to the Almighty, Depart from us, Job 21:12, Job 21:14. We may, as Solomon, prove ourselves, with mirth, and judge of the state of our souls by this: How do we stand affected to it? Can we be merry and wise? Can we use it as sauce, and not as food? But we need not try, as Solomon did, whether it will make a happiness for us, for we may take his word for it, It is mad; and What does it? Laughter and pleasure (says Sir William Temple) come from very different affections of the mind; for, as men have no disposition to laugh at things they are most pleased with, so they are very little pleased with many things they laugh at.
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II. Finding himself not happy in that which pleased his fancy, he resolved next to try that which would please the palate, Ecc 2:3. Since the knowledge of the creature would not satisfy, he would see what the liberal use of it would do: I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine, that is, to good meat and good drink. Many give themselves to these without consulting their hearts at all, not looking any further than merely the gratification of the sensual appetite; but Solomon applied himself to it rationally, and as a man, critically, and only to make an experiment. Observe, 1. He did not allow himself any liberty in the use of the delights of sense till he had tired himself with his severe studies. Till his increase of sorrow, he never thought of giving himself to wine. When we have spent ourselves in doing good we may then most comfortably refresh ourselves with the gifts of God's bounty. Then the delights of sense are rightly used when they are used as we use cordials, only when we need them; as Timothy drank wine for his health's sake, Ti1 5:23. I thought to draw my flesh with wine (so the margin reads it) or to wine. Those that have addicted themselves to drinking did at first put a force upon themselves; they drew their flesh to it, and with it; but they should remember to what miseries they hereby draw themselves. 2. He then looked upon it as folly, and it was with reluctance that he gave himself to it; as St. Paul, when he commended himself, called it a weakness, and desired to be borne with in his foolishness, Co2 11:1. He sought to lay hold on folly, to see the utmost that that folly would do towards making men happy; but he had like to have carried the jest (as we say) too far. He resolved that the folly should not take hold of him, not get the mastery of him, but he would lay hold on it, and keep it at a distance; yet he found it too hard for him. 3. He took care at the same time to acquaint himself with wisdom, to manage himself wisely in the use of his pleasures, so that they should not do him any prejudice nor disfit him to be a competent judge of them. When he drew his flesh with wine he led his heart with wisdom (so the word is), kept up his pursuits after knowledge, did not make a sot of himself, nor become a slave to his pleasures, but his studies and his feasts were foils to each other, and he tried whether both mixed together would give him that satisfaction which he could not find in either separately. This Solomon proposed to himself, but he found it vanity; for those that think to give themselves to wine, and yet to acquaint their hearts with wisdom, will perhaps deceive themselves as much as those do that think to serve both God and mammon. Wine is a mocker; it is a great cheat; and it will be impossible for any man to say that thus far he will give himself to it and no further. 4. That which he aimed at was not to gratify his appetite, but to find out man's happiness, and this, because it pretended to be so, must be tried among the rest. Observe the description he gives of man's happiness - it is that good for the sons of men which they should do under the heaven all their days. (1.) That which we are to enquire after is not so much the good we must have (we may leave that to God), but the good we must do; that ought to be our care. Good Master, what good thing shall I do? Our happiness consists not in being idle, but in doing aright, in being well employed. If we do that which is good, no doubt we shall have comfort and praise of the same. (2.) It is good to be done under the heaven, while we are here in this world, while it is day, while our doing time lasts. This is our state of work and service; it is in the other world that we must expect the retribution. Thither our works will follow us. (3.) It is to be done all the days of our life. The good we are to do we must persevere in the doing of to the end, while our doing time lasts, the number of the days of our life (so it is in the margin); the days of our life are numbered to us by him in whose hand our times are and they are all to be spent as he directs. But that any man should give himself to wine, in hopes to find out in that the best way of living in this world, was an absurdity which Solomon here, in the reflection, condemns himself for. Is it possible that this should be the good that men should do? No; it is plainly very bad.
III. Perceiving quickly that it was folly to give himself to wine, he next tried the most costly entertainments and amusements of princes and great men. He had a vast income; the revenue of his crown was very great, and he laid it out so as might most please his own humour and make him look great.
1. He gave himself much to building, both in the city and in the country; and, having been at such vast expense in the beginning of his reign to build a house for God, he was the more excusable if afterwards he pleased his own fancy in building for himself; he began his work at the right end (Mat 6:33), not as the people (Hag 1:4), that ceiled their own houses while God's lay waste, and it prospered accordingly. In building, he had the pleasure of employing the poor and doing good to posterity. We read of Solomon's buildings (Kg1 9:15-19), and they were all great works, such as became his purse, and spirit, and great dignity. See his mistake; he enquired after the good works he should do (Ecc 2:3), and, in pursuit of the enquiry, applied himself to great works. Good works indeed are truly great, but many are reputed great works which are far from being good, wondrous works which are not gracious, Mat 7:22.
2. He took to love a garden, which is to some as bewitching as building. He planted himself vineyards, which the soil and climate of the land of Canaan favoured; he made himself fine gardens and orchards (Ecc 2:5), and perhaps the art of gardening was no way inferior then to what it is now. He had not only forests of timber-trees, but trees of all kinds of fruit, which he himself had planted; and, if any worldly business would yield a man happiness, surely it must be that which Adam was employed in while he was in innocency.
3. He laid out a great deal of money in water-works, ponds, and canals, not for sport and diversion, but for use, to water the wood that brings forth trees (Ecc 2:6); he not only planted, but watered, and then left it to God to give the increase. Springs of water are great blessings (Jos 15:19); but where nature has provided them art must direct them, to make them serviceable, Pro 21:1.
4. He increased his family. When he proposed to himself to do great works he must employ many hands, and therefore procured servants and maidens, which were bought with his money, and of those he had servants born in his house, Ecc 2:7. Thus his retinue was enlarged and his court appeared more magnificent. See Ezr 2:58.
5. He did not neglect country business, but both entertained and enriched himself with that, and was not diverted from it either by his studies or by his pleasures. He had large possessions of great and small cattle, herds and flocks, as his father had before him (Ch1 27:29, Ch1 27:31), not forgetting that his father, in the beginning, was a keeper of sheep. Let those that deal in cattle neither despise their employment nor be weary of it, remembering that Solomon puts his having possessions of cattle among his great works and his pleasures.
6. He grew very rich, and was not at all impoverished by his building and gardening, as many are, who, for that reason only, repent it, and call it vanity and vexation. Solomon scattered and yet increased. He filled his exchequer with silver and gold, which yet did not stagnate there, but were made to circulate through his kingdom, so that he made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones (Kg1 10:27); nay, he had the segullah, the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces, which was, for richness and rarity, more accounted of than silver and gold. The neighbouring kings, and the distant provinces of his own empire, sent him the richest presents they had, to obtain his favour and the instructions of his wisdom.
7. He had every thing that was charming and diverting, all sorts of melody and music, vocal and instrumental, men-singers and women-singers, the best voices he could pick up, and all the wind and band-instruments that were then in use. His father had a genius for music, but it should seem he employed it more to serve his devotion than the son, who made it more for his diversion. These are called the delights of the sons of men; for the gratifications of sense are the things that the generality of people set their affections upon and take the greatest complacency in. The delights of the children of God are of quite another nature, pure, spiritual, and heavenly, and the delights of angels.
8. He enjoyed, more than ever any man did, a composition of rational and sensitive pleasures at the same time. He was, in this respect, great, and increased more than all that were before him, that he was wise amidst a thousand earthly enjoyments. It was strange, and the like was never met with, (1.) That his pleasures did not debauch his judgment and conscience. In the midst of these entertainments his wisdom remained with him, Ecc 2:9. In the midst of all these childish delights he preserved his spirit manly, kept the possession of his own soul, and maintained the dominion of reason over the appetites of sense; such a vast stock of wisdom had he that it was not wasted and impaired, as any other man's would have been, by this course of life. But let none be emboldened hereby to lay the reins on the neck of their appetites, presuming that they may do that and yet retain their wisdom, for they have not such a strength of wisdom as Solomon had; nay, and Solomon was deceived; for how did his wisdom remain with him when he lost his religion so far as to build altars to strange gods, for the humouring of his strange wives? But thus far his wisdom remained with him that he was master of his pleasures, and not a slave to them, and kept himself capable of making a judgment of them. He went over into the enemies' country, not as a deserter, but as a spy, to discover the nakedness of their land. (2.) Yet his judgment and conscience gave no check to his pleasures, nor hindered him from exacting the very quintessence of the delights of sense, Ecc 2:10. It might be objected against his judgment in this matter that if his wisdom remained with him he could not take the liberty that was necessary to a full experimental acquaintance with it: "Yea," said he, "I took as great a liberty as any man could take, for whatsoever my eyes desired I kept not from them, if it could be compassed by lawful means, though ever so difficult or costly; and as I withheld not any joy from my heart that I had a mind to, so I withheld not my heart from any joy, but, with a non-obstante - with the full exercise of my wisdom, I had a high gust of my pleasures, relished and enjoyed them as much as ever any Epicure did;" nor was there any thing either in the circumstances of his condition or in the temper of his spirit to sour or embitter them, or give them any alloy. In short, [1.] He had as much pleasure in his business as ever any man had: My heart rejoiced in all my labour; so that the toil and fatigue of that were no damp to his pleasures. [2.] He had no less profit by his business. He met with no disappointment in it to give him any disturbance: This was my portion of all my labour; he had this added to all the rest of his pleasures that in them he did not only see, but eat, the labour of his hands; and this was all he had, for indeed it was all he could expect, from his labours. It sweetened his business that he enjoyed the success of it, and it sweetened his enjoyments that they were the product of his business; so that, upon the whole, he was certainly as happy as the world could make him.
9. We have, at length, the judgment he deliberately gave of all this, Ecc 2:11. When the Creator had made his great works he reviewed them, and behold, all was very good; every thing pleased him. But when Solomon reviewed all his works that his hands had wrought with the utmost cost and care, and the labour that he had laboured to do in order to make himself easy and happy, nothing answered his expectation; behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit; he had no satisfaction in it, no advantage by it; there was no profit under the sun, neither by the employments nor by the enjoyments of this world.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–26 I said in mine heart,.... He communed with his…
I said in mine heart,.... He communed with his heart, he thought and reasoned within himself, and came to this resolution in his own mind; that since he could not find happiness in natural wisdom and knowledge, he would seek for it elsewhere, even in pleasure; in which, he observed, some men placed their happiness; or, however, sought for it there: or, "I said to my heart", as the Syriac version;
Go to now; or, "go, I pray thee" (u) listen to what I am about to say, and pursue the track I shall now point out to thee;
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I will prove thee with mirth; with those things which will cause mirth, joy, and pleasure; and try whether any happiness can be enjoyed this way, since it could not be had in wisdom and knowledge. Jarchi and Aben Ezra render it, "I will mingle", wine with water, or with spices; or, "I will pour out", wine in plenty to drink of, "with joy", and to promote mirth: but the Targum, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, interpret it as we do, and which sense Aben Ezra makes mention of;
therefore enjoy pleasure; which man is naturally a lover of; he was so in his state of innocency, and this was the bait that was laid for him, and by which he was drawn into sin; and now he loves, lives in, and serves sinful pleasures; which are rather imaginary than real, and last but for a season, and end in bitterness: but such sordid lusts and pleasures are not here meant; Solomon was too wise and good a man to give into these, as the "summum bonum"; or ever to think there could be any happiness in them, or even to make a trial of them for that purpose: not criminal pleasures, or an impure, sottish, and epicurean life, are here intended; but manly, rational, and lawful pleasures, for no other are mentioned in the detail of particulars following; and, in the pursuit of the whole, he was guided and governed by his wisdom, and that remained in him, Ecc 2:3. It may be rendered, "therefore see good" (w); look upon all the good, pleasant, and delectable things of life; and enjoy them in such a manner as, if possible, happiness may be attained in them;
and, behold, this also is vanity; it will be found, by making the experiment, that there is no solid and substantial happiness in it, as it was by himself.
(u) "age, quaeso", Tigurine version, Vatablus, Rambachius. (w) "et vide in bonum", Montanus; "et vide bonum", Vatablus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Gejerus; "fraere bono", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Amama, Rambachius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Solomon shews, that there is no true happiness to…
Solomon shews, that there is no true happiness to be had in mirth and the pleasures of sense, ver. 1-11. He considers wisdom again, and owns it to be an excellent thing, and yet insufficient to give happiness, ver. 12-16. He shews that business and wealth are only vanity and vexation of spirit, ver. 17-23. And that if there be any good therein, it is only to these who sit loose to them, ver. 24- 26.
I said - Being disappointed of my hopes from knowledge, I resolved to try another course. Go to - O my soul! I will try whether I cannot make thee happy, by the enjoyment of sensual delights. Vanity - Is vain, and unable to make men happy.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 The vanity of human courses in the works of…
CHAPTER II
The vanity of human courses in the works of pleasure,
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planting, equipage, amassing wealth, c., 1-11.
Wisdom preferable to folly, 12-14
yet little difference between the wise and the foolish in
the events of life, 15-17.
The vanity of amassing wealth for heirs, when whether they
will be foolish or wise cannot be ascertained, 18-21.
There is much sorrow in the labour of man, 22, 23.
We should enjoy what the providence of God gives, 25, 26.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. I will prove thee with mirth] This is well expressed by the author so often referred to. Having tried speculative knowledge in vain, passion and appetite whisper, -
"From the rugged thorny road
Of wisdom, which so ill repays thy toil,
Turn back, and enter pleasure's flowery paths.
Go, take thy fill of joy; to passion give
The reins; nor let one serious thought restrain
What youth and affluence prompt."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 Ecc 2:1-2. I said in my heart — Being…
Ecc 2:1-2. I said in my heart — Being disappointed of my hopes from knowledge, I resolved to try another course. Go to now — O my soul! I will try whether I cannot make thee happy by the enjoyment of sensual delights. This also is vanity — Is vain, and unable to make men happy. I said of laughter, It is mad — This is an act of madness, more fit for fools who know nothing, than for wise men in this sinful, and dangerous, and deplorable state of mankind. What doth it — What good doth it? Or how can it make men happy? I challenge all the epicures in the world to give me a solid answer.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 Solomon’s trial of God’s second gift, namely, riches, and…
Solomon’s trial of God’s second gift, namely, riches, and the enjoyment which riches supply; this brought him to the sane result (compare Ecc 1:12).
Comparing Solomon’s action with Luk 12:16-21, it must be remembered that Solomon’s object was the acquisition of wisdom, not self-indulgence, and that he did not fail to look forward to the certainty of death overtaking him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26 Delights. He speaks in the name of libertines, (St.…
Delights. He speaks in the name of libertines, (St. Gregory, Dial. iv. 4.) or after his conversion. (Calmet) --- The worldling might object that since wisdom affords not content, it is best to try pleasure. But this meets not with the approbation of the wise, as all terrestrial joy is short, and can yield no more than a passing consolation. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1. The vanity of practical wisdom in itself, proved…
Ecc_2:1-26.
1. The vanity of practical wisdom in itself, proved by the example of Solomon
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(Ecc_2:1-19).
1I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold, this also is vanity. 2I said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth it? 3I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. 4I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: 5I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. 6I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: 7I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: 8I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings, and of the provinces: I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments and that of all sorts. 9So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. 10And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. 11Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. 12And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man 13do that cometh after the king ? even that which hath been already done. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. 14The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. 15Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I 16said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man as the fool. 17Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 18Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 19And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
2. The aim of life to be attained in consideration of the empirical vanity of practical wisdom
Ecc_2:20-26.
20Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun. 21For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? 23For all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh 24not rest in the night. This is also vanity. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. 25For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto more than I? 26For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.
[Ecc_2:1.—נָא. A particle of address or appeal, come on now, sometimes of entreaty. Here it denotes another trial with an ironical intimation of its failure. The address is to his heat, and the strong entreaty, or emotion, is shown in the paragogic ה in אֲנַסְּכָה, O let me try thee again!—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:3.—תַּרְתִּי—לִמְשׁוְָֹךְ. See Exeget. and Notes. מִסְפַּר is sometimes used to denote paucity, as Num_9:20; Gen_34:30; Psa_105:12, &c. Here the whole phrase may be rendered numbered days, i.e., few days. See Metrical Version.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:5.—פַּרְדֵּסִים. See Exeget. and note to Introduction, p. 32.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:8.—מְדִינוֹת. Int. Ap., p. 34, שִׁדּוֹת ,שִׁדָּה. See Exeget. and Note; also Int. to Metrical Version.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:10.—אָצַלְתִּי rendered denied, but more properly withold from, primary sense to separate, place by itself, Gen_27:36.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:13.—רָאִיתִי denotes more properly here the judgment of the mind than seeing stated as a fact. I thought, I judged. Such a sense is a very common one in the Arabic root, and in the Rabbinical usage. It occurs also in the oldest Hebrew, as in the language Gen_2:19, “He brought them unto Adam,” לִרְאוֹת, for Adam to see (judge) what name he should give them. It is only an opinion expressed here. See Metrical Version.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:14.—מִקְרֶה. See Exeget. and Note, p. 58—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:16.—בְּשֶׁכְּבָר. The full form would be בַאֲשֵׁר כְּבָר. For an examination of such words, and the manner in which they have become abbreviated, whether in later or earlier Hebrew, or as a mere matter of orthography, see text note to Gen_6:3 [בְּשׁגַם].—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:20.—וְסַבּוֹתִי. See Exeget. and Note.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:21.—כְּשָׁרוֹן. One of the words relied upon to prove the late date; but it is most parely Hebrew, and a noun of the same root, and the same sense, is found in that old composition Psa_68:7 : כוֹשָׁרָה prosperity, very wrongly rendered chains in E. V., as though from קשׁר. See Huppeld.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:24.—שֶׁיֹּאכַל. See Exeget. and Note.—T. L.]
