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?
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv20–21 That I might seek the true felicity which is…
That I might seek the true felicity which is in God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv17–22 Ecc 2:17 Therefore I hated life; because the work…
Ecc 2:17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun [is] grievous unto me: for all [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ver. 17. Therefore I hated life,] i.e., I less loved it than I had done; I saw mortality to be a mercy, with Cato; I was neither fond of life, nor afraid of death, with Queen Elizabeth. I preferred my coffin before my cradle, my burial day before my birthday {a} {Ecc 7:1} A greater than Solomon threatens those that love life with the loss of life, {Luk 17:33} and hath purposely set a particular vanity and vexation upon every day of our life, that we may not dote upon it, since "we die daily." "Sufficient to the day is the evil (that is, the misery) thereof." Quicquid boni est in mundo, saith Augustine; what good thing soever we have here, is either past, present, or to come. If past, it is nothing; if to come, it is uncertain; if present, yet it is insufficient, unsatisfactory. So that, while I call to mind things past, said that incomparable Queen Elizabeth, behold things present, and expect things to come, I hold them happiest that go hence soonest, {b}
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{a} Usque adeone mori miserum. - Virgil.
{b} Camden’s Elisabeth, fol. 325.
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 vv17–22 I hated life; my life, though accompanied with so…
I hated life; my life, though accompanied with so much honour, and pleasure, and wisdom, was a burden to me, and I was apt to wish either that I had never been born, or that I might speedily die.
The work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; all human designs and works are so far from yielding me that satisfaction which I expected, that the consideration of them increaseth my discontent.
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 v17 Business is a thing that wise men have pleasure…
Business is a thing that wise men have pleasure in. They are in their element when they are in their business, and complain if they be out of business. They may sometimes be tired with their business, but they are not weary of it, nor willing to leave it off. Here therefore one would expect to have found the good that men should do, but Solomon tried this too; after a contemplative life and a voluptuous life, he betook himself to an active life, and found no more satisfaction in it than in the other; still it is all vanity and vexation of spirit, of which he gives an account in these verses, where observe,
I. What the business was which he made trial of; it was business under the sun (Ecc 2:17-20), about the things of this world, sublunary things, the riches, honours, and pleasures of this present time; it was the business of a king. There is business above the sun, perpetual business, which is perpetual blessedness; what we do in conformity to that business (doing God's will as it is done in heaven) and in pursuance of that blessedness, will turn to a good account; we shall have no reason to hate that labour, nor to despair of it. But it is labour under the sun, labour for the meat that perishes (Joh 6:27; Isa 55:2), that Solomon here speaks of with so little satisfaction. It was the better sort of business, not that of the hewers of wood and drawers of water (it is not so strange if men hate all that labour), but it was in wisdom, and knowledge, and equity, Ecc 2:21. It was rational business, which related to the government of his kingdom and the advancement of its interests. It was labour managed by the dictates of wisdom, of natural and acquired knowledge, and the directions of justice. It was labour at the council-board and in the courts of justice. It was labour wherein he showed himself wise (Ecc 2:19), which as much excels the labour wherein men only show themselves strong as the endowments of the mind, by which we are allied to angels, do those of the body, which we have in common with the brutes. That which many people have in their eye more than any thing else, in the prosecution of their worldly business, is to show themselves wise, to get the reputation of ingenious men and men of sense and application.
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II. His falling out with this business. He soon grew weary of it. 1. He hated all his labour, because he did not meet with that satisfaction in which he expected. After he had had his fine houses, and gardens, and water-works, awhile, he began to nauseate them, and look upon them with contempt, as children, who are eager for a toy and fond of it at first, but, when they have played with it awhile, are weary of it, and throw it away, and must have another. This expresses not a gracious hatred of these things, which is our duty, to love them less than God and religion (Luk 14:26), nor a sinful hatred of them, which is our folly, to be weary of the place God has assigned us and the work of it, but a natural hatred of them, arising from a surfeit upon them and a sense of disappointment in them. 2. He caused his heart to despair of all his labour (Ecc 2:20); he took pains to possess himself with a deep sense of the vanity of worldly business, that it would not bring in the advantage and satisfaction he had formerly flattered himself with the hopes of. Our hearts are very loth to quit their expectations of great things from the creature; we must go about, must fetch a compass, in arguing with them, to convince them that there is not that in the things of this world which we are apt to promise ourselves from them. Have we so often bored and sunk into this earth for some rich mine of satisfaction, and found not the least sign or token of it, but been always frustrated in the search, and shall we not at length set our hearts at rest and despair of ever finding it? 3. He came to that, at length, that he hated life itself (Ecc 2:17), because it is subject to so many toils and troubles, and a constant series of disappointments. God had given Solomon such largeness of heart, and such vast capacities of mind, that he experienced more than other men of the unsatisfying nature of all the things of this life and their insufficiency to make him happy. Life itself, that is so precious to a man, and such a blessing to a good man, may become a burden to a man of business.
III. The reasons of this quarrel with his life and labours. Two things made him weary of them: -
1. That his business was so great a toil to himself: The work that he had wrought under the sun was grievous unto him, Ecc 2:17. His thoughts and cares about it, and that close and constant application of mind which was requisite to it, were a burden and fatigue to him, especially when he grew old. It is the effect of a curse on that we are to work upon. Our business is said to be the work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed (Gen 5:29) and of the weakening of the faculties we are to work with, and of the sentence pronounced on us, that in the sweat of our face we must eat bread. Our labour is called the vexation of our heart (Ecc 2:22); it is to most a force upon themselves, so natural is it to us to love our ease. A man of business is described to be uneasy both in his going out and his coming in, Ecc 2:23. (1.) He is deprived of his pleasure by day, for all his days are sorrow, not only sorrowful, but sorrow itself, nay, many sorrows and various; his travail, or labour, all day, is grief. Men of business ever and anon meet with that which vexes them, and is an occasion of anger or sorrow to them. Those that are apt to fret find that the more dealings they have in the world the oftener they are made to fret. The world is a vale of tears, even to those that have much of it. Those that labour are said to be heavy-laden, and are therefore called to come to Christ for rest, Mat 11:28. (2.) He is disturbed in his repose by night. When he is overcome with the hurries of the day, and hopes to find relief when he lays his head on his pillow, he is disappointed there; cares hold his eyes waking, or, if he sleep, yet his heart wakes, and that takes no rest in the night. See what fools those are that make themselves drudges to the world, and do not make God their rest; night and day they cannot but be uneasy. So that, upon the whole matter, it is all vanity, Ecc 2:17. This is vanity in particular (Ecc 2:19, Ecc 2:23), nay, it is vanity and a great evil, Ecc 2:21. It is a great affront to God and a great injury to themselves, therefore a great evil; it is a vain thing to rise up early and sit up late in pursuit of this world's goods, which were never designed to be our chief good.
2. That the gains of his business must all be left to others. Prospect of advantage is the spring of action and the spur of industry; therefore men labour, because they hope to get by it; if the hope fail, the labour flags; and therefore Solomon quarrelled with all the works, the great works, he had made, because they would not be of any lasting advantage to himself. (1.) He must leave them. He could not at death take them away with him, nor any share of them, nor should he return any more to them (Job 7:10), nor would the remembrance of them do him any good, Luk 16:25. But I must leave all to the man that shall be after me, to the generation that comes up in the room of that which is passing away. As there were many before us, who built the houses that we live in, and into whose purchases and labours we have entered, so there shall be many after us, who shall live in the houses that we build, and enjoy the fruit of our purchases and labours. Never was land lost for want of an heir. To a gracious soul this is no uneasiness at all; why should we grudge others their turn in the enjoyments of this world, and not rather be pleased that, when we are gone, those that come after us shall fare the better for our wisdom and industry? But to a worldly mind, that seeks for its own happiness in the creature, it is a great vexation to think of leaving the beloved pelf behind, at this uncertainty. (2.) He must leave them to those that would never have taken so much pains for them, and will thereby excuse himself from taking any pains. He that raised the estate did it by labouring in wisdom, and knowledge, and equity; but he that enjoys it and spends it (it may be) has not laboured therein (Ecc 2:21), and, more than that, never will. The bee toils to maintain the drone. Nay, it proves a snare to him: it is left him for his portion, which he rests in, and takes up with; and miserable he is in being put off with it for a portion. Whereas, if an estate had not come to him thus easily, who knows but he might have been both industrious and religious? Yet we ought not to perplex ourselves about this, since it may prove otherwise, that what is well got may come to one that will use it well and do good with it. (3.) He knows not whom he must leave it to (for God makes heirs), or at least what he will prove to whom he leaves it, whether a wise man or a fool, a wise man that will make it more or a fool that will bring it to nothing; yet he shall have rule over all my labour, and foolishly undo that which his father wisely did. It is probable that Solomon wrote this very feelingly, being afraid what Rehoboam would prove. St Jerome, in his commentary on this passage, applies this to the good books which Solomon wrote, in which he had shown himself wise, but he knew not into whose hands they would fall, perhaps into the hands of a fool, who, according to the perverseness of his heart, makes a bad use of what was well written. So that, upon the whole matter, he asks (Ecc 2:22), What has man of all his labour? What has he to himself and to his own use? What has he that will go with him into another world?
IV. The best use which is therefore to be made of the wealth of this world, and that is to use it cheerfully, to take the comfort of it, and do good with it. With this he concludes the chapter, Ecc 2:24-26. There is no true happiness to be found in these things. They are vanity, and, if happiness be expected from them, the disappointment will be vexation of spirit. But he will put us in a way to make the best of them, and to avoid the inconveniences he had observed. We must neither over-toil ourselves, so as, in pursuit of more, to rob ourselves of the comfort of what we have, nor must we over-hoard for hereafter, nor lose our own enjoyment of what we have to lay it up for those that shall come after us, but serve ourselves out of it first. Observe,
1. What that good is which is here recommended to us; and which is the utmost pleasure and profit we can expect or extract from the business and profit of this world, and the furthest we can go to rescue it from its vanity and the vexation that is in it. (1.) We must do our duty with them, and be more in care how to use an estate well, for the ends for which we were entrusted with it, than how to raise or increase an estate. This is intimated Ecc 2:26, where those only are said to have the comfort of this life who are good in God's sight, and again, good before God, truly good, as Noah, whom God saw righteous before him. We must set God always before us, and give diligence in every thing to approve ourselves to him. The Chaldee-paraphrase says, A man should make his soul to enjoy good by keeping the commandments of God and walking in the ways that are right before him, and (Ecc 2:25) by studying the words of the law, and being in care about the day of the great judgment that is to come. (2.) We must take the comfort of them. These things will not make a happiness for the soul; all the good we can have out of them is for the body, and if we make use of them for the comfortable support of that, so that it may be fit to serve the soul and able to keep pace with it in the service of God, then they turn to a good account. There is therefore nothing better for a man, as to these things, than to allow himself a sober cheerful use of them, according as his rank and condition are, to have meat and drink out of them for himself, his family, his friends, and so delight his senses and make his soul enjoy good, all the good that is to be had out of them; do not lose that, in pursuit of that good which is not to be had out of them. But observe, He would not have us to give up business, and take our ease, that we may eat and drink; no, we must enjoy good in our labour; we must use these things, not to excuse us from, but to make us diligent and cheerful in, our worldly business. (3.) We must herein acknowledge God; we must see that it is from the hand of God, that is, [1.] The good things themselves that we enjoy are so, not only the products of his creating power, but the gifts of his providential bounty to us. And then they are truly pleasant to us when we take them from the hand of God as a Father, when we eye his wisdom giving us that which is fittest for us, and acquiesce in it, and taste his love and goodness, relish them, and are thankful for them. [2.] A heart to enjoy them is so; this is the gift of God's grace. Unless he give us wisdom to make a right use of what he has, in his providence, bestowed upon us, and withal peace of conscience, that we may discern God's favour in the world's smiles, we cannot make our souls enjoy any good in them.