[Ecc_2:25.—יָחוּשׁ חוּץ. Literally hasten beyond, go father—more without. There is the figure of a race. See Matrical Version; also the Exeget. and Note, p. 55—T. L.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Of the two divisions of this chapter, the first, (Ecc_2:1-19), treats of the vanity of the practical efforts of men, and thus supplements the description of the vanity of the theoretical strivings after wisdom, whilst the second division (Ecc_2:20-26) is of a more general character, and deduces a provisional result from the nature of human strivings after wisdom as therein set forth. Each of the two divisions contains two subdivisions or strophes within itself, of which, naturally, that of the first longer division (the one of nine, the other of eight verses) is especially comprehensive, and is, in addition to this, provided with a short introductory proposition (Ecc_2:1-2). The complete scheme of the contents of this chapter is therefore as follows:—I. Division. The vanity of practical wisdom aiming at sensual enjoyment and magnificent enterprises, proved by the example of Solomon: a. (proposition, Ecc_2:1-2), in general; b. (first strophe, Ecc_2:3-11), in reference to that seeking after enjoyment and extensive activity; c. (second strophe, Ecc_2:12-19) in reference to the uncertain and deceptive success of the efforts alluded to.—II. Division: The aim of life to be attained in consideration of the empirical vanity of practical wisdom; a. (first strophe, Ecc_2:20-23): Negative proof of the same, as not consisting in grasping after earthly and selfish wisdom, and after external worldly success; b. (second strophe, Ecc_2:24-26): Positive showing of the life aim of the wise man, as consisting in the cheerful enjoyment of worldly benefits offered by God to those in whom he delights.
2. First Division. Proposition or general Introduction: Ecc_2:1-2.—I said in my heart. אְַנִי with אָמַרְתִּי is essentially pleonastic, as also in Ecc_1:16; Ecc_2:11; Ecc_2:14; Ecc_2:18; Ecc_3:17, etc., for it is in no wise apparent that a special significance is in these passages to be given to the subject speaking (Hengstenberg), and pleonasms of all varieties are very characteristic in the somewhat broad and circumstantial style of the author. Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, i.e., I will try whether thou wilt feel contented and happy in this new object of thy experience, namely, in cheerful sensual enjoyment, whether, on this path of pleasure and joy thou canst become a לֵב טוֹב (Ecc_9:7). For the address to his own heart (or own soul) comp. Psa_16:2; Psa_42:5; Psa_43:5; Luk_12:18-19; for the construction, to prove one with something נִסָּה בְּ 1Ki_10:1.—Therefore enjoy pleasure. (Lit. Ger., behold pleasure).—This beholding, is here considered as connected with an enjoyable appropriation of the object beheld, which sense the preposition strongly expresses by virtue of its reference to the conception of lingering with the beheld object; comp. רָאָה בְּ in Gen_21:16 : Job_3:9; and therewith the simple רָאָה in the expression רָאָה טוֹבָה Ecc_6:6, or in רָאָה חַיּים Ecclesiastes 9 : and in רָאָה שֵׁנָה Ecc_8:10, etc. Ecc_2:2. I said of laughter, It is mad. “Of laughter,” does not mean as much as “in reference to laughter” (Knobel, Vaih., etc.): but the laughter, i. e., the unrestrained cheerfulness attending sensual enjoyment, seems here to be personified, just as mirth in the next clause. כְהוֹלָל Part. Poal, as in Psa_102:9, means really one void of sense, one infatuated, and might more properly be considered masculine, than as neuter (with Vaih., Hitzig, etc.), so that Luther’s translation: “Thou art mad,” apart from the address, seems substantially justified. See Hengstenberg, who strikingly compares with it ἄφρον Luk_12:20, and justly finds in this passage the germ of the Parable of the Rich Man, Luk_12:16-21. And of mirth, what doeth it? i. e., what does it accomplish, what fruit does it bring forth (comp. עשה פּרי) Luther, in imitation of the Sept. Vulg., etc., considers the question as an address to mirth (“what doest thou)?” but it is rather, as the word זהֹ shows, a bitterly contemptuous exclamation addressed to some third person, and an answer is not expected. For the form fit instead of זֹאת comp. Ecc_5:15; Ecc_7:23, 1Ki_6:19. Some exegetists, especially of the rationalistic period, have unjustly desired to find a contradiction in the fact that Koheleth here despises cheerful sensual enjoyment, whilst in conclusion (Ecc_2:24, f.) he vaunts it as the principal aim of life.1 What he here blames and condemns as foolish, is clearly only that empty merriment which accompanies the wild exhilaration of sensual enjoyment, or sensual pleasure, as only end and aim of human effort, not a thankfully cheerful enjoyment of the benefits bestowed by God. Comp. Luther on this passage, and see the ho-miletical hints.
3. First division, first strophe: Ecc_2:3-11.—I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine. (Lit. Ger., to comfort my flesh with wine). of the sensual joy indicated in the first verse, a special kind is hero named, by which the preacher first sought to obtain satisfaction, and then follow, to the sixth verse inclusive, still other such separate means of sensual enjoyment. The word תַּרְתִּי therefore, recommences the account where the אֲנַכְּכָה Ecc_2:1, had begun it, and is in substance synonymous with that verb.2 Comp. Num_13:18; Num_15:39; etc., where תּוּר is always used in the sense of trying, experimenting, and not in that of thinking, re fleeting. (Elster). מְשֹׁך בָּשָׂר is most justly explained by Gesenius, Hitzig, Hengstenberg etc., as “to nourish the body,” i. e., to keep it in action or condition, to make it lasting and strong so that the expression: “bread which strengtheneth man’s heart” (Psa_104:15), seems parallel with it. Others explain it differently, as Knobel and Vaihinger: “To keep my sensual natur with wine;” Ewald, Elster: “to attach m; sense to wine;” Herzfeld: “to entice my body b; wine,” etc. Yet acquainting mine hear with wisdom. (Lit. Ger., my heart led me wit] wisdom), a parenthetical clause that clearly indicates what the inner man of the preacher did whilst his flesh rioted in pleasures and enjoyments. The sense is therefore: I did not plunge headlong into coarse, fleshly gratifications, but true to the warning counsel in Pro_31:4, f. I tested with calm reflection, and in a compose way, whether real contentment was to be secure by means of sensual joys. The exposition o Ewald and Elsteb, which allies נהג with the Aramaic נהג “to sigh,” and the correspond ing Arabic verb, in the sense of “experiercing disgust with something” (“whilst my heart was weary with wisdom”), is too far-fetched, an contradicts what is said in Ecc_9:13; ff., which confirms our conception of the passage.3 for in the sense of guiding, leading, comp. Isa_11:6; 1Ch_13:7; 2Sa_6:8, etc.—And to lay hold on folly, or also to seize folly.—With “folly” (סִכְלוּת) cannot here naturally be meant as an exclusive contrast with wisdom; therefore not folly in the absolute sense, but mainly that foolish, sensual pleasure, which is referred to in Ecc_2:2, or even that mentioned in Ecc_2:3, “comforting the flesh with wine;” therefore a disposition which gives the reins to pleasure, and lives thoughtlessly in accordance with the assertion of Horace: Dulce est desipere in loco. Koheleth, from the beginning, recognizes this sentiment as folly, and thus designates it in contempt. But nevertheless he will prove it, and try whether it may not be relatively best for man, better than cold, fruitless, and wearisome wisdom, which when gained produces sorrow, and with which he was disgusted according to chapter first.” (Elster).—Till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, etc. Comp. Ecc_7:19.—Which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. There is in these words a kind of mournful resignation. Short as is the period of human life on earth, oven for this little span of time it is not always clear to man what is really good and beneficial for him; and many, and mostly bitter and painful experiences, are needed to bring him to this knowledge.
Ecc_2:4. I made me great works; I builded me houses. We are here certainly to understand the structures of Solomon in a general sense (1Ki_7:1, ff.; 1Ki_9:19; Ecc_10:18, ff., but hardly a special allusion to the temple, which Solomon could not have counted among his houses.—I planted me vineyards The Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes 8 :II, mentions one of these; and that Solomon had more of them, and had not overrated his wealth arbitrarily, and in violation of historic truth, (as Knobel supposes), is satisfactorily proved by the several vineyards of David enumerated in 1 Chron. 28:27.
Ecc_2:5. I made me gardens and orchards,—in the environs of these houses or palaces, (comp. 1Ki_21:2; Jer. 62:7; also the Son_1:16, f.). For the etymology of the See Int. to the Song, § 3, obs. 2.—And I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits; therefore not merely one of one kind, but many of many kinds of fruit trees. The emphasis does not rest on פְּרִי as if it would declare the King’s object to be to raise trees affording delightful and delicate enjoyment (Knobel), but on כָּל־ whereby the rich variety of fruit trees is pointed out.
Ecc_2:6.—I made me pools of water; perhaps those mentioned in the Song (Ecc_7:4), as at Heshbon; perhaps also the king’s pool at Jerusalem, mentioned in Neh_2:14, which a later tradition, at least, marked as a work of Solomon. (Josephus, b. Jdg_5:4; Jdg_5:2); and certainly those situated in Wadi Urtâs, near Bethlehem and Erham, “Pools of Solomon,” mentioned in the exposition of the Song of Solomon, and which are doubtless here principally meant.—To water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees, intransitive4 as in Pro_24:31; Isa_5:6; Isa_34:15. The object of these pools as artificial basins for irrigating the extensive orchards of the king, testify to the magnificence and expense of these grounds. Ecc_2:7. I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house. (Lit., were to me, as in Ecc_2:10), namely, from the marriages of the men and maid servants in my house. בְּנֵי בַּיִת Gen_15:2, or יְלִידֵי בַּיִת Gen. 12:27; Jer_2:14, are slaves born in the house (vernæ, οἰκογενεῖς), and on account of their natural fidelity and affection a very valuable possession; here, however, named mainly because their presence was the sign and necessary result of numerous servants, and, consequently, of a large and flourishing household.—Also I had great possessions, of great and small cattle. After the wealth in men and maid servants, as in Gen_12:16; Gen_30:43, directly follow the great possessions of cattle, and then comes his wealth in unproductive treasures, silver and gold, as Gen_13:2. The historical books of the Old Testament mention not only David (1Ch_27:29, f.), but also his son and heir Solomon (1Ki_5:3; 1Ki_8:63), as wealthy possessors of herds. For the concluding words of this verse: above all that were in Jerusalem before me, see remarks on Ecc_1:16.
Ecc_2:8. I gathered me also silver and gold. כָּנַסְתּי lit., “I heaped up,” that is in treasuries, as in the gorgeous apartments of my palace. The result of this unceasing activity of Solomon in collecting treasures, is depicted in 2Ch_1:15; 2Ch_9:27; 1Ki_10:27 : “Silver and gold at Jerusalem were as plenteous as stories.”—And the peculiar treasure of kings, and of the provinces. For כְזדִינָה province, district, comp. Int. § 4, obs. 2. סְגֻלָּה lit. property, is here and in 1Ch_29:3, equivalent to wealth, treasures. By “kings” are naturally first meant those tributary rulers of the neighboring lands treated of in 1Ki_5:1; 1Ki_10:15; but farther on those friendly rulers, who, as the Queen of Sheba, 1Ki_10:2 ff., brought voluntary gifts, or even sent them, (as through the ships of Ophir, 1Ki_9:28; 1Ki_10:11; 1Ki_10:14; 1Ki_10:22; 2 Chron. 8:28). The provinces are those twelve districts into which Solomon divided the land for the purpose of taxation, 1Ki_4:7 if.—I gat me men-singers and women-singers;—the latter doubtless belonging to the women used for courtly display, mentioned in the Song of Solomon under the name of “Daughters of Jerusalem,” or “Virgins without number,” (Ecc_6:8); the former were of course not singers of the temple (as in 1Ki_10:12; 1Ch_25:1 ff.; 2Ch_5:12), but singers of lively, worldly songs, as kept by David according to 2Sa_19:36, and afterwards certainly by Solomon for enhancing the pleasures of the table, (comp. Isa_5:12; Amo_6:5).—For עָשָֹׁה to get, to keep, comp. 2Sa_15:1; 1Ki_1:6.—And the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts (Zöckleb has rendered שִׁדָּה וְשִׁדּוֹת die Hulle und Fulle, in great abundance.—T. L.
The words שִׁדָּה וְשִׁדּוֹת are most probably to be translated according to the Arabic by “multitude and multitudes,” or also by “heap and heaps” (Ewald, Elster, etc.), whereby a very great abundance is meant, and indeed of תַּעֲנֻגוֹת i. e., of caresses, of enjoyments and pleasures’ of sexual love, to which Solomon was too much given according to 1Ki_9:3; Son_6:8. J. d. Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Herzfeld, Knobel, Hitzig, etc., translate “mistress and mistresses,” or “woman and women,” a signification which they seek to justify etymo-logically in various ways from the Arabic, but which can no more be considered certain than the explanation resting on the Chaldaic שְׁדָא “to pour,” which ancient translators turn into cupbearers, male and female5 (Sept. οἰνο χόονς καὶ οἰνοχόας, Hieronymus, ministros vini et ministras). Ecc_2:9. So I was great and increased. (Lit. I became great and added thereto (הוֹסִף as Ecc_1:16). This is meant, of course, in the sense of possessions and riches, consequently in the sense of Gen_26:13; Job_1:3.—Also my wisdom remained with me: עָמְדָה־לִּי Lit. (It stood by me), it remained at my side, left me not, notwithstanding the fact that my outward man yielded to these follies and vanities. Thus must it be rendered according to Ecc_2:3, and not “My wisdom served me," (Ewald), or “sustained me,” Elster. (Comp. the Vulg. persevcravitmecum).
Ecc_2:10. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them. That is, I possessed not only an abundance of all earthly goods, but I sought also to enjoy them; I withheld from me no object of my pleasure. Concerning the eyes as seat and organ of sensual desire, consult Psa_145:15; 1Ki_20:6; 1Jn_2:16—6 I withheld not my heart from any joy. Koheleth does not mean thereby that he enjoyed every imaginable pleasure, but only that I lie kept his heart open for every pleasure that i presented itself to him, and profited by every one; i that he avoided no pleasure that presented itself to him, (comp. Hitzig). That this is the sense is proved by the following: For my heart rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my portion of all my labours. Koheleth allowed himself, therefore, those pleasures and enjoyments which resulted from his continued exertion and labor, which formed agreeable resting places in the midst of his painful and fatiguing life; he sought and found in the hours of cheerful enjoyment, that interrupted his mainly painful existence, a recompense for his troubles and sorrows,—a recompense, it is true, that was only of a transitory nature (consequently no lasting, but simply an apparent, חֶלֶק and which thus, just as the toil and labor, belonged to that vexation of spirit that formed mainly the sum and substance of his experience. For שָׂמַח מִן “to extract joy from anything,” comp. Pro_5:18; 2Ch_20:27. In opposition to the explanation of Hahn et al.—my heart rejoiced after all my labor, stands the following expression: This was my portion (i. e., my profit, my advantage), of all my labor.
Ecc_2:11. Then I looked on all the works, etc., lit.: I turned to all my works (כָּנָה בְּ as Job_6:28); comp. Ecc_2:12. And on the labour that I had laboured; to do, i. e., to produce these, my toilsome works. And, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit. “All,” that is, the substance of all my efforts, those referring to the collecting of great riches, and the founding of a great dominion, as well as those aiming after cheerful enjoyment; “in nothing of all this did I recognise a lasting חֶלֶק a real יִתְרוֹן (comp. Ecc_1:3); everything seemed to me rather as רְעוּת רוּחַ (see Ecc_1:14).” In how far and why this formed the result of his experience, is shown in the sequel (Ecc_2:12-19); there only does this general conclusion: there is no profit under the sun, as here expressed in anticipation, find its full justification.
4. First Division, second strophe: Ecc_2:12-19. That there is no profit under the sun, appears above all clearly from the fact that the wise man, with reference to his final destiny, and the end of his life, has no advantage over the fool, in so as he meets the same death as the latter through a necessity of nature, and is obliged to eave the fruits of his labor often enough to foolish heirs and successors.
Ecc_2:12. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; i. e., to observe them in their relation to each other, and consider their relative value; comp. Ecc_1:17. Hitzig’s conception that “madness and folly” are correlatives is altogether too artificial; he holding that by these the result of the consideration of wisdom is expressed, and that a connective (“and, behold, it was)” has been omitted. For what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done. This, "that has already been done,” consists naturally in a foolish and perverted beginning, even in the destruction of what has been done by a wise predecessor, and in the dispersion of the treasures and goods collected by him, (comp. for this negative, or rather catachrestic sense of the verb to do, Mat_17:12). J. D. Michaelis, Knobel, and Hengstenberg, substantially coincide with this explanation of the somewhat obscure and difficult words; it is confirmed as well by the context as by the masoretic punctuation. Nearest allied to this is the conception of Ko-senmueller: "For who is the man who can come after the king? Answer: For what has been he will do.” Thus also De Rougement: “Who is the man who could hope to be more fortunate in following after him (King Solomon) on this false path? We can try it, but it will be with us as it has been with all before us.” Hitzig reads in the concluding line ) עֲשׂוֹהוּ instead of עָשׂוּהוּ and therefore translates: What will the successor of the king do? “That which he hath already done.” Luther, Vaihinger, as also the Septuagint and the Vulgate, only translating more concretely,, do not take אֶח אֲשֶׁ כְּבַר עָשׂוּהוּ as an independent, responsive clause, but as a relative clause: “What will the man be who will come after the king, who has already been chosen?” (Luther, “whom they have already made”). Hahn also says: “What is the man who will come after the king, in respect to that which has already been done;” and Ewald and Elster: “How will the man be who follows the king, compared with him whom they chose long ago,” i.e., with his predecessor? Some Rabbinic exegetists, whom even Drusius is inclined to follow, have referred עָשׂוּהוּ to God as active subject, which is here expressed as a plurality (trinity): “with the One (or beside the One) who has made him;” for which sense they refer to Psa_149:2 : Job_35:10; Isa_54:1, etc.
Ecc_2:13. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.—The poet recognizes the absolute worth of wisdom, just as in the first clause of Ecc_2:14 he more clearly describes its profit for the individual. For the comparison of wisdom and folly with light and darkness, comp. Pro_4:23; Mat_6:33 f.; Joh_8:12, etc. “As light is a creative power that bears within itself an independent life, and produces life wherever it penetrates, and darkness, on the contrary, is a negation of light, a numb and dead element,—so is the real strength of life in wisdom alone, whilst folly is vain, empty, and unsubstantial” (Elster).
Ecc_2:14. The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness.—An assumed syllogism, in which the conclusion is wanting: “therefore, it stumbles and falls;” comp. Joh_9:10. By the eyes which the wise man carries in his head, i. e., in the right place, are meant, of course, the eyes of the understanding (Eph_1:18), the inward organ of spiritual knowledge, the eye of the spirit (Pro_20:27; Mat_6:28, etc.), Comp. Cicero, deNatura Deorum, 2, 64. Totam licet animis tamqttam oculis lustrare terram.—And I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.—גַּם adversative, as Ecc_3:13; Ecc_4:8; Ecc_4:16. מִקְרֶה literal: occurrence, accident or chance; comp. Ecc_2:15; Ecc_3:19, etc., which here clearly designate death, the physical end of man, the return to dust of one born of dust, as a destiny resting on the Divine curse (Gen_3:19).7
Ecc_2:15. As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me.—The general assertion of the latter clause of Ecc_2:14 is now specially applied to the person of Koheleth, as belonging to the class of wise men.—גַּם־אֲנִי יִקְרֵנִי literally: “I also, it will happen to me.” The person being made prominent by the isolated pronoun in the nominative, placed at the beginning, as in Gen_24:27; Eze_33:17; 2Ch_28:10.—And why was I then more Wise?—That is, “what profits me now my great wisdom? what advantage does it afford me compared with the fool?” For this expression comp. 1Co_15:30; Gal_5:11.—אַז now, therefore, if such is the case, is said in view of the dying hour, from which the author looks back on the whole of his past life.—יתֵֹר a participle used substantively, synonymous with יִתְרוֹן advantage, profit, here an adverb, excessively, too much, comp. Ecc_7:16—That this also is vanity.—“This,” namely, the arrangement that the wise man dies as the fool, that the same night of death awaits them both. Observe that Koheleth does not declare this disposition an injustice, but only as vanity, for a new phase of that fullness of vain, empty appearances which his experience in life has made him acquainted with, הֶבֶל here signifies, as at the end of Ecc_2:19 (also Ecc_8:10; Ecc_8:14), something objectively vain, in contrast to the vanity of subjective Human thoughts, knowledge and efforts hitherto indicated by it. It means the same objective ματαιότης of this lower world, derived from the fall, of which Paul, Rom_8:20, says, that the entire earthly creature, like man himself, is subjected to it.
Ver.16. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever—i. e., as is the fool, so is the wise man forgotten after his death; posterity thinks of the one as little as of the other. This assertion is, of course, to be relatively understood, like the similar one in Ecc_1:11; not all posthumous fame of men is denied; it is simply asserted to be ordinarily and most generally the case, that posterity retains no special remembrance of those who have previously lived, which, in reference to the great majority8 of individuals is certainly wholly true.—עִם הַכְּסִיל lit., “with the fool,” is equivalent to “as the fool;” comp. Ecc_7:10; Job_9:26; Job_37:18.—לִעוֹלָם belongs in conception with זִכְרוֹן “no remembrance for eternity,” the same as, no eternal remembrance, no lasting recollection.—Seeing that which is now in the days to come shall all be forgotten.—הַיָּמִים הַבָּאִים is the accusative of time, comp. Isa_27:6; Jer_28:16.—כְּבַר is to be connected with the verb, as also chap, Ecc_9:6, and is therefore to be rendered: “because every thing will have long been forgotten” (נִשְׁכַח the future past).—And how dieth the wise man? as the fool!—(A simple exclamation in the Ger.). A painful cry of lamentation, 9) which, by an appeal to the experience of the reader, is to represent what is asserted as incontestable.
Ecc_2:17. Therefore I hated life.—שָׂנֵא does not indicate the strong effect of actual hatred or hostile feeling, but the feeling of disgust, weariness, antipathy towards a thing. Comp. the Vulg.: tseduit me vilse mess, and also for this same milder sense of the verb, Isa_14:1; Amo_5:13; Mal_1:3.—Because the work That is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me.-That is, the view of every thing occurring under the sun bore painfully upon me, tortured me with an oppressive feeling; comp. Ewald, Manual, § 217, i. y.; comp. also Ecc_1:14.
Ecc_2:18.—Yea, I hated all my labor, etc.-Not simply the doings of men in general, but also his own exertions, appeared hateful to the Preacher, because they were vain and fruitless.—Because I should leave it to the man that shall be after me-that is, to my successor, heir; comp. Ecc_2:12. He must leave to his heirs not the labor itself, but what he had acquired thereby, its fruit, its result, and this grieves him-why, the following verse tells.-For the form אַנִּיחֶנּוּ Imp. Hiph. from נוח comp. Ewald, § 122, e.
Ecc_2:19 heightens the thought of Ecc_2:18, and thereby leads back definitively to Ecc_2:12, as the starting point of the present reflection on the uncertainty and transitory nature of all earthly possessions (for wise men as well as for fools)—Wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun.—שֶׁעָמַלְתִּי וְשֶׁהָכַמְתִּי lit., “which I have obtained by trouble, and in which I have employed wisdom.” A zeugma for: by whose wearisome acquirement I have showed myself wise.
5. Second Division, first strophe.
Ecc_2:20-23. On account of the painful truth of what has just been demonstrated, one must despair of all external earthly success of this earthly life, as does the Preacher at the evening of his life.—Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair.–(Lit. Ger., “turned around”). וְסַבּוֹתִי different from וְפָנִיתִי Ecc_2:12, does not mean to turn in order to sec any thing, but a turning around in order to do something, comp. Ecc_7:25; 1Sa_22:17-18. The idea of turning from a former occupation is also included.10-The Piel יָאֵשׁ to permit to despair, to give up to despair, is only found here in the O. T.; the Niph. נוֹאַשׁ desperavit is more usual (or also the neuter participle: desperatum est), whilst the Kal does not occur.
Ecc_2:21. For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity.—Lit., whose labor is with wisdom, etc. (שֶׁעֲמָלוֹ בְּחָכְכָה), or also: whose labor has been, etc.; for הָיָה the verb supplemented to עֲמָלו, can express both a present and a perfect sense. Wisdom is not here designated as the aim of labor, as Ewald supposes (“whose labor aims after wisdom”), but as the means whereby the aim of עָמָל, the fruit of human Exertion shall be attained. Besides wisdom, knowledge and equity are also named as means to this end. (דּעת comp. Ecc_1:16; Ecc_1:18; Ecc_2:26); for this is what כִּשְׁרוֹן here means, not success, favorable result, as Ecc_5:9. The Sept. is also correct, ἀνδρέια, and substantially so also the Vulg (sollicitudo), and Luther (ability, capability).- Yet to a man who has not labored thereir shall he leave it for his portion.—שֶׁלֹּא עָמַל־בּוֹ for בּוֹ refers to tho principal thought of the preceding clause, and not to חָכְמָה. For עָמַל בְּ, to labor for a thing; comp. Jon_4:10 The suffix in יִתְנֶנּו also refers to עָמָל, and חֶלְקוֹ is a second object: “he gives it to him as him portion, his share”
Ecc_2:22. For what hatl man of all his labor, הָוָה lit.: falls to, falls suddenly down upon (Job_37:6); in the late Chaldaic style, to happen, to become, to be ap pointed to; comp. Ecc_11:2; Neh_6:6.—And of the vexation of his heart.-Herewith are principally, if not exclusively, meant these there synonyms: Wisdom, knowledge and equity, ver 21. The aspiration of the heart is the essence of the plans and designs which form the motiv of the labor and exertion of man, and give t them their direction and definite aim.
Ecc_2:22 Wherein he hath labored under the sun.—The relative refers to כָּל עֲמָלוֹ as well as to רַעְיוֹן לִבּוֹ
Ecc_2:23. For all his days ar sorrows and his travail grief.—עִנְיָנוֹ (comp. Ecc_1:13) bears here again the meaning of daily labor (Hitzig, Elster, Vaihinger, etc.), a stronger expression that would remind us of Psa_42:3 Comp. also Psa_90:10.—Yea, his heal taketh not rest in the night-that is, it n maineth awake, troubled by anxious thoughts and plans, or tortured by unquiet dreams; comp Ecc_5:12; Son_5:2.
6. Second Division, second strophe.
Ecc_2:24-26. We are not always to remain in this abandonment of hope of external happiness, but to seek the necessary contentment of the heart in the cheerful and grateful enjoyment of the blessings of life, which God bestows on those of His children who find favor in His sight; and even this enjoyment is something vain and futile, so far as it does not stand in the power of man, but must be graciously conferred by God.—There is nothing better for man than that he should eat and drink, etc.—The words אֵין טוֹב בְּאָדָם שִׁיֹּאכַל וְגו permit a threefold conception:1. Interrogative: “Is it not better for man to eat,” etc. (thus Luthher, Oetinger, Hengstenberg, and the Vulg.: “Nonne melius est comedere et bibere,” etc.). 2. Purely negative: “There is no happiness for the man who eats,” etc. (thus the Sept., M. Geier, Dathe, Knobel, Hahn). 3. On the supposition of the omission of מִן or of כִּי אִם before שֶׁיֹּאכַלִ, “there is no happiness for man but in eating.” This last translation has the most to recommend it,11 because the interrogative and the unconditional negative conception do not so well comport with the context, and because this latter especially would be in contradiction with the passages of Ecc_3:12; Ecc_3:22; Ecc_5:18 ff; Ecc_7:14; Ecc_8:15; Ecc_9:7-9, which recommend serene enjoyment of life as a means of acquiring happiness and contentment. And because, further, the ancient Aramaic translations confirm the omission of מ (compare Ecc_3:22)before שֶׁיֹּאכַל an omission which, on account of the בְּ in בָּאָדָם. and the like ending, might so easily take place, and finally because the idea of בְּ in בָּאָדָם with the sense of ל, consequently in a sense designating an object, is confirmed by Ecc_3:12; Ecc_10:17; and the instrumental conception of this attempted by Geier and Knobel, is therefore unnecessary12 To eat and drink, and let one’s soul be merry, is therefore the triad of sensual life, which is sometimes used in a bad sense-, of vicious excess and indulgence, and again in a good or morally unpreju-dicial sense. The former is found in Exo_32:6; Pro_23:7-8; Jdt_12:13; 1Co_10:17,etc., the latter in this passage, and in Ecc_3:13; Ecc_5:17; Ecc_8:15; and also in 1Sa_30:16; Isa_65:13; Son_5:1, etc. Comp. Zöckler, Theologia Naturalis, p. 651 f., where are also produced from the classics many parallels of this combination of ideas in eating, drinking, and being merry; (e.g., Euripides, Alcest., 783; Arrian, Anab., II. 5,4; Plautus, Mil. glor., III., 1, 83).—That these maxims, to eat, drink, and be merry, are not here meant in the Epicurean sense of 1Co_15:32, is proved by the important addition בַּעֲמָלוֹ in his labor, in his toil, on which a special emphasis rests, and which excludes every thought of idle debauchery and luxurious enjoyment. See Int. § 5, and especially p. 24.—This also I saw, that it was from the hand of Grod. That is, not: I observed that as all else, so also this comes from the hand of God, but, at the same time with that truth, that eating, drinking, etc., is the best for man, I perceived also that only the hand of God can bestow such cheerfulness in toil, and such a joyous and contented feeling in the midst of the fatigues of worldly avocations.
Ecc_2:25.For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto more than I? Lit. Ger., and who enjoy, except from Him? חוּשׁ lit., to make merry, to pass a life in carousing, deliciis afflaere (Vulg.) hence to enjoy, to delight, not drink, tipple (Sept. Syr., Ewald).—Instead of חוּץ מִמֶּנִּי we must read with the Sept., Syr., Hieronymus and eight manuscripts חוּץ מִמֶּנִּי except from Him. For חוּץ מִמֶּנִּי ia the comparative sense, “except me,” or just as I, does not afford a thought in accordance with the text, and would not harmonize with the יָחוּשׁ and יֹאכַל (see Vulg. Luther, etc.). But the translation of Hahn: “for who shall eat and who shall pine for food, is beyond me, is beyond my power,” is insufferably harsh. On the contrary, מִמֶּנּוּ from Him (comp. the preposition מִן 2Sa_3:37; 1Ki_20:33), accords admirably with the connection, and furnishes that thought reminding us of Jam_1:17, which we here above all things need. And, moreover, the reading מִמֶּנִּי appears to coincide with the equally faulty שֶׁיֹּאכַל for משׁיאכל of the preceding verse. See Hitzia on this passage.13
Ecc_2:26. For to the man that is good in his sight, that is, to the just and God-fearing (comp. Neh_2:5; 1Sa_29:6), the opposite of חוֹטֵא. The idea of the retributive justice of God, meets us here for the first time in this book, but not yet so thoroughly developed as subsequently, e. g., Ecc_3:17; Ecc_11:8; Ecc_12:14.—But to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up. לָחוֹטֵא stands absolute and is not to be supplemented by a new לְפָנָיו (like the טוֹב of the first clause of the verse), as if the sense were, to the one who is. offensive to Him, who isa sinner in His sight. That he may give to him that is good before God. The object of לָתֵת is not the travail of the sinner, but the goods gathered by him through toil and travail, the treasures heaped up by him, but finally falling to the just. The same thought occurs in Pro_13:22; Pro_28:8; Job_27:17.—This also is vanity and vexation of spirit, namely, that one seeks his happiness in the cheerful enjoyment of sensual blessings, (according to the maxim in verse 24). This is also vanity, because the acquisition of goods and pleasures in this life, is by no means in the power of man, but depends solely on the free grace of God, which gives to its beloved while sleeping, (Psa_127:2); but permits the wicked, instead of pleasures, to heap up vain wrath against the day of judgment, (Rom_2:5; Jam_5:3). Others consider the heaping up of travail on the part of the wicked, as the subject of the phrase (Elster and Hengstenberg), or that it designates the arbitrary distribution of the blessings of life on the part of God as vanity and vexation (Knobel), but thereby they depart equally far from the true train of thought which the author maintains since verse 24.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
(With Homiklical Hints.)