2. Why we should have this in our eye, in the management of ourselves as to this world, and look up to God for it. (1.) Because Solomon himself, with all his possessions, could aim at no more and desire no better (Ecc 2:25): "Who can hasten to this more than I? This is that which I was ambitious of: I wished for no more; and those that have but little, in comparison with what I have, may attain to this, to be content with what they have and enjoy the good of it." Yet Solomon could not obtain it by his own wisdom, without the special grace of God, and therefore directs us to expect it from the hand of God and pray to him for it. (2.) Because riches are a blessing or a curse to a man according as he has or has not a heart to make good use of them. [1.] God makes them a reward to a good man, if with them he give him wisdom, and knowledge, and joy, to enjoy them cheerfully himself and to communicate them charitably to others. To those who are good in God's sight, who are of a good spirit, honest and sincere, pay a deference to their God and have a tender concern for all mankind, God will give wisdom and knowledge in this world, and joy with the righteous in the world to come; so the Chaldee. Or he will give that wisdom and knowledge in things natural, moral, political, and divine, which will be a constant joy and pleasure to them. [2.] He makes them a punishment to a bad man if he denies him a heart to take the comfort of them, for they do but tantalize him and tyrannize over him: To the sinner God gives by travail, by leaving him to himself and his own foolish counsels, to gather and to heap up that, which, as to himself, will not only burden him like thick clay (Hab 2:6), but be a witness against him and eat his flesh as it were fire (Jam 5:3); while God designs, by an overruling providence, to give it to him that is good before him; for the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just, and gathered for him that will pity the poor. Note, First, Godliness, with contentment, is great gain; and those only have true joy that are good in God's sight, and that have it from him and in him. Secondly, Ungodliness is commonly punished with discontent and an insatiable covetousness, which are sins that are their own punishment. Thirdly, When God gives abundance to wicked men it is with design to force them to a resignation in favour of his own children, when they are of age and ready for it, as the Canaanites kept possession of the good land till the time appointed for Israel's entering upon it. [3.] The burden of the song is still the same: This is also vanity and vexation of spirit. It is vanity, at the best, even to the good man; when he has all that the sinner has scraped together it will not make him happy without something else; but it is vexation of spirit to the sinner to see what he had laid up enjoyed by him that is good in God's sight, and therefore evil in his. So that, take it which way you will, the conclusion is firm, All is vanity and vexation of spirit.
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 vv17–22 Therefore I hated life,.... Not strictly and simply understood,…
Therefore I hated life,.... Not strictly and simply understood, since life is the gift of God; and a great blessing it is, more than raiment, and so dear to a man, that he will give all he has for it: but comparatively, in comparison of the lovingkindness of God, which is better than life; or in comparison of eternal life, which a good man desires to depart from this world, for the sake of enjoying it. The sense seems to be this, that since the case of wise men and fools was equal, he had the less love for life, the less regard to it, the less desire to continue in it; no solid happiness being to be enjoyed in anything under the sun: though some think that he was even weary of life, impatient of it, as Job, Jonah, and others have been. The Targum is,
"I hate all evil life:''
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Alshech interprets it of the good things of this world, which were the cause of hurt unto him; and Aben Ezra understands, by life, living persons;
because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; which was either wrought by himself; particularly his hard studies, and eager pursuits after knowledge and wisdom, which were a weariness to his flesh; or which were done by others, especially evil ones: so the Targum,
"for evil to me is an evil work, which is done by the children of men under the sun in this world;''
for all is vanity and vexation of spirit; See Gill on Ecc 1:14.
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 vv17–22 Life - My life was a burden to me.…
Life - My life was a burden to me. Is grievous - All human designs and works are so far from yielding me satisfaction, that the consideration of them increases my discontent.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv17–22 Verse 17. Therefore I hated life] את החיים et…
Verse 17. Therefore I hated life] את החיים et hachaiyim, the lives, both of the wise, the madman, and the fool. Also all the stages of life, the child, the man, and the sage. There was nothing in it worth pursuing, no period worth re-living and no hope that if this were possible I could again be more successful.
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 vv17, 20, 22 Ecc 2:17-19. Therefore I hated life — My life,…
Ecc 2:17-19. Therefore I hated life — My life, though accompanied with so much honour, and pleasure, and wisdom, was a burden to me, and I was ready to wish, either that I had never been born, or that I might speedily die; because the work, &c., is grievous — All human designs and works are so far from yielding me satisfaction, that the consideration of them increases my discontent. I hated all my labour — All these riches and buildings, and other fruits of my labour, were aggravations of my misery. Because I should leave it, &c. — Because I must, and that everlastingly, leave them all behind me. And who knoweth whether he shall be wise or a fool? — Who will undo all that I have done, and turn the effects of my wisdom into instruments of his folly. Some think he had such an opinion of Rehoboam.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv17–21 Life. Hebrew, "I hated life," as all is attended…
Life. Hebrew, "I hated life," as all is attended with anxiety, Romans vii. 24.
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 20, 21, 22 Disappointed in one experiment after another, he is weary…
Disappointed in one experiment after another, he is weary of life. The backslider ought to have rather reasoned as the prodigal (Hos 2:6-7; Luk 15:17-18).
grievous unto me-- (Job 10:1).
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 vv17–22 17. The work… wrought… is grievous — Because most…
17. The work… wrought… is grievous — Because most men are in pursuit of wisdom or pleasure, the best deeming the former, the worst deeming the latter, the real good, and both are disappointed. Koheleth judges the experience of other men from his own.
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 vv17–22 17. Therefore I hated life] Better, And I hated.…
17. Therefore I hated life] Better, And I hated. Of such a temper, the extremest form of pessimism, suicide would seem the natural and logical outcome. In practice, however, the sages who have thus moralized, from Koheleth to Schopenhauer, have found life worth living for, even when they were proving that it was hateful. Even the very utterance of the thought has been a relief, or, like Hamlet, they have been deterred by the vague terror of the “something after death” which their scepticism cannot quite shake off. The actual self-murderers are those who cannot weave their experiences into poems and confessions, and find the burden of life, including its sin and shame, more than they can bear. It may be questioned whether mere weariness of life, able to find vent for itself in verse or prose, has ever led to suicide. The man, as here, seems to come to the very verge of it, and then draws back. It is suggestive that in the history of Greek and Roman philosophy suicide was more frequent and more honoured among the Stoics than the Epicureans (Zeller, Stoics and Epic. c. xii.). The recurrence of the burden “vanity and feeding upon wind” rings, as it were, the death-knell of life and hope.
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 vv17–21 (17) Is grievous.—Rather, was.
(17) Is grievous.—Rather, was.
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 vv17–22 Therefore I hated life; et idcirce taeduit me vitae…
Therefore I hated life; et idcirce taeduit me vitae meae. Be a man wise or foolish, his life leads only to one end and is soon forgotten; hence life itself is burdensome and hateful. The bitter complaint of Job (Job_3:20, etc.; Job_6:8, Job_6:9) is here echoed, though the words do not point to suicide as the solution of the riddle. It is the ennui and unprofitableness of all life and action in view of the inevitable conclusion, which is here lamented. Because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; literally, for evil unto me (Est_3:9) is the work which is done under the sun. The toil and exertions of men pressed upon him like a burden too heavy for him to bear. Symmachus, Kakon moi ejfanh to ergon; Septuagint, Ponhron ejp ejme tohma k.t.l.. He repeats the expression, "under the sun," as if to show that he was regarding human labor only in its earthly aspect, undertaken and executed for temporal and selfish considerations alone. The apostle teaches a "better lesson, and the worker who adopts his rule is saved from this crushing disappointment: Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ". (Col_3:23, Col_3:24) For all is vanity. He comes back to the same miserable refrain; it is all emptiness, striving after wind.
Vers. 17-20.
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The vanity of toil.
I THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS LIES NOT IN BUSINESS. Granting that one applies himself to business, and succeeds through ability, perseverance, and skill in building up a fortune, if he looks for felicity either in his labor or in his riches, he will find himself mistaken. Three things are fatal to a man"s chances of finding happiness in the riches that come from business success.
1. Sorrow in the getting of them. Toiling and moiling, laboring and striving, drudging and slaving, planning and plotting, scheming and contriving, rising up early and lying down late, hurrying and worrying by these means for the most part are fortunes built up. How expressive is the Preacher"s language concerning the successful man of business, that "all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief," or "all his days are pains, and trouble is his occupation," "yea, even in the night his heart taketh no rest" (ver. 23)!
2. Sorrow in the keeping of them. A constant anxiety besets the rich man, night and day, lest the riches he has amassed should suddenly take wings and flee away; by day looking out for safe investments, and by night wondering if his ventures will prove good, if the money he has painfully collected may not some day disappear and leave him in the lurch. And even should this not happen, how often is it seen that when a man has made his fortune, he finds there is nothing in it; that success has been too long in coming, and that now, when he has wealth, he wants the power to enjoy it (ver. 22; cf.; Ecc_6:2) as the duke says to Claudio in the prison
And when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat. affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. ("Measure for Measure," act 3. sc. 1. )
3. Sorrow in the parting with them. The results of all his labor he must leave to the man who shall be after him, without knowing whether that successor shall be a wise man or a fool (vers. 18, 19; cf.; Ecc_5:15) and though this does not greatly trouble the Christian, who knows there is laid up for him a better and more enduring substance in heaven, yet for the worldly or insincerely religious man it is an agitating thought. Mazarin, the cardinal, and first minister of Louis XIV, was accustomed, as he walked through the galleries of his palace, to whisper to himself, "I must quit all this;" and Frederick William IV of Prussia on one occasion, as he stood upon the Potsdam terrace, turned to Chevalier Bunsen beside him, and remarked, as they looked out together on the garden," This too I must leave behind me" (see Plumptre, in loco).
II BUSINESS MAY MINISTER TO MAN"S ENJOYMENT. The Preacher does not wish to teach that happiness lies beyond man"s reach, but rather that it is attainable, if sought in the right way. He recognizes:
1. That there is nothing wrong in seeking after happiness, or even earthly enjoyment. He admits there is nothing better, more permissible or desirable, among men than that one "should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor" (ver. 24). He even allows that this is from the hand of God, which makes it plain that he is not now alluding to sinful indulgence of the bodily appetite, but speaking of that moderate enjoyment of the good things of life God has so richly provided for man"s support and entertainment. It is not God"s wish, he says, that man should be debarred or should debar himself from all enjoyment. Rather it is his earnest desire that man should eat and drink and enjoy what has been furnished for his entertainment, should not make of himself an ascetic, under pretence of religion denying himself of lawful pleasures and gratifications, but should so use them as to contribute to his highest welfare.