The transition of Koheletii in the beginning of the chapter, especially in vers.1–8, from the striving after wisdom and knowledge to enjoyment, and from that to action, to the organizing and artificially producing deed (Ecc_2:4-8) presents a certain similarity with the progress of Goethe’s Faust from knowledge to enjoyment, and from that (in the sec. act) to the more serious duty of laboring and producing. For the magnificent undertakings, structures, and extension of possessions and acquirements described in Ecc_2:4-8, can scarcely be considered as mere means of sensual enjoyment in the sense of Ko-heleth (as in Elster, p. 55). He expressly confesses to have connected therewith a certain ideal object, if not of a religious, at least of an ethical aad human character; this lies in the repeated assertion (Ecc_2:3; Ecc_2:9), that in the midst of these eudemonistic and practical efforts, wisdom remained the ruler of his heart. But the great difference between Faust and the Preacher, consists in the final solution of the grand enigma of earthly life, which in the former ends in an obscure, sentimental, and philosophical mysticism, whilst the latter returns from his wanderings in the sphere of effort after earthly wisdom, enjoyment and acquisition, into the safe haven of a clearly conscious, modestly practical, and filially pious faith in God’s gracious and just government of the world. It is the humble, confidently trusting, and gratefully contented reliance on God’s gracious hand, which, at the close of his vivid and almost startling description of the vanity of all earthly things, he recommends as the only true aim for the life and labors of man, (Ecc_2:21-26). That all human exertions are vanity, even that modest striving after cheerful enjoyment and serene employment described in Ecc_2:21, is firmly fixed in his mind, (according to Ecc_2:26). But the acknowledgment of this fact does not impel him to a sullen despair of all happiness and peace, but father leads from such a feeling of discontent and discouragement into the blissful repose of a heart wholly given to God, and thankfully enjoying the good and perfect gifts dispensed by Him. Not the indolent man of enjoyment, but the industrious, cheerful laborer; not the greedily grasping misanthropic miser, but the friend of humanity delighting in God, and well-pleasing to Him; not the sinner, but the pious child of God, strong in the faith, forms the ideal that he presents at the close of his observations on the vanity of human life, which, though agitated and complaining indeed, nowhere extend to despairing grief or frivolous scepticism.
A comprehensive homileticar consideration of the whole chapter, would, therefore, be able to present as its theme: “The vanity of all earthly things, and the consoling power of a faithful reliance on God;” or, in order to show more clearly the feature distinguishing this chapter from the preceding: “The wrong and the right way to seek one’s happiness on earth;” or: “Divine grace as tile bestowcr of that happiness of men, vainly sought after by their own power and with earthly means,”(comp. the following passages in the N. T: Joh_6:65; Joh_15:5; Eph_2:8; Jam_1:17, etc.). The principal divisions for a discourse on these contents would be: 1. No earthly enjoyment or possession leads to genuine happiness, (1–11); 2. Even the happiest and wisest man remains subject to the curse of death, common to all the sons of men, (12–19); 3,Genuine and lasting happiness (surviving this life) can only be obtained for man by a childlike, contented, and grateful reliance on God’s gracious and paternal hand, (20–26).
HOMILIETICAL HINTS TO SEPERATE PASSAGES
Ecc_2:1-2. Luther: Many a one arranges all his matters with much toil and trouble, that he may have repose and peace in his old age, but God disposes otherwise, so that he comes into affairs that cause his unrest then to commence. Many a one seeks his joy in lust and licentiousness, and his life is embittered ever after. Therefore, if God does not give joy and pleasure, but we strive after it, and endeavor to create it of ourselves, no good will come of it, but it is, as Solomon says, all vanity. The best gladness and delight are those which one does not seek (for a fly may easily fall into our broth), but that which God gives to our hand.
Staeke: The joy of the world is so constituted that it entails repentance, mortification, and grief (1Jn_2:17; Luk_16:19; Luk_16:23); but the pleasure that the faithful find fh God, is spiritual, constant, satisfying, and inexpressible, (Isa_35:10; Joh_16:22).
Staeke: Ecc_2:3 ff.: Every natural man seeks, in his way, his heaven in sensual delights. But he too often sins thereby, and misuses the gifts of God (Wisdom 2, 6 ff.). God grants to man what is necessary to his body, as well as that which tends to his comfort. But how many forget God thereby!
Geier: It is allowable to possess riches if they have been righteously acquired. But bo-ware of avarice as well as extravagance.
Wohlfakth: He who thinks to find the aim of his life in the highest measure of sensual enjoyment, is the victim of an error which will demand of him a fearful revenge in proportion as he tears himself from God, strives simply after false treasures, and neglects and despises the treasures of a higher world; he heaps upon himself a weighty responsibility on account of the misuse of his time, the wasting of his powers, and the evil administration of the goods confided to him by God, and by all this excludes himself, unconditionally, from the kingdom of God.
Hansen:-9–11. The things of this world belong to the preservation, delight and convenience of external, sensual life. One may arrange them, therefore, with as much pomp, majesty and beauty as is possible; they can never, according to their nature, do more than delight our senses.-If we estimate their worth too high, they can take from us in inward ease of mind much more than they grant us in sensual delights and convenience, and become to us then a genuine scourge of the spirit.
Staeke:—If the children of the world are not without vexation and trouble in the accomplishment of their sinful lusts, the children of God should be less surprised, if they in their work in the Lord must experience various disappointments and vexations.
Hamann (Ecc_2:10):—We here find a trace of Divine goodness, which, notwithstanding the vanity of all our works, has placed in labor, and especially in useful occupations, which strike the eye and gain our approbation as well as that of others, a species of joy, a spice of pleasure which delights us more than the work itself, because we often do not esteem that which was so agreeable to us in the process of production.
Luther:
Ecc_2:12-19. (To Ecc_2:15). Therefore it is better to commend the highest government of all things to the God who made us. Let every one perform his duty with all diligence, and execute what God places to his hand; if things do not always turn out as we expected, let us commend them to God. What God gives, that accept; and again, what He prevents, that accept also as good. What we are able to do, that we ought to do; what we cannot do, we must leave undone. The stone that thou art not able to lift, thou must leave lying.
Gerlach (to Ecc_2:17):—If God has disappeared from the efforts of men, a disgust of life appears sooner or later (Joh_4:8 ff..).Geier (to Ecc_2:18-19):—It is hard for flesh and blood to leave the fruits of its toil to others; but a Christian arms himself against this with the reflection that every thing that he has or does is given to him by God, 1Co_4:7.
Wohlfarth (Ecc_2:13-19):-What must we feel it our duty to do, -on perceiving that the earth can afford no perfect satisfaction to our demand for happiness ?—The wise man is pained on perceiving that all earthly things are vain and unsatisfactory; his eye indeed becomes serious, and his expression reflective. But for that very reason, he hears not only the cry of the grave, but also the words of consolation: “Lift up thy eye, citizen of heaven in the garb of a pilgrim; true as it is, that the world with all its treasures cannot satisfy thy longing for what is lasting and perfect, so foolish is it to seek therein peace and perfect satisfaction.”
Zeyss (Ecc_2:20-23):—This life is full of trouble throughout, with all men and all classes. Why should we not, therefore, ardently long for a better life ? (Php_3:14).—Starke:—The travail of soul, by which one obtains salvation through fear and trembling, is therein different from worldly toil, in bearing its profit unto eternal life.
Osiander (Ecc_2:24-26):—It is pleasing to God that we should cheerfully enjoy our labor in His fear, so much as our calling may permit it, Psa_128:1-2.
Joachim Langb:—According as man is virtuous or vicious, even his eating and drinking is good or evil. Because the natural man lives either in a state of fleshly security or of servitude, and there is nothing really good in him that avails with God and satisfies the conscience.
Starke (Ecc_2:26):—Seek above all things to please God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; else, with all external happiness, thou art still unhappy. The wicked often have worldly goods, and seek in every way to increase them; but tney do not have real profit and lasting fruit from them, because their works do not proceed from the faith. He, on the contrary, who possesses the fruits of the Spirit (Gal_5:22) and is faithful therein, is ever favored by God with greater mercy (Mat_5:28-29).
Hansen (Ecc_2:26):-If we examine it closely, the want of genuine wisdom and pure knowledge is the reason why many do not prosper in the blessings which they possess in the world. Men of impure and confused conceptions, who are fettered by dazzling imaginations, must suffer with all their abundance, and lead a miserable life.
Hamann (Ecc_2:26).:—All the vanity, all the toilings of men after wisdom, happiness and rest, which in so many ways lead men to the grave, where ceases all the distinction which they strive to obtain on earth, are not allotted to the pious man by God; they are a curse which sin has laid upon man, but which God will make a blessing to His chosen ones. For these busy, restless creatures gather and heap up for those who are good in God’s eyes. And these latter shall gratuitously receive by the sinner’s labor what he (the sinner) seeks and finds not, what ho labors for and cannot enjoy: wisdom, knowledge, joy.-What is the Divine word, and whence are taken this wisdom, knowledge and joy that in it exist ? Are they not honey made by bees in the slain beast? What are the stories that they tell us but examples of sinners’ toil, of the vanity and folly into which men have fallen?
Hengstenberg (Ecc_2:26):—It is manifest that the expression: “This also is vanity ” is not meant in the sense of an accusation of God, but as a cry of warning to human perverseness, that seeks its happiness only there where, according to God’s will, it should not be sought.
[For reflections on this and other parts of the book, the reader is referred to Matthew Henry. In no commentary is there to be found a richer treasure of most choice, discriminating and highly spiritual apothegms, rendered most pleasing and ornate by what may be styled a holy humor, or a sanctified wit. They are unsurpassed by any thing in the devout German writers here quoted, but the ready access to the work, for all English readers, renders it unnecessary that the volume should be swelled by inserting them. Besides, among such rich materials, it would not be easy to make a limited selection. Much also of a very rich homiletical character may be obtained from Wordsworth.—T. L.].
Footnotes:
[1][There is no contradiction, real or apparent, to be reconciled, if Ecc_2:24 is only rightly rendered as it simply stands in the Hebrew, without any addition. See Note on that passage.—T. L.]
[2][תַּרְתִּי —תּוּר, is very emphatic here. It denotes a deep and earnest search. The primary sense to go about, hence, investigate, appears very strong, Ecc_7:25 : I went round about (סַבּוֹתִי), “I and my heart, to know and to explore (לתור), and to seek out wisdom, etc.” It is the word used of the spies sent out to search the land, Num_13:2; Num_13:16-17; Num_13:21; Num_13:25; Num_13:32; Num_14:6-7, etc., also of travelling merchants, peregrinators (2Ch_9:14; 1Ki_10:15) seeking for precious merchandize. בְּלִבִּי not, with my heart as an instrument, but in my heart as the dark place to be explored. He resolves to act as a spy upon himself, or, to use the quaint language of Halliburton in detailing his religious experience, “to see what his heart was doing in the dark”—like those whom Ezekiel saw in “the chambers of imagery”—or to find out how it might be possible in this interior chamber of the soul, to reconcile a devoted pursuit of pleasure, and, at the same time, a true pursuit of wisdom. The language implies a most intense study, as well as effort, to solve a difficult problem.—T. L.]
[3]
[Ecc_2:3, לִמְשוֹךְ. This passage and word have given much trouble. Zöckler’s view, though substantially that of Gesenius and Hengstenberg, is unsatisfactory. It is very remotely derived, if it can be derived at all, from the ordinary sense of משׁךְ, to draw, draw out, and is supported by little or no analogy in language. The Latin tracto, from traho, never has the sense curare, which would come the nearest to it. The Syriac משׁך with which Gesenius compares it. is a very rate and doubtful word, given by Castell without any examples, and nowhere found, either in the Syriac Scriptures, or in any well known Syriac writings. Knobel gives מָשַׁךְ the sense of holding fast, which would have done very well had he attached to it the idea of restraining, holding back, and made flesh the object, instead of the contrary, of retaining, not remitting (the use of wine). Heiligstedt’s trahere, attrahere, attract, is inconsistent with the preposition ב in ביין. Michaelis, sense of protracting is wholly unsuited to בשִר, flesh, as its object. Ewald’s an den Wein zu heften meine Sinne, to fasten on the wine, etc., gives hardly any sense at all, and what little there is, is opposed to the evident context. The same may be said of Herzfeld: anzulocken meinen Leib; the flesh needs no alluring or drawing to the wine; besides the preposition ב is here also inconsistent with such a meaning. The LXX ῆ καρδία μου ὲλκύσει τὴν σάρκα μου ὠς οἶνον, wholly inverts the idea. The Syriac למבסמו delight my flesh, is a mere accommodating guess. The Vulgate abstrahere, a vino carnem mcam, suits very well with למשוך, but would require the preposition מ (מיין instead of ביין). Our English version, “to give myself to wine,” is as safe a guess as any, but it leaves out the important word בשרי “my flesh,” unless it is intended to have its meaning conveyed in the word myself, as though it were equivalent to נֵפְשִׁי. This, however, is without warrant in the Scriptures. Besides, it destroys the contrast evidently intended between בשר and לב, the body and the mind, which לב more generally means (comp. Pro_7:7; Pro_17:7, with most of the places where it occurs in that book and this), or the soul generally, as in Psa_73:25, where it is in contrast with שאד—“my flesh and heart”—body and soul.
The ordinary Hebrew meaning of משך is to draw out. Closely allied to it is the sense of the Arabic ד׃ to hold, lay hold of, which runs through all the Arabic conjugations. This is the primary, and the sense most likely intended here: to lay hold of, hold back my flesh, that is, to govern, check, restrain it. The unusual style of the language shows that there is a figure here, and what that figure is is suggested by the word נהֵֹג in the following clause.
The ordinary, and, we think, the primary sense of this word is egit agitavit. Hence it is applied to the driving of flocks, Gen_31:18; Exo_3:1; Psa_80:2, but more especially and significantly, to the driving or guiding of horses and chariots, as 2Sa_6:3; 2Ki_9:20, where the noun מִגְהָג is most graphically used to describe the mad driving of Jehu. From this use in the Scriptures, the Rabbins have, very naturally, and according to the analogy of secondary senses as they spring up in other languages, employed it, with an ethical and philosophical meaning, to denote a course, of thinking, conduct (ductus) or as a rule for the guidance of life. Thus viewed it strikingly suggests some such figure as seems hinted in משד though there the metaphor may be said to lie concealed: all the more impressive, however, when seen, on account of its inobtrusiveness. It is noticed by Hitzig, who sees the figure, yet misapplies it, or falls back, after all, to the other idea of supporting, sustaining generally: “to draw with wine my flesh, that is, die Maschine damit im Gange zu erhalten, to keep the machine going, parallel with the expression to support the life with bread. Here he seems to drop the metaphor, yet takes it up again when he says, “the wine here is compared to a draught horse, or as we say of one who drinks on the way, he hath taken a relay.” This is a vulgar view of the comparison, resembling some common Americanisms beneath the dignity of the real figure. And then he interprets what follows, of “wisdom guiding,” by comparing it to the coachman sitting on the box. Stuart follows him in this, but both may be said to err in making wine the unruly horse that needs guidance, instead of the flesh (בשרי). “On the whole,” says Stuart, “there can be no doubt that the sense thus given by Hitzig is significant; the main difficulty is the seeming strangeness of the figurative representation.” With a little change, however, it is the same with Plato’s more full and ornate comparison in the Phædrus 54 F, or as it may be called, the myth of the charioteer and his two horses. The body (the flesh with its lusts, its appetites) is the wild horse so graphically described as κρατεραύχην μελάγχρως, ὕφαιμος κ. τ, λ., “strong-necked, black, with bloodshot furious eyes, full of violence, coarse, shaggyeared, deaf, hard-yielding, either to the whip or the spur.” The gentle horse is the pure feeling, the “Platonic love,” or celestial Eros, and the charioteer is the Νοῦς, or Reason, the Hebrew לב guiding or driving with חכמה. If it seems strange to interpret Koheleth by Plato, it may be said that the figure is, in itself, very easy and natural, coming directly from primary analogies, and in accordance with the whole train of the preacher’s thought: I sought diligently, when my flesh was furiously driving on in wine, or pleasure (ביין here not denoting the instrument, or figurative chariot, but the state or condition) to draw it, to restrain it, to bridle it, to keep it, in the path of temperance. On this account we have rendered it in the Metrical Version, “to rein my flesh in wine,” and this is in harmony with the figure, as we find it so deeply grounded in language generally—a fact which makes its use by Koheleth so little strange when properly considered. It is frequent in the Latin, both in prose and poetry. Comp. Hor. Carmina Ecc_4:15-16, evaganti frena licentiæ injecit, Sat. II. 7, 74. Jam vaga prosiliet frenis natura remotis; Ep. I. 263, hunc (animum) frenis hunc tu compesce catena, Liv. 34:2, date frenos impotenti naturæ; Juv, 8:88, pone iræ frena modumque, Seneca, Ep. 23. voluptates tenere sub freno; etc., etc. So the phrases dare frena and dare habenas—laxis habenis, etc. In the same way the Greek χαλινὸς and χαλινόω. Its use is common in English, whether derived from classical examples or, as is more likely, having a spontaneous origin: “To give the reins to appetite” (the very expression that Zöckler unconsciously uses, der Lust die Zügel schiessen lassen) or the contrary—to “lay the reins upon the neck of pleasure,”—with the idea of the unruly horse. if, after all, it should be said that this is not in the ordinary Hebrew style, it may be replied that neither is Koheleth in the style of other Hebrew books, and, therefore, that kind of criticism, so assuming, but, offtimes, so superficial, cannot, with certainty, be applied to it.—T. L.]
[4][Although a participle in form, צוֹמֵחַֹ, has rather the force of an adjective denoting fulness, luxuriance, (see Metrical version); not bringing forth trees, as our English version has it, but blooming, luxuriant with, or in trees.—T. L.]