2. That no man can make a good use of life"s provisions unless in connection with the thought of God. "Who can eat or have enjoyment, apart from him i.e. God?" (Revised Version, margin): This corrective thought the Preacher lays before his readers, that while the world"s good things cannot impart happiness by themselves and apart from God, they can if enjoyed in conjunction with him, i.e. if recognized as coming from him (1Ch_29:14; 1Ti_6:17; Jam_1:17) and used for his glory. (1Co_10:31) The last passages show that this was the New Testament ideal of life. (1Ti_4:4)
3. That he who seeks happiness in this way will succeed. "For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight or, "that pleaseth him" wisdom, and knowledge, and joy" (ver. 26). So far from pronouncing felicity a dream, an unattainable good, a shadow without a substance, the Preacher believes that if a man will take God and religion with him into the world, and, remembering both the shortness of time and the certainty of a future life, will enjoy the world"s good things in moderation and with thankfulness, he will derive therefrom, if not absolute and unmixed happiness, as near an approximation to it as man can expect to reach on earth. God will graciously assist such a man to gather the best fruits of wisdom and knowledge, both human and Divine, and will inspire him with a joy the world can neither give nor take away (Job_22:21; Psa_16:8, 9 112:1, 7, 8; Joh_16:22) This, if not happiness, is at least a lot immensely superior to that God assigns to the sinner, i.e. to the man who excludes God, religion, and immortality from his life. The lot of such a man is often as the Preacher describes, to toil away in making money, to heap it up till it becomes a pile, and then to die and leave it to be scattered to the winds, enjoyed by he knows not whom, and not infrequently by the good men he has despised (Job_27:16, Job_27:17; Pro_13:22 Pro_28:8)
LESSONS.
1. Be diligent in business. (Rom_12:11) "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," etc.. (Ecc_9:10)
2. But be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord". (Rom_12:11)
3. Seek happiness in God himself rather than in his gilts (Psa_4:7 Psa_9:2 Psa_40:16; Luk_1:47; Php_3:1)
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 vv17–18 Therefore I hated life.
Ecc_2:17
Therefore I hated life.
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Is life worth living
Is life worth living? is a question that is continually coming before the public mind in one form or another. When Mr. Maddocks book appeared, as many of you may remember, there was an attempt to make light of it by the pun contained in the supposed doctors answer, It depends on the liver. This has been capped by Punchs clergyman, who replies, It depends on the living. One must, however, approach the matter with the utmost seriousness, as it touches upon the deep basal truths and principles of existence, and is too solemn a subject to admit of any flippancy in our treatment of it. The problem would be met by an unqualified affirmative wherever life is young, healthy, and active, and the environment favourable to a rich, varied, and exuberant form of existence. In some respects, therefore, the doctor is right; it does depend upon the state of the health and the physical condition. I wonder what a happy schoolboy, rushing out with the football under his arm, would say if he were asked, Is life worth living? His expression would be a curious study as he gave his reply, and would itself convey deep significance. What a happy thing it would be if that schoolboy aspect of life were only exchanged for a deeper conviction of its fuller value and noble possibilities, and that it should never occur to us to ask whether this breath of life might not as well cease, and that perhaps the whole had been a hideous mistake! The words of the Koheleth express the sentiment of those who thus pass an adverse sentence upon the value of life, condemning both the career of the wise man and the fool, and who have come to hate life, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit or a striving after wind. The grand old Greeks, with their highly-refined conditions of life, and life itself full of richness and variety, end ennobled by the splendid idealism of the fine arts, now and then fell into this sad vein. Even the ancient poet, the sunny-brewed Homer, sang--
For there is nothing whatever more wretched than man
Of all things that breathe and that move oer the earth.
We have, further, in Theognis, It would be best for the children of the earth not to be born . . . next best for them, when born, to pass through the gates of Hades as soon as possible. Can anything be more touching than the words of Cassandra in Agamemnon by AEschylus: Alas for the conditions of mortals! When prosperous, a shadow may overturn them; if, however, they be in adversity, a moistened sponge blots out the picture. Then we find Seneca, one of the best of the Roman Stoics, whose maxims came so near to many of the sayings of St. Paul, praising death as the best invention of nature, and Marcus Aurelius, a seeker after God, expressing his disgust at human life, with the apostrophe, O death, delay not thy coming. There is much the same in the literature of Persia, and in the sphere of the religion of the light. The pure-souled and seraphic Buddha considers that True wisdom is a desire to be nothing, to be blown out, to enter into Nirvana, i.e. extinction. Coming to modern times we find in French literature of the Pompadour period the same strain of melancholy. Diderot wrote, To be, amid pain and weeping, the plaything of uncertainty, of error, of want, of sickness, and of passions--every step, from the moment when we learn to lisp, to the time of departure, when our voice falters--this is called the most important gift of our parents and of nature--life. This is more than equalled by the words of Sehelling, The deaths head never fails behind the ogling mask, and life is only the cap and bells which the nonentity has donned just to make a jingle, and afterwards to tear it to pieces and east it away. These instances will suffice to indicate the strongly marked pessimistic tendency amongst some of the finest thinkers, and would lead those who are predisposed to this kind of philosophizing to the inevitable conviction that, on the whole, life is not worth living.
1. The value of life, if judged from the point of view of happiness, depends upon the sum of its functional activities and interests. Our pessimistic views concerning life are largely the result of our mistaken ideas of happiness. We are apt to imagine that health, leisure, and a splendid income are absolutely necessary to our happiness; and when there is a prospect of losing these permanently, life is no longer desirable. No man is really unhappy who realizes that he has work to do and sets himself in earnest to do it. The utmost of pain and sorrow can be borne if only one has an object in life. Men who throw up all for lost are those who have abandoned, if they ever had it, their object in life. Let a person once set his mind upon some worthy aim, and allow his interest to centre in that, and let it absorb his energies, and never will he think of laying violent hands upon himself. When the Christians assembled in the catacombs we discover none of those traces of pessimism that are so characteristic of the poems of Horace. Their interest was centred in their Lord and Master, and His royal will. We can understand, then, how a truly Christian man, following in the experiences of the Apostle Paul, would apprehend Christ to be the true object of existence. To live is Christ, to learn about Christ, to live for Christ, to gain Christ, and to realize the life and character of Christ within oneself, so that the very principle of the within, is Christ. Such realization gives life its value.
2. The value of life further depends upon its extrinsic utilities in the service of our fellows. We owe a debt of gratitude to the past, which can only be paid to the future, for this, and it is a point of honour, that every man should acknowledge, to make his life valuable to others to those who shall come after him. It would be ignoble to slight that which has cost so much to develop, and especially since every life is capable of being made useful in a greater or less degree.
3. If we are men of faith we shall value life for the sake of its higher development beyond the grave. Even though this life were spent in a purgatory of torture, or a hell of pain, which life need never be, no one who believes in the Christ can deny that the great hereafter will more than obliterate the traces of this sorrowful world in the glorious activities of the heavenly state and all its grand developments. Cheer up, brothers, and brace yourselves for manly effort. There are no sorrows or difficulties that a brave-hearted man, who trusts in Cod, need fear to encounter. Whatever straits one may find oneself in, there is no lot so painful, so bitter, or so trying that it may not be sweetened and ennobled by effort--and that effort will be our joy. (J. G. James, B. A.)
Pessimism and optimism
(with Psa_27:1):--We all of us are by turns followers of the laughing philosopher and of the weeping philosopher. Life sometimes appears full of joy, at other times full of sorrow. Hence the folly of labelling the souls of our fellow-men is manifest, of calling one man an optimist and another a pessimist. Deep souls are both at different periods of their development. We are all pilgrims; and so we pass through many widely different countries during our journey. And it is much to be wished that men would not be so precipitate in guessing at the goal or terminus, to which the spirits of their brethren are going. To all of us that really think, there has been given a new commandment: and it is this, Thou shalt not label thy brothers soul. Pessimism is often like the moulting of birds, a thing not pleasing in itself, but still a necessary process. A moulting eagle is grander far than a well-conditioned sparrow. Pessimism is often only a sort of prolonged moulting of the divine eagle wings of the most soaring faith and the noblest compassion and love.
1. Christianity has obviously very much in common with pessimism. It has nothing in common with the fantastic optimism of Emerson, which deliberately chooses to ignore the darker side of human life. It plainly teaches that the present condition of the world is abnormal, and in many respects evil. Our religion fully recognizes the fact that we are pilgrims and strangers here, and that our life is essentially a warfare. It does not require us to be always in a triumphant mood. It knows that many of the very greatest of the elect are destined to pass long years in the dark valley of the shadow of death. It blesses those that mourn.
2. Christianity nowhere teaches that pleasure, or even happiness, is the end or object of life. On the contrary, our religion teaches that progress through suffering is the real end and object of our life. The doctrine of the Cross, with its divine amplitude of meaning is to use a precious rock-hewn path of safety between the deceptive quagmire of a flimsy Emersonian optimism and the hideous abysses of a despairing pessimism. The very fact that God has brought the human race so far in its spiritual pilgrimage forbids any reasonable despair. The old, sacred, guiding fire of the Eternal still leads us on. The burning and unearthly splendours of the mighty Ideal from time to time disperse the thick clouds of the actual. The far-off goal of the human race gleams fitfully on our worn eyes; even amidst the heartbreaking sorrow of prolonged moral failure, an angel of the Divine pity sometimes carries us away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shows us that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. There, in Gods nearer presence, the ailing soul knows that it shall one day grow well and strong. (A. Crawford, M. A.)
Tired of life
What are the causes of suicide? The general impression is, insanity: this is for the most part the verdict of juries over the corpse of the self-slain man. But insanity is not always the cause. In most cases of suicide there have been displayed on the part of the perpetrator forethought, deliberation, plan. What then can prompt a man who is not actually mad to this terrible deed?
I. Severe trials. The feeling that Solomon had, rushes into the soul of not a few at times. The children of Israel in the wilderness had it when they said, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt. Elijah had it when he said, It is enough now, O Lord! take away my life. Job had it when he said, I loathe it: I would not live alway.
II. Sickening satiety. The men of leisure and affluence, who are freed from tile necessity of work, enterprise, and business, who fare sumptuously every day, and run the round of fashionable life and sensuous enjoyment, have always shown the greatest susceptibility to this disgust with life. Over-indulgence in worldly pleasures seldom fails to produce a moral nausea. There is what the French call the ennui that comes out of it, that awful yawn, says Byron, that sleep cannot abate. As a proof of this, in the countries where luxuries most abound, suicides are the most numerous. Whilst in Sweden there is only one suicide to every ninety-two thousand people, in Paris there is one to every three thousand.
III. Spiritual disgust. Men whose moral susceptibilities are exquisitely tender, whose intellectual eye is keen and strong enough to penetrate into the motives that govern society, and whose sympathies run strongly with the right, the true, and the divine, often experience such an inexpressible revulsion at certain popular developments of character and phases of society, as to lead them to say with Solomon, I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me.
IV. Temperamental melancholy. So oppressive does the dark atmosphere of their irritable tempers become, that they are ready to seize the rope or the razor, or to plunge into the river.
V. Inordinate emotionality. There are those whose emotional natures seem stronger than their intellectual force. The winds and the waves of passion are too strong for the helmsman. Their emotional nature is like a deep and tumultuous sea, whose billows are ever breaking over the walls of their understanding. Sometimes, for example, revenge is a passion that prompts the deed. Samson was an example of this. Sometimes humiliation prompts the deed. Something occurs which overwhelms the man with shame. Ahithophel is an example of this. Sometimes desperation prompts the deed. Sometimes fear overwhelms the man, and prompts the deed. It was thus with the Philippian jailor. Sometimes remorse prompts the self-destroying deed. No passion that can seize the soul is so unbearable as this; A wounded spirit, who can bear? Thus Judas, when he saw that Christ, whom he had betrayed, was condemned to death, his guilty conscience made life so intolerable that he went out and hanged himself. Other passions may be mentioned, such as jealousy, which perhaps is the most prolific parent of suicides of all the passions. I learn from this subject--
1. That the poor need not envy the condition of the rich.
2. That all men have not an equal love of life.
3. That confidence in the redemptive Providence that is over us is the only security for a happy life.
The voice of Providence to every man is, not only Do thyself no harm: but free thyself from all anxious cares, and trust in the love and guidance of the great Father King. (Homilist.)