[5][שִׁדָּה וְֹשִדּוֹת. There is no need of going to the Arabic for this word. A great many different views have been taken of it, but the best commentators seem agreed that it refers to Solomon’s many wives and concubines. This is the opinion of Aben Ezra, who thinks that it would have been very strange if such luxuries had been omitted from this list. He, however, would make it from שׁדד, with the sense of female captives, taken as the spoil in war. Others who render it wives, like Hitzig, Stuart, etc., make it from the Arabic ׃הב to lean upon, Infin. 3. conj. ׃הַֿ to embrace. But there is a nearer Hebrew derivation from שַׁד mamma, the breast. The feminine form is used as more voluptuous.—שִׁדָּה the swelling breast, mammæ sororiantes. The plural after the singular is intensive to denote the vast number of these luxuries that Solomon possessed. The dagesh is easily accounted for without making it from שׁדד, or the Arabic ו ׃הב By the addition there is a sharpening of the first syllable, which requires dagesh and the shortening of the vowel from patach to chirek. See Introduction to Metrical Version, p. 180. The Syriac has שׁקותא ושׁקיתא corresponding nearly to the LXX οἰνοχόους καὶ οἰνοχόας, cup-bearers, or wine-pourers. Zöckler’s rendering has but little or no support. The late Arabic translation of Dr. Vandyke well renders it ׃םّב וٌ ז׃םבٍ ladies, mistresses; though from a different root, it comes to the same thing with the Hebrew.—T. L.
[6]For a most impressive statement of this, revealing the whole philosophy of will and choice (the will following the sense, or the sense in subjection to the will) see Job’s declaration, Job_31:27, אִם אַחר עֵינַי הָלַךְ לִבִּי: If my heart, (the seat of moral power) hath gone after mine eyes (the sense generally), then, etc. It is an emphatic denial that he had permitted sense to govern him.—T. L.]
[7][The word מִקְרֶה, though it may be rendered chance, does not denote that which happens without a cause, but simply that which oc-curs. The same may be said of the Greek τύχη. The Hebrew word, however, may be better compared with the Homeric κήρ, which it resembles in having the same radical consonants (κ ρ), though doubtless, etymologically, different [in this respect it agrees better with κύρω]. It carries rather the sense of the inevitable, or of doom, like the Greek αἶσα, μοῖρα, which, with κὴρ, are used to denote death as the great doom of our race. So the Latin fatum, and so of all those old words. The earlier we go up in language, the less do we find in these or similar words any thought of chance or fate, in the atheistic sense, but rather the contrary—namely, that of decree (fatum), destiny fixed by an intellectual power. So Koheleth seems to use מִקְרֶה here and the verb קרה. They is, in the whole context, a recognition of something more than a “debt of nature” an atheistical kind of language which our Christianity does not prevent us from using. The whole aspect of the passage favors the idea of an inevitable doom (decree, sentence) fixed upon the race, from which no wisdom, no virtue exempts. “Death hath passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” To one who views them in their true and earliest character, these old Greek words above mentioned are the very echo of such a sentence. There are all used for death, and often, in Homer and elsewhere, may be so rendered. The epithets joined with them show the same idea, as something inconsistent with the thought of chance, or blind physical law.—T. L.]
[8][The emphasis here is on the word לעולם, and it is asserted, whether hyperbolically or not, of all. No memory lasts forever, or for the world. The greatest fame, at last, goes out. In this respect, or in comparison with לעולם, the differences of time, in human fame, are regarded by the philosophical Seer as of no moment. A remembrance ever lost is equal to oblivion.—T. L.
[9]Ecc_2:16. וְאֵיךְ “And O, how is it?” It is an exclamatory burst of irrepressible feeling, laying open the very heart of the writer. It is the great mystery that so perplexes him, but for which he knows there is some cause consistent with the Divine wisdom and justice. Some great doom [מִקְרֶה like the Greek κήρ, αἶσα μοῖρα] has come upon all the race, the wise, the foolish, the just, the unjust, the unholy, the comparatively pure (see Ecc_9:2), and for some fundamental moral reason applicable to them all alike,—as a race rather than as individuals. “O, why is it?” It is no scepticism in regard to God’s righteous government, no denial of essential moral distinctions; it is not an assertion of Epicurean recklessness on the one hand, nor of a stoical fatality on the other, but a cry of anguish at a spectacle ever passing before his eyes, and which he fails clearly to comprehend. It is as though he were arguing with the Sovereign Omnipotence. Like the language of Job and Habakkuk, in similar seasons of despondency, it seems to manifest, almost, a querulous tone of interrogatory: Why is there no difference? “Why dost thou make men as the fishes of the sea?” [Hab_1:14, and comp. Ecc_9:12]; why dealest thou thus with us? “What shall I do unto thee, O thou Watcher of men?” [Job_7:20]. It seems almost irreverent, and yet there is no cant about it, no suppression of the honest feeling of surprise, no artificial humility imposing on itself in the use of any formal language of resignation. Koheleth here appears like one complaining,—not in anger, but in grief. He seems to say, as Job said, “Suffer me to plead with thee.” It is that sublime style of expostulation which so strikes us, and, sometimes, almost terrifies us, in the grand Old Testament men of God. Our English Version is very tame: “and how dieth,” etc. The conjunction ו has, in fact, an interjectional force, making more marked the exclamation איךְ, by showing an emotional rather than a logical connection; as though it were something suddenly springing up, or irrepressibly prompted by the previous sohloquizing utterance [see remarks on Job 28, and on the particle כִּי, in the Introduction to Metrical Version, p. 177]: “Since the days come when all is forgotten; but O how is it” (as it should be rendered instead of and, since the conjunction is rather disjunctive than merely copulative, and, therefore, the more suggestive of emotion]: Alas, how is it, that the wise should die as dies the fool See the Metrical Version. It does not mean that the wise man dieth in the same manner as the fool—that is, recklessly, stupidly, or despairingly, but rather that he dies as well as the fool; he, no more than the other, escapes the universal “sentence that hath passed upon all men” for the reasons given Gen_3:19; Rom_5:12. In truth עִם הַכְּסִיל, [literally, with the fool can hardly mean, wie der Thor, in like manner as the fool, as Zöckler holds—but rather, in company with the fool. It is companionship, rather than other resemblance; and so, too, does the preposition keep its original sense in Ecc_7:11; Job_9:26; Job_37:18, the places to which Zöckler refers.—T. L.].
[10][It may be rather said that סבותי, here, is simply intensive of פניתי. It means to turn round and round—indicating perplexity, wanderings, or evolutions of mind—I revolved. See Metrical Version.—T. L.]
[11] [This supposition that would supply מִן or כִּי אִם before שיאבל, is a very old one, for it is referred to, although not fully endorsed, by Rashi and Aben Ezra, and is also mentioned by the grammarian Jona Ben Gannach (Abul Walid) in Sect. 26, on Ellipsis. It is admitted, however, that there is not a trace of it in any ancient manuscript, or in any various reading. It is maintained solely on the ground of a supposed exigentia loci. There is wanted, it is thought, the sense that such an insertion would give, to bring it in harmony with some other passages, as they are mentioned by Zöckler, and especially Ecc_9:7-9. Now in respect to these it may be said, that if there were a real or seeming variance, such a fact would present no exegetical difficulty to one who takes the right view of this book as a series of meditations in which the writer, or utterer, to use his own expression, “revolves” (סבותי Ecc_2:20), goes round and round, trying and testing different views of human life, “talking to his heart” [אמרתי אל לבי], now taking up one supposition, then “turning again” to another now desponding, then again so sure that he says ידעתי, “I know”,—at another time indulging what is evidently a sorrowing irony, such as especially characterizes Ecc_9:7-9, as compared with Ecc_9:9 (see the Exeget, and notes on these, and especially the two latter, in their respective places). The mere variance, therefore, whether seeming or real, is not sufficient to warrant so bold an Interpolation into the text, unless there is a failure in obtaining any good sense at all from the passage as it stands. But this surely cannot be pretended. What better thought, and, at the same time, more literal as a version, than that given by the LXX., ον̀κ ἔστιν ἄγαθον ἀνθρώπῳ ὅ φάγεται, κ. τ. λ.: “it is not good for man,” or “the good is not for man what he eats,” or “that he eat,” etc., which is favored by Dathe, Knobel and Hahn. Or perhaps, still better than this, if we regard the context, is the translation of Martin Geier, which he gives from Junius, non est bonum penes hominem ut edat, bibat,” etc.: “the good is not in the power of man that he should eat and drink, etc., for this I saw is from the hand of God himself.” Thus, says Geier, all things remain in their native sense, and there is no need of any ellipsis. It might be rendered, perhaps, “it is not the good for man (his summum bonum) to eat and drink;” or if that is regarded as too philosophical for Koheleth, and also as demanding the article, it may be rendered simply, “it is not good,” or, “there is no good in it” (of itself). Tremellius translates in the same way, non est bonum penes hominem, etc. The general sense then would be this: whatever good there may be in eating and drinking, etc., it is not in man’s power to secure it, or to find enjoyment in it (“make his soul see good in it”); and this is in such admirable harmony with the context: “it is the gift of God.” The preposition בְּ in באדם, has this sense, as may be shown in many passages, and it corresponds exactly to our own most natural mode of speech: it is not in him. Even the power to enjoy comes from God. It is not strange that Rationalist Commentators should seek to give an Epicurean aspect to the passage, but it is matter of surprise that others called Evangelical should go out of their way to follow them. The interpretation thus given, as the most literal one, is also in perfect harmony with other passages, or rather, we might say, that the positive unqualified commendation of the gross Epicurean sentiment which the interpretation would give is in direct contradiction to the many declarations of vanity and worthlessness in respect to all mere wealth and pleasure-seeking, which are elsewhere found. This might be set off against the other assertion of variance, if either can be regarded as a right mode of exegesis in this book.
At all events, the literal rendering is all sufficient here—whilst the fair interpretation of other seemingly Epicurean passages only shows, as we think, a difference of aspect under which the great question is considered, but no contradiction to that doctrine which the writer is throughout most earnest to put forth as one of the fundamental ideas of his book, namely, that all good is from God, and that nothing is good without Him. See the Metrical Version: The consciousness of this, not eating, etc., is the highest good.
Rashi interprets the אין טוב as meaning that “the good is not simply that man should eat, etc., or it is not in eating alone; as much as to say, he should give his heart to do judgment and righteousness, together with his eating and drinking;” and then he proceeds to give historical illustration.
Aben Ezra suggests the supplying (in the mind) of some such particle as רַק, meaning, not the only good, or that it is not good, in man, or for man, that he should only eat and drink, etc. Again, he seems to lay emphasis on the word בַּעֲמָלוֹ (in his till), giving it as the general sense of the text, as it stands, that “this toil, with its weariness, finds no other good (no higher good) than to eat and drink,”—thus shutting out any Epicurean idea and making it a depreciation of human effort rather than a commendation of sensual pleasure, in itself, as the best thing in life.
The Syriac inserts אלא, unless, without any thing to correspond to it in the Hebrew, and having very much the appearance of an accommodation to some later view, since it will not answer as a rendering of מ comparative (משיאכל), or מִן or כִּי אִם, as proposed. Besides this, it would not give the bald Epicurean idea of our translation that “eating is the best thing for man,” but only that there is no good in man’s power (or as proposed in human toil), unless it be this,—a sense which would resemble that of Aben Ezra.
So also the Targum has אֱלָהֵן דּי יַיכוּל, “unless that he eat,” etc., but this version is of little or no authority, on account of its later date, and the paraphrastic absurdity of its midrashin. The sense given by it, however, is quite different from that given in E. V., or by Zöckler: “There is nothing that is fair among men, unless to eat,” etc.; and then it goes on to say לְמֶעְבַּד יַת פַּקוּדַיֵא דַיָי וֹגו “that they may do the commandments of the Lord, and walk in his ways.” If it be said that there is nothing in the Hebrew text to warrant this, it may be replied that so, also, is there nothing to warrant the insertion of אֱלָהֵן (unless), by which he supports this paraphrastic sense. It all seems evidently done to get a middle way between two views deemed untenable or inconsistent,—one asserting, or seeming to assent, that there was no good at all in eating, etc., and the other that it was the highest and only good.
A strong argument for the literal rendering is derived from the context. The particle גַם has an adversative and accumulative force; it denotes a rising in the thought. It connects itself here especially with the last part of what precedes: “that he should make his soul see good” (or find enjoyment in it): “The good is not in the power of man that he should eat, etc., and make his soul see good” (or “so that he make his soul see good in it,” taken as a collective object); “yea, what is more [גַּם], this too [זֶה emphatic] I saw was the gift of God,” the power of enjoyment as well as the means. If there is any good in them (such is the implication), it comes from above. This clearly denotes that there is a higher good, even the consciousness and recognition of the truth thus stated. It is therefore in logical opposition to the idea that there is nothing better for man than eating and drinking thus unqualifiedly asserted. Every reader must feel that there is something disjoined in our common English Version. It does not bring out the contrast, nor the climax. The other is not only the plainer and more literal translation of the Hebrew, as it stands, but the assertion may be ventured that there is no obtaining any other sense out of it.—T. L.]
[12][The sense given to בְּ by Geier, Junius, and Tremellius, is not only more common, but far more easy and natural. The references to Ecc_3:12; Ecc_10:17, do not confirm the rendering given by Zöckler. בָּם in Ecc_3:12, more properly refers to the works of men taken collectively, above; or if it refers to men, it means there, as here, in them,——in their power.—T. L.]
[13][We cannot agree with Zöckler and Hitzig here. The sense they would give to חוּש is found nowhere else in the Hebrew, unless it is thrust into this place. Everywhere else, 1Sa_20:38; Deu_32:35; Psa_119:60; Hab. 1:18; Ps. 20:20; 38:23; 40:14; 70:26; 71:12; Job_20:2; Isa_5:19; Isa_60:22, etc., etc.; it means simply to hasten, and there is no need of going to the Arabic ֽَ׃ّ or Syriac חַשַׁ, which in form would correspond rather to חשש. Besides, it requires a change in the text from מִמֶּנִּי to מִמֶּנּוּ which has no marginal keri to support it, and gives, moreover a very farfetched sense. See Text Note and Metrical Version Nothing could be more fitting than the sense which corresponds to the Hebrew as it stands.—T, L.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 laughter--including prosperity, and joy in general (Job 8:21).
laughter--including prosperity, and joy in general (Job 8:21).
mad--that is, when made the chief good; it is harmless in its proper place.
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What doeth it?--Of what avail is it in giving solid good? (Ecc 7:6; Pro 14:13).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1. In mine heart — Better, To my heart.
1. In mine heart — Better, To my heart.
Go to — Rather, Come now.
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Therefore enjoy — Hebrew, and thou shalt see. In ancient language, “to see” is used in a wider range of meanings — as that of “to experience.” Koheleth at the beginning states the result of this experiment also.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1. I will prove thee with mirth] The self-communing…
1. I will prove thee with mirth] The self-communing of the man talking to his soul, like the rich man in Luk_12:18-19, in search of happiness, leads him to yet another experiment. He will lay aside philosophy and try what pleasure will do, and live as others live. The choice of Faust in Goethe’s great drama, presents a striking parallel in the world of creative Art. The fall of Abelard is hardly a less striking parallel in the history of an actual life. Consciously or unconsciously (probably the former) the Debater had passed from the Hebrew and the Stoic ideals of wisdom to that of the school of Epicurus. The choice of the Hebrew word for “pleasure” (literally “good”) implies that this now appeared the summum bonum of existence. But this experiment also failed. The doom of “vanity” was on this also. The “laughter” was like the crackling of burning thorns (chap. Ecc_7:6) and left nothing but the cold grey ashes of a cynical satiety. In the “Go to now” with which the self-communing begins we trace the tone of the irony of disappointment.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 (1) In mine heart.—To mine heart (Luk_12:19; Psa_42:11).
(1) In mine heart.—To mine heart (Luk_12:19; Psa_42:11).
Go to now.—Num_22:6; Jdg_19:11.
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Enjoy.—Heb., see.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Vers. 1-11. Section 2.
Vers. 1-11. Section 2.
Vanity of striving after pleasure and wealth.
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Dissatisfied with the result of the pursuit of wisdom, Koheleth embarks on a course of sensual pleasure, if so be this may yield some effect more substantial and permanent. I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth. The heart is addressed as the seat of the emotions and affections. The Vulgate misses the direct address to the heart, which the words, rightly interpreted, imply, translating, Vadam et offluam delieiis. The Septuagint correctly gives, Deuro dhsw se ejn eujfrosunh. It is like the rich fool"s language in Christ"s parable, "I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry". (Luk_12:10) Therefore enjoy pleasure; literally, see good. (Ecc_6:6) "To see" is often used figuratively in the sense of "to experience, or enjoy." Wright compares the expressions, "see death", (Luk_2:26) "see life". (Joh_3:36 We may find the like in Psa_34:13; Jer_29:32; Oba_1:13. Ecc_9:9) The king now tries to find the summum bonum in pleasure, in selfish enjoyment without thought of others. Commentators, as they saw Stoicism in the first chapter, so read Epieureanism into this. We shall have occasion to refer to this idea further on. (see on Ecc_3:22) Of this new experiment the result was the same as before. Behold, this also is vanity. This experience is confirmed in the next verse.
Vers. 1-11.
The vanity of pleasure an experiment in three stages.