Disgust with life
The connection of our text with preceding and following verses, and its perfect harmony with the design of the wise man, which was to decry the world and its pleasures, and by his own experience to undeceive such as made idols of them, authorize us to consider the words as proceeding from the mouth of Solomon himself, expressive of his own sentiments and not those of others, and what he thought after his reconversion, and not what his opinion was during his dissipation.
I. On this principle we will first rid the text of several false meanings, which it may seem at first sight to countenance; for as there is a disgust with the world, and a contempt of life, which wisdom inspires, so there is a hatred of the world, that ariseth from evil dispositions.
1. We may hate life because we are melancholy. Only he whose ideas are disconcerted by a dark and gloomy temper can say fully and without qualification, I hate life. To attribute such a disposition to the wise man is to insult the Holy Spirit who animated him.
2. Some are disgusted with life from a principle of misanthropy. What is a misanthrope, or a hater of mankind? lie is a man who avoids society only to free himself from the trouble of being useful to it. He is a man who considers his neighbours only on the side of their defects, not knowing the art of combining their virtues with their vices, and of rendering the imperfections of other people tolerable by reflecting on his own. What a society would that be which should be composed of people without charity, without patience, without condescension! My text doth not inculcate such sentiments as these. The wise man had met with a great many disagreeable events in society which had given him a great deal of pain, but, far from being driven out of it, he continued to reside in the world, and to amend and improve it by his wise counsel and good example.
3. Sometimes a spirit of discontent produces disgust with the world, and contempt of life. To hear the people I mean, one would think it was impossible that this world should be governed by a wise being, because, forsooth, they are doomed with the rest of mankind to live in a valley of trouble. But who art thou, thou miserable man, to conceive ideas so false, and to form opinions so rash!
4. We are sometimes disgusted with the world through an excess of fondness for the world, and hate life through an over-valuation of it. Man enters the world as an enchanted place. While the charm lasts, the man I speak of is in raptures, and thinks he hath found the supreme good. He imagines that riches have no wings, that splendid fortune hath no reverse, that the great have no caprice, that friends have no levity, that health and youth are eternal; but as it is not long before he recovers his senses, he becomes disgusted with the world in the same proportion as he had been infatuated with it, and his hatred of life is exactly as extravagant as his love of it had been.
5. It is not in any of these senses that the wise man saith, I hated life. He would have us understand that the earth hath more thorns than flowers--that our condition here, though incomparably better than we deserve, is, however, inadequate to our just and constitutional desires--that our inconveniences in this life would seem intolerable unless we were wise enough to direct them to the same end that God proposed by exposing us to suffer them--in a word, that nothing but hope in a future state formed on another plan can render the disorders of this world tolerable. So much may serve to explain the meaning of the wise man.
II. Let us now proceed to justify the sense given. The phantoms that seduced Solomon during his dissipation may be reduced to two classes. The first suppose in the dissipated man very little knowledge, and very little taste; and it is astonishing that a man so eminently endowed with knowledge could set his heart upon them. The second may more easily impose on an enlightened and generous mind. I put these into three classes. In the first I put the advantages of science--in the second the pleasures of friendship--in the third the privileges, I mean the temporal privileges, of virtue and heroism. I will endeavour to unmask these three figures, and to prove that the very dispositions which should contribute most to the pleasure of life, mental abilities, tenderness of heart, rectitude and delicacy of conscience, are actually dispositions which contribute most of all to embitter life.
1. If ever possessions could make man happy, Solomon must certainly have been the happiest of mankind. Imagine the most proper and the most effectual means of acquiring knowledge, joined to an avidity to obtain it, both were united in the person of this prince. Now what saith this great man concerning science? He acknowledgeth indeed that it was preferable to ignorance, the wise mans eyes, saith he, are in his head, that is, a man of education is in possession of some prudential maxims to regulate his life, whereas an illiterate man walketh in darkness; but yet saith he, it happeneth even to me, as it happeneth to the fool, and why was I then wise?
(1) Observe first, the little progress made in science by those who pursue it to the highest pitch. As they advance in this immense field they discover, shall I say new extents, or new abysses, which they can never fathom. The more they nourish themselves with this rich pasture, the more keen do their appetites become.
(2) Remark next the little justice done in the world to such as excel most in science.
2. The second disposition, which seems as if it would contribute much to the pleasure of life, but which often embitters it, is tenderness of heart. It is clear by the writings of Solomon, and more so by the history of his life, that his heart was very accessible to this kind of pleasure. How often doth he write encomiums on faithful friends (Pro_17:17; Pro_18:24). But where is this friend who sticketh closer than a brother? Where is this friend who loveth at all times? What an airy phantom is human friendship!
3. If anything seem capable to render life agreeable, and if anything in general render it disagreeable, it is rectitude, and delicacy of conscience. I know Solomon seems here to contradict himself, and the author of the Book of Proverbs seems to refute the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes. The author of the Book of Ecclesiastes informs us that virtue is generally useless and sometimes hurtful in this world; but according to the author of the Book of Proverbs virtue is most useful in this world. How shall we reconcile these things? To say, as some do, that the author of Proverbs speaks of the spiritual rewards of virtue, and the author of Ecclesiastes of the temporal state of it, is to cut the knot instead of untying it. Of many solutions there is one that bids fair to remove the difficulty; that is, that when the author of the Book of Proverbs makes temporal advantages of the rewards of virtue, he speaks of some rare periods of society, whereas the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes describes the common general state of things. Perhaps the former refers to the happy time in which the example of the piety of David being yet recent, and the prosperity of his successor not having then infected either the heart of the king or the morals of his subjects, reputation, riches and honours were bestowed on good men; but the second, probably, speaks of what came to pass soon after. In the first period life was amiable, and living in the world delicious; but of the second the wise man saith, I hated life because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me. To which of the two periods doth the age in which we live belong? Judge by the description given by the Preacher, as he calls himself. Then mankind were ungrateful, the public did not remember the benefits conferred on them by individuals, and their services were unrewarded (Ecc_9:14-15). Then courtiers mean and ungrateful basely forsook their old master, and paid their court to the heir apparent (Ecc_4:15). Then the strong oppressed the weak (Ecc_4:1). Then the courts of justice were corrupt (Ecc_3:16). Such is the idea the wise man gives us of the world. Yet these vain and precarious objects, this world so proper to inspire a rational mind with disgust, this life so proper to excite hatred in such as know what is worthy of esteem, this is that` which hath always fascinated, and which yet continues to fascinate the bulk of mankind. (J. Saurin.)