I THE WAY OF SENSUOUS ENJOYMENT. (Vers. 1, 2.) In this first stage Solomon, whether the real or the personated king, may be viewed as the representative of mankind in general, who, when they cast aside the teachings and restraints of religion, exclude from their minds the thought of a Divine Being, erase from their bosoms all convictions of duty, and refuse to look into the future, commonly addict themselves to pleasure, saying, "Enjoyment, be thou my god;" prescribing to themselves as the foremost task of their lives to minister to their own gratification, and adopting as their creed the well-known maxim, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die". (1Co_15:32)
1. The investigation was vigorously conducted. The Preacher was in earnest, not merely thinking in his heart, but addressing it, rather like the rich farmer in the parable (Luk_12:19) than like the singer in the psalm, (Psa_16:2) and stirring it up as the brick makers of Babel did one another: "Go to now!". (Gen_11:3, Gen_11:4) That the investigation was so conducted by the real Solomon may be inferred from the preserved details of his history; (1Ki_10:5 1Ki_11:1, 1Ki_11:3) that it has often been so conducted since, not merely in fiction, as by Goethe"s "Faust," but in actual life, as by "Abelard and Heloise" in the eleventh century, admits of demonstration; that it is being at present so conducted by many whose principal aim in life is not to obey the soul"s noblest impulses, but to hamper the body"s lower appetite, is palpable without demonstration.
2. The result has been clearly recorded. The Preacher found the way of pleasure as little fitted to conduct to felicity as that of wisdom; discovered, in fact, that laughter occasioned by indulgence in sensual delights was only a species of insanity, a kind of delirious intoxication which stupefied the reason and overthrew the judgment, if it did not lead to self-destruction, and that no solid happiness ever came out of it, but only vanity and striving after wind. So has every one who has sought his chief good in such enjoyment found. They who live in pleasure are dead while they live (1Ti_5:6) dead to all the soul"s higher aspirations; are self-deceived; (Tit_3:3) and will in the end have a rude awakening, when they find that their short-lived pleasures (Heb_11:25) have only been nourishing them for slaughter. (Jam_5:5)
II THE WAY OF BANQUETING AND REVELRY. (Ver. 3.) In this second stage of the experiment, neither Solomon nor the Preacher (if he was different) stood alone. The path on which the ancient investigator now depicts himself as entering had been and still is:
1. Much traveled. The number of those who abandon themselves to wine and wassail, drunkenness and dissipation, chambering and wantonness, may not be so great as that of those who join in the pursuit of pleasure, many of whom would disdain to partake of the intoxicating cup; but still it is sufficiently large to justify the epithet employed.
2. Appallingly fatal. Apart altogether from the rightness or the wrongness of total abstinence, which the Preacher is not commending or even thinking of, this much is evident, that no one need hope to secure true happiness by surrendering himself without restraint to the appetite of intemperance. Nor is the issue different when the experiment is conducted with moderation, i.e. without losing one"s self-control, or abandoning the search for wisdom. Solomon and the Preacher found that the result was, as before vanity, and a striving after wind.
3. Perfectly avoidable. One requires not to tread in this way in order to perceive whither it leads. One has only to observe the experiment, as others are unfortunately conducting it, to discern that its goal is not felicity.
III THE WAY OF CULTURE AND REFINEMENT. (Vers. 4-11.) In the third stage of this experiment the picture is drawn from the experiences of Solomon whether by Solomon himself or by the Preacher is immaterial, so far as didactic purposes are concerned. Solomon is introduced as telling his own story.
1. His magnificence had been most resplendent.
(1) His works were great. He had prepared for himself buildings of architectural beauty, such as "the house of the forest of Lebanon, the pillared hall porch, the hall of judgment, the palace intended for himself and the daughter of Pharaoh"; (1Ki_7:1-12) he had strengthened his kingdom by the erection of such towns as Tadmor in the wilderness, the store-cities of Hamath and Baalath, with the two fortresses of Beth-heron the Upper and Beth-heron the Nether; (2Ch_8:3-6) he had planted vineyards, of which Baal-hamon, with its choicest wine, was one, (Son_8:11) and perhaps those of Engedi (Son_1:14) others; he had caused to be constructed, no doubt in connection with his palaces, gardens and orchards, with all kinds of fruit trees, and "pools of water to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared". (Son_4:13 Son_6:2)
(2) His possessions were varied. In addition to those above mentioned, he had slaves, male and female, purchased with money, (Gen_37:28) and born in his house, (Gen_15:3 Gen_17:12) with great possessions of flocks and herds. The number of the former was so large as to excite the Queen of Sheba"s astonishment, (1Ki_10:5) while the abundance of the latter was proved both by the daily provision for Solomon"s household, (1Ki_4:22, 1Ki_4:23) and by the hecatombs sacrificed at the consecration of the temple. (1Ki_8:63)
(3) His wealth was enormous. Of silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of the kings and of the provinces, he had amassed a heap. The ships of Hiram had fetched him from Ophir four hundred and twenty talents of gold; (1Ki_9:28) the Queen of Sheba presented him with one hundred and twenty talents of gold; (1Ki_10:10) the weight of gold which came to him in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents; (1Ki_10:14) while as for silver "the king made it to be in Jerusalem as stones". (1Ki_10:27) "The peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces" may either signify such rare and precious jewels as were prized by foreign sovereigns and states and presented to him as tribute; or describe Solomon"s wealth as royal and. public, in contradistinction from that of private citizens.
(4) His pleasures were delicious. He had singing-men and singing-women to regale his jaded senses with music at court banquets, after the manner of Oriental sovereigns; while over and above he had "the delights of the sons of men," or "concubines very many love and loves" (Wright), "mistress and mistresses" (Delitzsch). Clearly Solomon had conducted the experiment of extracting happiness from worldly glory under the most favorable circumstances; hence special interest attaches to the result he obtained. What was it?
2. His misery was most pronounced. Although he had had every gratification that eye could desire, heart wish, or hand procure, he had found to his chagrin that true happiness eluded him like a phantom; that all was vanity and a striving after wind; that, in fact, there was no profit of a lasting kind to be derived from pleasure in its highest any more than in its lowest forms.
Learn:
1. The way of pleasure, however inviting, is not the way of safety or the way of peace.
2. While it cannot impart happiness to any, it may lead to everlasting misery and shame.
3. The pursuit of pleasure is not only incompatible with religion, but even at the best its sweets are not to be compared with religion"s joys.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1-11.
The vanity of wealth, pleasure, and greatness.
There is certainly a strange reversal here of the order of experience which is usual and expected. Men, disappointed with earthly possessions and satiated with sensual pleasures, sometimes turn to the pursuit of some engrossing study, to the cultivation of intellectual tastes, But the case described in the text is different. Here we have a man, convinced by experience of the futility and disappointing character of scientific and literary pursuits, applying himself to the world, and seeking satisfaction in its pleasures and distractions. Such experience as is here described is possible only to one in a station of eminence; and if Solomon is depicted as disappointed with the result of his experiment, there is no great encouragement for others, less favorably situated, to hope for better results from similar endeavors.
I THE WORLDLY MAN"S AIM. This is to learn what the human heart and life can derive from the gifts and enjoyments of this world. Man"s nature is impulsive, acquisitive, yearning, aspiring. He is ever seeking satisfaction for his wants and desires. He turns now hither and now thither, seeking in every direction that which he never finds in anything earthly, in anything termed "real.
II THE WORLDLY MAN"S MEANS TO THIS END. How shall satisfaction be found? The world presents itself in answer to this question, and invites its votary to acquisition and appropriation of its gifts. This passage in Ecclesiastes offers a remarkable and exhaustive catalogue of the emoluments and pleasures, the interests and occupations, with which the world pretends to satisfy the yearning spirit of man. There are enumerated:
1. Bodily pleasure, especially the pleasure of abundance of choice wine.
2. Feminine society,
3. Riches, consisting of silver and gold, of flocks and herds.
4. Great works, as palaces, parks, etc.
5. Household magnificence.
6. Treasures of art, and especially musical entertainments.
7. Study and wisdom, associated with all diversions and distractions of every kind.
It seems scarcely credible that one man could be the possessor of so many means of enjoyment, and it is not to be wondered at that "Solomon in all his glory" should be mentioned as the most amazing example of this world"s greatness and delights. It needed a many-sided nature to appreciate so vast a variety of possessions and occupations; the largeness of heart which is ascribed to the Hebrew monarch must have found abundant scope in the palaces of Jerusalem. It is instructive that Holy Writ, which presents so just a view of human nature, should record a position so exalted and opulent and a career so splendid as those of Solomon.
III THE WORLDLY MAN"S FAILURE TO SECURE THE END BY THE USE OF THE MEANS DESCRIBED.
1. All such gratifications as are here enumerated are in themselves insufficient to satisfy man"s spiritual nature. There is a disproportion between the soul of man and the pleasures of sense and the gifts of fortune. Even could the wealth and luxury, the delights and splendor, of an Oriental monarch be enjoyed, the result would not be the satisfaction expected. There would still be the aching void the world can never fill.
2. It must also be remembered that, by a law of our constitution, even pleasure is not best obtained when consciously and deliberately sought. To seek pleasure is to miss it, whilst it often comes unsought in the path of ordinary duty.
3. When regarded as the supreme good, worldly possessions and enjoyments may hide God from the soul. They obscure the shining of the Divine countenance, as the clouds conceal the sun that shines behind them. The works of God"s hand sometimes absorb the interest and attention which are due to their Creator; the bounty and beneficence of the Giver are sometimes lost sight of by those who partake of his gifts.
4. The good things of earth may legitimately be accepted and enjoyed when received as God"s gifts, and held submissively and gratefully "with a light hand.
5. Earth"s enjoyments may be a true blessing if, failing to satisfy the soul, they induce the soul to turn from them to God, in whose favor is life.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-11.
The trial of pleasure.
We have to consider
I THE CONSTANT QUESTION OF THE HUMAN HEART. In what shall we find the good which will make our life precious to us? What is there that will meet the cravings of the human heart, and cover our whole life with the sunshine of success and of contentment?
II A VERY NATURAL RESORT. We have recourse to some kind of excitement. It may be that which acts upon the senses (vers. 3, 8). Or it may be that which gratifies the mind; the sense of possession and of power (vers. 7-9). Or it may be found in agreeable and inviting activities (vers. 46).
III ITS TEMPORARY SUCCESS. "My heart rejoiced" (ver. 10). It would be simply false to contend that there is no delight, no satisfaction, in these sources of good. There is, for a while. There is a space during which they fill the heart as the wine fills the cup into which it is poured. The heart rejoices; it utters its joy in song; it declares itself to be completely happy. It "sits in the sun;" it rolls the sweet morsel between its teeth. It flatters itself that it has found its fortune, while the angels of God weep over its present folly and its coming doom.
IV ITS ACTUAL AND UTTER INSUFFICIENCY. (Ver. 11.) Pleasure may be coarse and condemnable; it may go down to fleshly gratifications (vers. 3, 8); it may be refined and chaste, may expend itself in designs and executions; it may be moderated and regulated with the finest calculation, so as to have the largest measure spread over the longest possible period; it may "guide itself with wisdom" (ver. 3). But it will be a failure; it will break down; it will end in a dreary exclamation of "Vanity!" Three things condemn it as a solution of the great quest after human good.
1. Experience. This proves, always and everywhere, that the deliberate and systematic pursuit of pleasure fails to secure its end. Pleasure is not a harvest, to be sedulously sown and reaped; it is a plant that grows, unsought and uncultivated, all along the path of duty and of service. To seek it and to labor for it is to miss it. All human experience shows that it soon palls upon the taste, that it fades fast in the hands of its devotee; that there is no company of men so utterly weary and so wretched as the tired hunters after pleasurable excitement.
2. Philosophy. This teaches us that a being made for something so much higher than pleasure can never be satisfied with anything so low; surely we cannot expect that the heart which is capable of worship, of service, of holy love, of heroic consecration, of spiritual nobility, will be filled and satisfied with "the delights of the sons of men.
3. Religion. For this introduces the sovereign claims of the Supreme One; it places man in the presence of God; it shows a life of frivolity to be a life of culpable selfishness, of sin, of shame. It summons to a purer and a wiser search, to a worthier and a nobler course; it promises the peace which waits on rectitude; it offers the joy which only God can give, and which no man can take away. C.
HOMILIES BY J. WILLCOCK Vers. 1-3.
An experiment: riotous mirth.
Solomon had found that wisdom and knowledge are not the means by which the search after happiness is brought to a successful issue. He then resolved to try if indulgence in sensual delights would yield any lasting satisfaction. This, as he saw, was a course on which many entered, who like him desired happiness, and he would discover for himself whether or not they were any nearer the goal than he was. And so he resolved to enjoy pleasure give his heart to wine," and "to lay hold of folly." Like the rich man in the parable, who said to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry," so did he address his heart, "Come, I will prove thee with mirth." He had tried wisdom, and found it fruitless for his purpose, and now would try folly. He lays aside the character and pursuits of a student, and enters the company of fools, to join in their revelry and mirth. The conviction that his learning was useless, either to satisfy his own cravings or to remedy the evils that exist in the world, made it easy for him to cast away, for a time at any rate, the intellectual employments in which he had engaged, and to live as others do who give themselves up to sensual pleasures. Wearied of the toil of thought, sickened of its illusions and of its fruitlessness, he would find tranquility and health of mind in frivolous gaiety and mirth. This was not an attempt to stifle his cravings after the highest good, for he deliberately determined to analyze his experience at every point, in order to discover whether any permanent gain resulted from his search in this new quarter. "I sought," he says, "in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life." For the sake of others as well as for himself, he would try this pathway and see whither it would lead. But the experiment failed. In a very short time he discovered that vanity was here too. The laughter of fools was, as he says elsewhere, (Ecc_7:6) like the crackling of burning thorns; the blaze lasted but for a moment, and the gloom that followed was but the deeper and more enduring. Where the fire of jovial revelry and boisterous mirth had been, there remained but cold, gray ashes. The mood of reckless enjoyment was followed by that of cynical satiety and bitter disappointment. He said of laughter, "It is mad," and of mirth, "What doeth it?" In his moments of calm reflection, when he communed with his own heart, he recognized the utter folly of his experiment, and felt that from his own dear-bought experience he could emphatically warn all in time to come against seeking satisfaction for the soul in sensual pleasures. Not in this way can the hunger and thirst with which the spirit of man is consumed be allayed. At most, a short period of oblivion can be secured, from which the awakening is all the more terrible. The sense of personal responsibility, the feeling that we are called to seek the highest good and are doomed to unrest and misery until we find it, the conviction that our failures only make ultimate success the more doubtful, is not to be quenched by any such coarse anodyne. Various reasons may be found to explain why this kind of experiment failed and must fail.
I In the first place, it consisted in AN ABUSE OF NATURAL FACULTIES AND APPETITES. Some measure of joy and pleasure is needed for health of mind and body. Innocent gaiety, enjoyment of the gifts God has bestowed upon us, reasonable satisfaction of the appetites implanted in us, have all a rightful place in our life. But over-indulgence in any one of them violates the harmony of our nature. They were never intended to rule us, but to be under our control and to minister to our happiness, and we cannot allow them to govern us without throwing our whole life into disorder.
II In the second place, THE PLEASURE EXCITED IS ONLY TRANSITORY. From the very nature of things it cannot be kept up for any long time by mere effort of will; the brain grows weary and the bodily powers become exhausted. A jest-book is proverbially very tiresome reading. At first it may amuse, but the attention soon begins to flag, and after a little the most brilliant specimen of wit can scarcely evoke a smile. The drunkard and the glutton find that they can only carry the pleasures of the table up to a certain point; after that has been reached the bodily organism refuses to be still further stimulated.
III In the third place, SUCH PLEASURE CAN ONLY BE GRATIFIED BY SELF-DEGRADATION. It is inconsistent with the full exercise of the intellectual faculties which distinguish man from the brute, and destructive of those higher and more spiritual faculties by which God is apprehended, served, and enjoyed. Self-indulgence in the gross pleasures of which we are speaking actually reduces man below the level of the beasts that perish, for they are preserved from such folly by the natural instincts with which they are endowed.
IV In the fourth place, THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF SUCH AN EXPERIMENT IS A DEEPER AND MORE ENDURING GLOOM. Self-reproach, enfeeblement of mind and body, satiety and disgust, come on when the mad fit is past, and, what is still worse, the apprehension of evils yet to come the knowledge that the passions excited and indulged will refuse to die down; that they have a life and power of their own, and will stimulate and almost compel their slave to enter again on the evil courses which he first tried of his own free will and with a light heart. The prospect before him is that of bondage to habits which he knows will yield him no lasting pleasure, and very little of the fleeting kind, and must involve the enfeeblement and destruction of all his powers. Mirth and laughter and wine did not banish Solomon"s melancholy; but after the feverish excitement they produced had passed away, they left him in a deeper gloom than ever. "Like phosphorus on a dead man"s lace, he felt that it was all a trick, a lie; and like the laugh of a hyena among the tombs, he found that the worldling"s frolic can never reanimate the joys which guilt has slain and buried." "I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?" The well-known story of the melancholy patient being advised by a doctor to go and see Grimaldi, and answering, "I am Grimaldi," and that of George Fox being recommended by a minister whom he consulted to dispel the anxieties which his spiritual fears and doubts and aspirations had excited within him, by "drinking beer and dancing with the girls" (Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus," 3:1), may be used to illustrate the teaching of our text. Some stanzas, too, of Byron"s last poem give a pathetic expression to the feelings of satiety and disappointment which are the retribution of sensuality
My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care, The exalted portion of the pain And power of love I cannot share, But wear the chain. J.W.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 11, 14, 17, 18, 24, 26 Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.
Ecc_2:1-26
Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.
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The threefold view of human life
Three views of human life are given in this remarkable chapter.
I. The theatrical view of life (Ecc_2:1-11). The writer seeks to prove his heart with mirth and laughter; he treats his flesh with wine; he gathers peculiar treasure; he is enamoured of greatness, magnificence, and abundance; he delights in architecture, scenery, literature, music, song. Everything is spectacular, dazzling, wonderful. This is a very misleading idea of the world in which we find ourselves.
1. It is partial. Nothing whatever is said here of the problems which challenge us--of duty, enterprise, discipline, work, sacrifice, suffering; nothing about character or conduct. It really leaves out two-thirds of life, and the noblest two-thirds.
2. It is exaggerated. It contemplates great works, great possessions, and great fame. Life is largely made up of commonplace tasks, homely faces, uneventful days, monotonous experiences.
3. It is selfish. You see throughout how prominent the individual is. It is all I. The writer never thinks of other people except as they may enhance his pleasure, or be spectators of his glory.
4. It is superficial. There is not a word about conscience, righteousness, responsibility. Now beware of the theatrical view of life--of the great, the gaudy, the glistering. True life, as a rule, is simple, sober, and severe. Beware of companions who would represent life to you in a gay and voluptuous light. Beware also of your reading, and see that it does not give a false and delusive idea of the life that awaits you. The world is not a theatre, not a magicians cave, not a carnival; it is a temple where all things are serious and sacred.
II. The sepulchral view of life (Ecc_2:12-23). Men usually start with the rosy ideal of life, and then finding its falsity--that there are tears as well as laughter--they sink into vexation and despair, and paint all things black as night. But the world is not emptiness; it is a cup deep and large, delightful and overflowing. Fulness, not emptiness, is the sign of the world. There is the fulness of nature--of intellectual life--of society--of practical life--the manifold and enduring unfolding of the interests and movements and fortunes of humanity. There is the fulness of religious life. A true man never feels the world to be limited, meagre, shallow. God is no mockery, and He will not mock us.
III. The religious view of life (Ecc_2:24-26).
1. The purification and strengthening of the soul will secure to us all the brightness and sweetness of life.
2. And as the Spirit of Christ leads to the realization of the bright side of the world, so shall it fortify you against the dark side. Carry the Spirit of Christ into this dark side, and you shall rejoice in tribulation also. In one of the illustrated magazines I noticed a picture of the flower-market of Madrid in a snowstorm. The golden and purple glories were mixed with the winters snow. And in a true Christian life sorrow is strangely mingled with joy. Winter in Siberia is one thing, winter in the flower-market of the South is another thing; and so the power of sorrow is broken and softened in the Christian life by great convictions, consolations, and hopes. Do not accept the theatrical view of life; life is not all beer and ski[ties, operas, banquets, galas, and burlesques. Do not accept the sepulchral theory of life; it is absolutely false. Toequeville said to Sumner, Life is neither a pain nor a pleasure, but serious business, which it is our duty to carry through and conclude with honour. This is a true and noble conception of life, and it can be fulfilled only as Christ renews and strengthens us. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The pleasures of sin and the pleasures of Christs service contrasted
I. What are the pleasures of sin?
1. They are present pleasures; now and here; not in the dim distance; not in the next world, but in this.
2. They are varied and many: adapted to every taste, capacity, age, condition.
3. They fall in with the desires and cravings of our carnal nature.
4. They possess the power to excite in a wonderful degree,--the fancy, the mind, the passions,--ambition, lust, pride, etc.
II. What are the pleasures or rewards of Christs service?
1. They are real and substantial, not fictitious and imaginary or deceptive.
(1) A good conscience.
(2) A contented mind.
(3) Rational enjoyment and satisfaction.
(4) Elevation of being.
(5) A quiet, growing consciousness of Gods approval.
(6) A sweet sense of living and breathing in a sphere of sanctified thought and life, illumined by the sunlight of Heaven, and vocal with the joys and harmonies which proceed from Calvary.
2. They are not all in the future. No small part of them are here, and enjoyed day by day. Heaven is the ultimate state of blessedness, the final reward in Christs service. But heaven is begun in every reconciled, sanctified soul at once and progresses to the consummation.
3. Christs service is soul-satisfying. It touches, elevates, expands, gives dignity to, and harmonizes and gladdens mans highest nature.
4. The pleasure, the reward of Christs service is enduring. It fears no death, knows no end. It is perpetual, everlasting, ever augmenting. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
A strange experiment
He now resolves to abandon the studious cloisters. For their quiet he will substitute the excitement of feverish pleasure. But this tremendous reaction from the joys of the philosopher to coarser animal pleasure is not easy. He has to goad his mind before it is ready for this new and low direction. He has to say to his heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth. What a fall is here, from the contemplation of high themes of truth, the works of God and man, to merely sensual pleasure! But the experiment is brief. It would be. For a man of wisdom could not be long in discovering the utter worthlessness of sensual gratification; sharp and swift comes the conclusion: I said of laughter, It is mad, and of mirth, What doeth it? It has sometimes been the question of thoughtful people how the wise man could bring himself to try this second experiment, the effort to find happiness in the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye. This, it is usually thought, is the delight of fools. But that a man who could say he had seen the works that are done under the sun, whose philosophy had ranged over new things until they were seen to be the old things recurrent, who could truly say that he had gotten more wisdom than all they that had been before him in Jerusalem,--for such an one to fly from philosophy to pleasure, from meditation to mirth, is accounted phenomenally strange. But it is not. Across just such extremes does the restless spirit fly that has not yet learned that happiness is not the creature of circumstance, but the outgrowth of the life. And how it magnifies this inner character of happiness to reflect that even wisdom pursued for its own sake may be seen to be so hollow that the soul will fly to the farthest distance from it, inferring that even sensual folly may be a relief from the emptiness of knowledge! (C. L. Thompson, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 12, 17, 24 Ecc_2:1. I said in mine heart.] The pronoun is…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecc_2:1. I said in mine heart.] The pronoun is emphatic and denotes the importance of the person who is speaking. There are instances of such addresses to the soul in the Psalms. Enjoy pleasure, literally “behold good”—linger with it so as to enjoy it. Here is the germ of the parable of the Rich Fool—Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Ecc_2:1-2
A WISE MAN’S TRIAL OF SENSUAL ENJOYMENTS
We may look upon the troubles and painful mystery of life and be sad; or we may strive to laugh them away. There is a serious, and also a merry mood of treating the dark enigma of our present state. Here we have a wise man making a trial of worldly pleasure, if haply he might find therein relief and satisfaction for his jaded mind. “Therefore enjoy pleasure,” look upon and feed thy desire with every sensual enjoyment. Such a course is not true wisdom.
I. It is a dangerous Moral Experiment. Solomon’s trial of the resources of human wisdom ended in the grief of failure. Now he plunges into pleasure to determine if that will fill his soul, and drown the anxiety of painful thought. But such an experiment is dangerous.
1. Because there is a secret misgiving as to the success of the result. “Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.” A word of entreaty is used, as if he said to his heart, “O let me try thee again!” All his real convictions were against the hope of success in this trial. He had to rouse himself up to this endeavour—to press his heart to it, as if it had been too slow in the pursuit. Worldly men feel in their heart of hearts that sensual pleasures do not satisfy—that they leave a sting behind, and fret and wear the mind with long regrets. It is dangerous to submit ourselves to what we must confess, in moments of calm reflection, is a delusion.
2. The pursuit of pleasure as an end is a forgetfulness of the great work appointed us here. All pleasure and amusement are not forbidden. But if we make these the end of life, and abandon ourselves to their treacherous illusions, we forget the claims of duty. Whatever lies in the path of the Commandments is ours to enjoy, but we must not stray from that path in search of tempting pleasures. Duty and service claim our first regard. We were not sent into this world by our Maker, like the Leviathan into the sea, merely that we might “play therein.” It is dangerous to run the risk of forgetting the claims of duty, and the high destiny of the spiritual part of our nature.
3. The undue pursuit of pleasure injures every faculty of the soul. The health of the soul is impaired, and the symmetry of it destroyed, by draining off it vital force in one direction, just as the body is deformed and its strength consumed by malignant tumours.
(1.) The understanding is impaired. He who is devoted to pleasure has need only of those mental efforts necessary to devise new modes of enjoyment. The higher powers of the mind remain unemployed. He who would reach intellectual eminence must learn to “scorn delights, and live laborious days.”
(2.) The affections are blunted. The indulgence in worldly pleasures, both coarse and refined, tends to make the life artificial. Beneath apparent gentleness and goodwill, the heart is often hard and cold. The children of soft indulgence can weep over the elegant distress of fiction, but are often unmoved by the real sorrows of life.
(3.) The will is enfeebled. The seductions of pleasure bring it into captivity. The elastic power of it is injured, as steel springs by long compression. The syrens of pleasure paralyze the will.
(4.) The sensibility of the conscience is injured. When we are given up to pleasure and forsake duty, the delicacy and tenderness of our conscience are impaired.
II. It is Moral Insanity. “I said of laughter, it is mad.” In the wild excitement of pleasure, a man loses his claim to rationality—it is but the infatuation of madness. To forsake duty, and allow the senses to run riot, is to dethrone reason. The symptoms of the mental and moral diseases are similar.
1. There is delusion. The insane mind lives in a false and unreal world. The true proportion of things are disturbed. The man of pleasure is not governed by truth and reality: he lives in a delusion.
2. The supremacy of wild passions. The insane man is the subject of uncontrollable impulses. Reason being no longer his guide, he is driven about by the storms of passion; and, like a ship without a rudder, has no power of self-direction. He who lives for this world’s pleasure alone, give up the high command of himself, and becomes the sport of untamed and destructive passions. The world’s loud laughter—which has no reality of deep and abiding joy in it—is but the wild merriment of the maniac.
3. There is an entire perversion of the faculties. The will, instinct, and emotions are all perverted in mental disease. The man who forsakes God, and lives for pleasure, uses none of his powers aright. Such a condition is:—
(1.) Pitiable. We have sympathy with the sick and suffering, but the madman deserves our pity. The votaries of pleasure awake the pity of every righteous soul.
(2.) Beneath the true dignity of man. When reason deserts her throne, the man falls below his true dignity. His sovereign power is gone, the sceptre is wrested from his hand. The image of God becomes fearfully disguised. So the man of worldly pleasure is a slave in the “far country” of evil, when he might be a ruler at home with his God.
(3.) Remediable. By judicious treatment, mental disease may be cured. The sobriety of reason may come again to the distracted man. The disorder of the faculties may give place to perfect soundness of mind. So the prodigal, who has rioted in ungodly pleasures, may “come to himself” by coming to his father. The spirit of a “sound mind” is the gift of God.
III. It ends with Disgust of its own Device. “Of mirth, what doeth it?” The pleasures of the world promise much, but they deceive at last. He who seeks in this way to drown the sense of the sad facts of life becomes at last disgusted with his own device. He first suspects, and then discovers himself befooled.
1. He is deceived as to their depth and intensity. They promise to entrance the soul, and to shut out all painful thought and anxiety. But they cannot accomplish this,—“Even in laughter, the heart is sad.”
2. He is deceived as to their constancy. They promise to entertain the soul all life’s journey through. But they soon clog the senses, and wear out the energy. Even the power of enjoying the world often passes away before the world itself. Pleasure casts her votaries off when they have toyed with her for a season, and the brief delight is turned into loathing and disgust. The soul sorrowfully asks the question which needs and expects no answer.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecc_2:1. The joy of the world is so constituted that it entails repentance, mortification, and grief; but the pleasure that the faithful find in God is spiritual, constant, satisfying, and inexpressible [Starke].
It is in vain that reason and conscience point out to us one path when the affections urge us in another. If the heart inclines to worldly pleasures, the mind soon becomes a willing captive.
A man’s moral position is determined by what he says in his heart.
The heart must have some object to fasten on; the pleasures of the world, or the joy which God gives.
Language bears witness to the vanity of earthly pleasures. We call them diversions, for they divert the attention from our real miseries. They only serve to make us forget that we are unhappy.
It is dangerous to entice our hearts to such courses as are forbidden by reason and duty. The Children of Israel were warned by the voice of God not to “seek after their own heart and eyes,” that is, they must not make any moral experiments.
If we trust to the pleasures of the world, they will serve us like Absalom’s mule, and slip from under us when we need them most [Morning Exercises].
The Lord hath given this pre-eminence to man above all other creatures in the world, that he can reflect upon his past temper and actions, and commune with his own heart for the future. He should make use of this for restraining himself from sin; for reclaiming himself therefrom when he is fallen into it; for encouraging his heart in duty, especially to trusting in God, and to praise Him. In which, and the like places, are the holy soliloquies of a Christian with himself. When the Lord is provoked to withdraw His gracious presence, man can do nothing but abuse this privilege, to the blowing up of his own corruptions, and encouraging his heart to courses destructive of his own peace and comfort, and which will prove a bitterness to him in the latter end [Nisbet].
Ecc_2:2. The laughter of the votaries of pleasure, like that of distracted men, arises from the want of knowing and feeling their true situation—from the want of thought. Calm reflection upon the dark foundations upon which this mysterious life of ours reposes, and the awful truths lying around it, would fill the soul with emotion, and turn the loud rejoicing into the silence of a great sorrow.
In the midst of sinful pleasures, it is well if men have sufficient moral strength remaining to question them, and to suspect their delusive charms.
Worldly mirth ends in vexation, remorse, and disgust; but spiritual joy yields a profit of infinite satisfaction.
In the world, feasting comes first and fasting afterwards; men first glut themselves, and then loathe their excesses; they take their fill of good, and then suffer; they are rich that they may be poor; they laugh that they may weep; they rise that they may fall. But in the Church of God it is reversed; the poor shall be rich, the lowly shall be exalted, those that sow in tears shall reap in joy, those that mourn shall be comforted, those that suffer with Christ shall reign with Him [J. H. Newman].
Even as Christ went not up to joy, but first He suffered pain. He entered not into His glory before He was crucified. So truly our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ [Liturgy, Visitation of the sick].
Mirth effeminateth the virtue of nature, it enfeebleth the strength of the mind, it weakeneth the forces of the soul, it bringeth destruction to reason, it casteth the mist of darkness upon the purity of serene thoughts [Jermin].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Solomon says of the mirthful man, of the man…
Ecc 2:2
Solomon says of the mirthful man, of the man who makes others laugh, that he is a madman. We need not suppose that all laughter is indiscriminately condemned, as though gloom marks a sane person and cheerfulness an insane. "Rejoice evermore" is a Scriptural direction, and blithe-heartedness ought to be both felt and displayed by those who know that they have God for their Guardian and Christ for their Surety. It is the laughter of the world which the wise man calls madness.
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I. That conflict of which this creation is the scene, and the leading antagonists in which are Satan and God, is a conflict between falsehood and truth. And it is in consequence of this that so much criminality is everywhere in Scripture attached to a lie, and that those on whom a lie may be charged are represented as more especially obnoxious to the anger of God. Now, whilst the bold and direct falsehood gains for itself general execration, mainly perhaps because felt to militate against the general interest, there is a ready indulgence for the more sportive falsehood which is rather the playing with truth than the making a lie. Here it is that we shall find laughter which is madness, and identify with a madman him by whom the laughter is raised. The man who passes off a clever fiction, or amusingly distorts an occurrence, or dexterously misrepresents a fact, may say that he only means to be amusing; but as he can hardly fail to lower the majesty of truth in the eyes of his neighbour, there may be ample reason for assenting to the wise man’s decision, "I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?"
II. But it is not perhaps till laughter is turned upon sacred things that we have before us the madness in all its wildness and injuriousness. The man who in any way exercises his wit upon the Bible conveys undoubtedly an impression, whether he intend it or not, that he is not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible; and he may do far more mischief to the souls of his fellow-men than if he engaged openly in assaulting the great truths of Christianity.
III. The great general inference from this subject is that we ought to set a watch upon our tongues, to pray God to keep the door of our lips. "Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2532.
References: Ecc 2:4.—J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 14. Ecc 2:4-11.—J. J. S. Perowne, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 313.
Ecc 2:11
The general practice of men of business, their custom of year by year taking stock, examining their books, and striking a balance to know how they stand, is a lesson of the highest value. Our everlasting salvation may turn on it. People go on dreaming that all is right when all is wrong, nor wake to the dreadful truth till they open their eyes in torment. If men take such care of their earthly fortunes, how much greater our need to see how we stand with God, and do with our spiritual what all wise merchants do with their earthly interests: review the transactions of every year.
I. In this review we should inquire what we have done for God. We have had many, daily, innumerable opportunities of serving Him, speaking for Him, working for Him, not sparing ourselves for Him who spared not His own Son for us. Yet how little have we attempted; and how much less have we done in the spirit of our Saviour’s words, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?" It is impossible even now to review our lives without feeling that there is no hope for us out of Christ, and that the best and the busiest have been unprofitable servants.
II. In this review we should inquire what we have done for ourselves. If "the harvest is past, and the summer ended, and we are not saved," what other verdict than "Vanity!" can conscience and truth pronounce on the years that are gone? Years are lost, but the soul is not yet lost. There is still time to be saved. Make for the city of refuge. Believe in Christ, for whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but hath everlasting life.
III. In this review we should inquire what we have done for others. Suppose that our blessed Lord, sitting down on Olivet to review the years of His busy life, had looked on all the works which His hands had wrought, what a crowd, a long procession, of miracles and mercies had passed before Him! Trying our piety by this test, what testimony does our past life bear to its character? Happy those who, at however great a distance, and in however imperfect a manner, have attempted to follow Christ!
In conclusion: (1) This review, God’s Spirit blessing it, should awaken careless sinners. (2) This review should stir up God’s people.
T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 61.
References: Ecc 2:11.—J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 38. Ecc 2:12-14.—Ibid; p. 85. Ecc 2:12-23.—T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 49. Ecc 2:12-26.—J. J. S. Perowne, Expositor, 1st series, vol. xii., p. 70; G. G. Bradley, Lectures on Ecclesiastes, p. 52; R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 65; J. H. Cooke, The Preacher’s Pilgrimage, p. 22.
Ecc 2:16-23
I. The noblest renown is posthumous fame, and the most refined ambition is the desire for such fame. And of this more exalted ambition it would appear that Solomon had felt the stirrings. But even that cold comfort was entirely frozen in the thought which followed. From the lofty pinnacle to which, as a philosophic historian, he had ascended, Solomon could look down and see not only the fallibility of his coevals, but the forgetfulness of the generations following. He knew that there had often been great men in the world; but he could not hide it from himself how little these men had grown already, and how infinitesimal the greatest would become if the world should only last a few centuries longer. And so far Solomon was right.
II. But if this be the phantom for which the worldling toils and sighs, there is a posthumous fame which is no illusion. If there be no eternal remembrance of the world’s wise men any more than of its fools, it is otherwise with the wise ones of the heavenly kingdom. God has so arranged it that "the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance." There is not in all the universe a holy being but God has found for it a resting-place in the love of other holy beings, and that not temporarily, but for all eternity. The only posthumous fame that is truly permanent is the memory of God; and the only deathless names are theirs for whose living persons He has found a place in His own love, and in the love of holy beings like-minded with Himself.
J. Hamilton, The Royal Preacher, Lecture VII.
References: Ecc 2:24-26.—J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 106. 2—C. Bridges, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 26. Ecc 3:1.—H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons, p. 139. Ecc 3:1-8.—R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 92. Ecc 3:1-15.—T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 75. Ecc 3:1, Ecc 3:16-22.—J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 152.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Epicureanism and Wisdom alike Profitless
Epicureanism and Wisdom alike Profitless
1-3. The writer makes enjoyment his quest, while aware that it is folly, and avoiding excess in a philosophic spirit.
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1. I will prove thee with mirth] Wisdom, whether sought in nature or in human things, having proved unsatisfying, he now makes a cast in another direction. Increase of knowledge is increase of sorrow; but what, if he were to try the fascination of enjoyment?
2. It is mad] He knows all the time that no solid comfort will be the issue. Mirth is a brief madness: cp. Ecc_7:6.
3. To give myself unto] RV'to cheer my flesh with.' Yet acquainting mine heart] RV'mine heart yet guiding me.' Whatever indulgences he may yield to, he is careful not to drift, and so vitiate his experiment. Through all he retains a prudent self-control.
4-6. He tries another method, viz. culture and art.
4. I made me great works] The occupation of mind and exercise of taste may help him, in his quest. Houses] Personating Solomon, he thinks of the palaces built by that monarch (1Ki_7:1-12): cp. the cities mentioned in 2Ch_8:4-6.
5. Orchards] pleasure ground; RV 'parks.'
6. Pools] essential in a land where water is scarce, as well as pleasing in effect. The wood that bringeth forth trees] RV 'the forest where trees were reared.'
7-11. He acquires slaves, herds, and flocks, and precious metals, musicians, and inmates of the harem. Without being the slave of these delights he yet indulges in every desire of his heart, but, as before, all is vanity.
7. Got] RV'bought.'
8. Silver and gold] cp. 1Ki_9:28; 1Ki_10:2, 1Ki_10:14-15, 1Ki_10:27. Peculiar treasure] The specialities and rarities of each country found their way to him. Of kings and of the provinces] cp. 1Ki_10:15, where Solomon receives precious things as tribute from the kings of Arabia and the governors of the country. Musical instruments, and that of all sorts] RV'concubines very many' (but RM agrees with AV). The meaning of the Heb. is obscure. Probably, however, the reference is to the grosser sort of sensual enjoyments: cp. 1Ki_11:1-3.
9. I was great, and increased] now in splendour and luxury, as before in knowledge. In closing the account of this experiment he expresses himself as he did at the end of his endeavour to find satisfaction in wisdom (Ecc_1:16).
10. My portion of all my labour] At least he had the zest of joys obtained through toil or ingenuity.
11. Vexation of spirit] cp. Ecc_1:14. None of these could satisfy the cravings of his spirit.
12-17. Wisdom is to folly as light to darkness; yet the same end awaits both. Life, therefore, is nothing but a weariness. The cycle of experiments being completed, there is nothing to do but to hark back to the first of them, and to consider knowledge and its opposites.
12. What can the man do] None can hope to attain or approach to the favourable conditions under which Solomon carried on his quest of the highest good. After the king? even that which hath been already done] RM 'after the king, even him whom they made king long ago?' the writer now letting go his personation of Solomon, and looking back at him as an historical personage.
13. Wisdom excelleth folly] for, at any rate, in seeking it there is no fear of self-reproach.
14. Are in his head] Unlike the fool, the wise man can see what and where to choose.
15. Why was I then more wise?] rather, 'what was the use of troubling myself to surpass others?'
16. There is no remembrance] not meaning that no memories of famous men had survived them, but that such cases were too rare to be of any solace against the practical ills of life.
17. Vexation of spirit] see Ecc_1:14.
18-23. Besides, no one knows what his heir may do.
20. Went about] RV 'turned about,' i.e. looked back sadly at the absence of the permanent element in the labours of my life past.
21. Equity] RV 'skilfulness.' Hath not laboured] The heir acquires good things without earning them. This too shows the dismal tangle of human affairs.
22. Vexation] RV 'striving' (but RM as AV).
24-26. Whatever enjoyment there is in life is from God, and He thereby favours the righteous, not the sinner.
24. Eat and drink] enjoy in moderation the good things of life: cp. Jer_22:15.
25. Hasten] RV 'have enjoyment.' More than I?] RM 'apart from Him?' i.e. it is only through God's ordinance that simple bodily pleasures can change to joy the sadness which is the natural outcome of the pursuit of knowledge. This acknowledgment shows that the writer, after all, clings to the faith of his fathers. The rendering of AV (based on a slightly different rendering of the Heb.) would mean, 'Who is in a better position than Ito testify that all good comes from God?'
26. That he may give] The sinner's possessions pass to the just man, to be used aright: cp. Job_27:16-17; Pro_13:22. Vexation of spirit] see on Pro_1:14. The sinner's toil and expectations are alike great; his joys nil.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 2The Results of the Search and Different Vanities
CHAPTER 2The Results of the Search and Different Vanities
1. His personal experience (Ecc 2:1-11)
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2. Various vanities and a conclusion (Ecc 2:12-26)
Ecc 2:1-11. Here we find first of all the king’s personal experience. He experimented, so to speak, with that which is the possession of the natural man, a fallen nature. In that nature are found three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We can trace these three things in the opening verses. The lust of the flesh in verses 1-3; the lust of the eyes in Ecc 2:4-6, and the pride of life in Ecc 2:7-8. He said in his heart, Go to now, I will prove thee: that is, I will try now to satisfy thee, that is myself, my heart. He said to himself, “enjoy pleasure.” He laughed and had mirth; he tried wine, laid hold on folly. Then he made great works, built houses, planted vineyards, laid out beautiful oriental gardens with fruit trees, all kinds of shrubbery, with pools of water, springs and waterfalls--all so pleasing to the eye--the lust of the eyes. To all this he added servants and maidens, with great possessions. He gathered silver and gold and treasures such which only kings could obtain, gifts, probably from other monarchs, perhaps those which the Queen of Sheba brought. He also paid attention to music, had men singers, women singers, and an orchestra. Then, self-satisfied, he leans back and says, “So I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me” (Ecc 2:9). Who can doubt even for a moment that all this could mean any other person but Solomon; none but he could speak thus. But to make sure, he did not leave a single desire unsatisfied, for “whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy.” Well, he had tried everything, every pleasure, everything that is beautiful to the eye; he was surrounded with every comfort, had all honor and glory, was wealthy and esteemed. Does he then sing and in a blessed peace of mind is he content and satisfied? Far from it. “Then--then”--when he had done all these things and had every desire fulfilled--”then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit; and there was no profit under the sun.” It is a groan instead of a song. But that sounds pessimistic. It is the pessimism into which sin has put man. Whatever man does and seeks in satisfying that old nature, whatever his pursuits, his labors and his achievements in life, if it is that and nothing else, in the end it is nothing but vanity and a chasing of the wind.
Thank God! there is One who can still the hunger and thirst of the soul, who graciously invites, “if any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”
Ecc 2:12-26. He now turns in search for happiness in another direction. The old, old question, “Is life worth living?” after all he had stated must be answered negatively--if all is vanity and vexation of spirit and there is no profit under the sun, in anything that man enjoys, labors for and obtains, then life is not worth living. He had been disappointed in his search, but now he turns to something more ideal and not materialistic as the former things. “Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.” He turns philosopher, but it is of no avail, for it leads in the same road and ends with the same groan--vanity and vexation of spirit. While wisdom is superior to folly as far as light is superior to darkness, yet wisdom cannot help man, cannot give him peace nor give him happiness. There is one event which happens to the wise men and to the fool: that event is death. As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth unto me. What then was the good that I was more wise? He at once concludes “this also is vanity.” Death, according to the conception of the natural man, apart from revelation, plunges the wise man and the fool into oblivion, “there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten and how dieth the wise man as the fool?” (Ecc 2:16) Such is the reasoning of the natural man. By revelation we know that there is remembrance. But it leads Koheleth, the King, almost to despair. He hates life. If the pursuit of pleasures, the lust of eyes and the pride of life left me empty, and were found out to be nothing but vexation of spirit, so that life is not worth living, equally so, he finds out, that wisdom in itself and its possession brings the same results--vanity of spirit--I hated life! Then he speaks of labor done. He has labored to leave it all to the one who comes after him, and he may be a fool and not a wise man. Or he may have labored wisely and it is left all to one who never did anything, a sluggard. All he brands as vanity and ends by saying, “For what hath a man of all his labors, and of the vexation of his heart wherein he hath labored under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief, yea his heart taketh no rest in the night. This is also vanity.”
The conclusion reached is that, apart from God, man has no capacity to enjoy his labor. Ecc 2:25 has been metrically rendered as follows:
The good is not in man that he should eat and drink And find his soul’s enjoyment in his toil; This, too, I saw is only from the hands of God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 20 Solomon’s own Example
Solomon’s own Example
v. 1. I said in mine heart, in considering carefully the possibility of enjoyment, Go to, now, I will prove thee with mirth, to find out whether he would feel happy and contented in enjoyment of the senses; therefore enjoy pleasure, sensual delights of every kind; and, behold, this also is vanity, it affords no true happiness.
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v. 2. I said of laughter, of the joy and cheerfulness which he madly attempted to reach, It is mad, foolish, it affords no real satisfaction; and of mirth, What doeth it? It accomplishes nothing of value, it avails nothing in the attainment of real, lasting good.
v. 3. I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, to comfort himself by its use, either with the object of nourishing the body or to have the sensual pleasure afforded by the exhilaration produced by the stimulant, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom, that is, to keep wisdom and discretion as the guiding principles of his life; and to lay hold on folly, to seize and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, to find out whether they would satisfy, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, what course they had best pursue in going through life, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. Solomon did what so many people have tried out since his time; instead of accepting the statements of God’s Word concerning that which is good and beneficial to them, they determine to try out for themselves what is good and so are obliged to learn through many bitter and painful experiences. Solomon, having the means, took every opportunity for his experiment.
v. 4. I made me great works, building magnificent structures and piling up evidences of wealth on every hand; I builded me houses, 1 Kings 7-10; I planted me vineyards, Son 8:11;
v. 5. I made me gardens and orchards, pleasure-grounds near his various residences, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits, in rich variety, including many from foreign countries;
v. 6. I made me pools of water, artificial lakes for purposes of irrigation, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees, this being necessary on account of the extent and the magnificence of his parks;
v. 7. I got me servants and maidens, slaves of both sexes, and had servants born in my house, such slaves usually being distinguished for loyalty to their master; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me, as God had promised him, 2Ch 1:12;
v. 8. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces, 1Ki 9:28; 1Ki 10:24-29; I gat me men singers and women singers, such as were common at Oriental courts for the entertainment of the court and of the royal guests, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts, in great abundance, as befitted his station and wealth.
v. 9. So I was great, possessed of riches and power, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem, as the historical accounts fully substantiate, 1 Kings 9-11; also my wisdom remained with me, it stood by him in all his experimenting to find happiness, it never left his side, for he was honestly concerned about finding true satisfaction in this life, if possible.
v. 10. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy, he tried them all out to see whether he could obtain true profit from any of them; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, it was an agreeable pursuit, he felt that he would surely find what he was seeking; and this was my portion of all my labor, he found this a recompense for all his troubles and sorrows.
v. 11. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, he carefully surveyed the results of his experiment, and on the labor that I had labored to do, which he had planned and carried out with so much pains; and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, there was no lasting satisfaction in the possession and enjoyment of all earthly goods and pleasures, and there was no profit under the sun.
v. 12. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly, to compare them, to consider their relative value, 1:17; for what can the man do that cometh after the king? Solomon surely had the best chance to make his experiment in happiness, and if he had not succeeded, any one else would have still smaller chance of success. Even that which hath been already done, the same foolish mistakes having been made by men from the beginning.
v. 13. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness, he recognized the absolute worth of wisdom, he found that the one excluded the other, that folly is vain, empty, and unsubstantial.
v. 14. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, he uses them with proper observation and understanding; but the fool walketh in darkness, deliberately closing his eyes and his understanding to the advantages of true spiritual knowledge; and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all, they are all subject to death and decay.
v. 15. Then said I in my heart, in considering this apparent puzzle, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me, literally, "I also, it will happen to me"; and why was I then more wise? The possession of great knowledge in itself, without being placed into service, is of little value. Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity, namely, that so far as death in itself is concerned, the same fate awaits them both.
v. 16. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever, people forget the one as rapidly as the other; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten, that is ordinarily and generally the case, the few exceptions tending to confirm the rule. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool, they must both yield up the spirit in the same manner.
v. 17. Therefore I hated life, he was filled with weariness and loathing toward all that this life has to offer; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me, the contemplation of it all fills the observer with a sense of oppression; for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
v. 18. Yea, I hated, regarded with disgust and aversion, all my labor which I had taken under the sun, with which he had exerted himself; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me, his successor thus reaping the fruit for which he had labored, a fact which, for the moment, made his own work appear so useless.
v. 19. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? since so much depends upon the attitude of men. Solomon himself, having disregarded his father’s dying charge, was filled with misgivings concerning the manner in which Rehoboam, his son by an idolatrous Ammonitess, Naamah, would conduct himself, a foreboding which was only too fully justified. Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. There is a serious suggestion here for all Christian parents to discard all selfishness and sentimentality and to train their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 26 I said in my heart
I said in my heart
Here the author refers to himself by his "heart" to emphasize his feelings. AT: "I said to myself" (See: Synecdoche)
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I will test you with happiness
Here the word "you" refers to himself. The word "happiness" can be expressed as an adjective. AT: "I will test myself with things that make me happy" (See: Abstract Nouns)
So enjoy pleasure
The word "pleasure" can be expressed as a verb. AT: "So I will enjoy things that please me" (See: Abstract Nouns)
this also was just a temporary breeze
This speaks of how happiness only lasts for a short time as if it were a temporary breeze. AT: "this also only lasted for a short time, like a temporary breeze" (See: Metaphor)
I said about laughter, "It is crazy,"
The direct quotation can be translated as an indirect quotation. AT: "I said that it is crazy to laugh at things" (See: Direct and Indirect Quotations)
What use is it?
The author uses a rhetorical question to emphasize that pleasure is useless. AT: "It is useless." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
heart
test
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 26 2:1-11 The Teacher dismisses the pursuit of pleasure for…
2:1-11 The Teacher dismisses the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake as hollow. Even great achievements are a vapor.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.