Life with and without God
Contrast this verdict of the Preacher with that calm, clear, victorious utterance of the great apostle, ringing like a clarion, as he urges the words, Lay hold on the life that is life indeed, and you will have the subject of my sermon--life without God, and life with God--the misery and disappointment of the one, the fulness and satisfaction of the other; the one vanity and vexation of spirit, the other life which is life indeed.
I. Let us look at life without God. Let me frankly acknowledge that there are some things in life even without God which are pleasant, and delightful and beautiful. First of all we begin life as little children, and to children the next` pleasure is quite enough to make life worth living; their little hearts are not troubled with the deep problems of life, and God forbid they should be. And then I do not deny that there is some real satisfaction and pleasure, as every one knows, in all healthy activity. Then, too, no one can doubt that there is very much that is very beautiful in human love. Some young people in the golden days of their early married life, when love is very beautiful, and real, and fresh, bright as a spring morning, may be tempted to think that is enough. We want no other life, this satisfies us. Now, I admit of this freely and frankly; but oh, it does not settle the question. The question comes back, Does it satisfy? There are very many indications in this present day that the world is finding out what this old preacher found out, that life without God is vanity and vexation of the spirit. Let me just give you one of them. Have you ever noticed the very remarkable fact that much of our higher poetry is unutterably sad? Take, for example, the poems of Matthew Arnold: they are Greek in perfection of form and in their faultless beauty, but how sad they are! That deep sadness that lay over the world of which he so pathetically sings broods like a cloud over his own poetry. And when you come to examine the reason why he so depresses you, the answer is because there is no living personal God in it--it is the loss of God which explains it all. Do not misunderstand me. I am not imagining that life is to be lived solely with religious aims and religious objects. I do not take a narrow view, I trust, of human life. God has given us various and ample powers, and each one of them has to find its own appropriate satisfaction. I do not condemn any of the generous ambitions of youth. I would not oven forbid the loss noble ambitions of life so long as they are kept subordinate to the will of God. Let a man earn knowledge or fame, or distinction, or wealth, or influence, and if he earn them honestly, well; but I do desire to impress upon you this one lesson--that it does not matter what the end you set before yourselves in life may be, whether it be pleasure, or intellectual eminence, or wealth, if you leave God out it will so disappoint you, miserably disappoint you, and you will have a time, in your own experience, when you will turn from it with the muttered curse, All is vanity and vexation of spirit.
II. Let us ask what life with God means. Lay hold on the life which is life indeed. Shall I tell you what it is? This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Those are the words of Jesus: that is Christs own definition of the life indeed--to know God, the true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. No man requires demonstration that this is life indeed. It needs none: the mere statement of the truth is its proof. If there be an eternal and infinite God on whom I depend for all things, if He has created me and loves me with unspeakable love, if He has spent all the riches of His love to redeem me from sin, if I am to live with Him through eternity a life removed from all the conditions of time and space--then, of all the self-evident propositions you can put into words, this is the most self-evident and certain, that I am created and redeemed solely to find my life in God, I am too great to find my life in anything less than God. Ah, He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life. This is the life indeed. And now you see the meaning of what we are so apt to call the mystery of sorrow, the mystery of pain. The other day I was reading the diary of a life which in many respects is most instructive and pathetic. It was the story of a man who had had unusual prosperity, and in looking through this diary I came across these words: God has broken silence with me. Great crushing sorrow had fallen on him, and that man who had lived many years in the sunshine of prosperity without God, without ever speaking of God or hearing God speaking to him, suddenly in the darkness awoke to the fact that God was near to him, and that God had come to him in the great trouble of his life; and then he wrote these words, God has broken silence with me. Ah, life indeed! That is its designation. I do not say it will not have its troubles, its disappointments, perhaps even its failures; but the troubles and disappointments of that life as little affect it as the storms that sweep across the Atlantic touch the deep Calm of the ocean beneath. It is life indeed! Nothing disturbs its central peace, for it is founded upon God. And then, when the end comes--as it will come to us all--and friends stand round the bed, and the last farewells are spoken, and the eyes are closed in death, and we make the last journey to that bourne from which no traveller returns, and our feet touch the waters of the cold river--in that supreme and awful hour will the life indeed fill us then? Listen! The man who wrote these words, Lay hold of the life which is life indeed, tells us what he felt on the verge of eternity: I am now ready to be offered. (G. S. Barrett, 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 v17 MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Ecc_2:17-23
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Ecc_2:17-23
THE CONFESSIONS OF A PLEASURE-SEEKER
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I. That his life’s promise has failed. The pleasure-seeker begins life with high hopes. The intoxication of mirth exalts his imagination, and he lives, for a brief space, in the transports of joy. He looks forward to many years of merriment, free from every invasion of sorrow. But as time passes, and he learns the lessons of experience, and awakens to a sense of the solemn realities around him, life’s fair promise is discovered to be a delusion. He has lived for pleasure, and trusted in the hopes it inspired; but these have failed.
1. It promised that life would be bliss, but now he deplores the very fact of existence. (Ecc_2:17.) The pleasures of the world, by their agreeable variety and adaptation to our lower nature, promise to fill up every moment of life, and drive away all care and repining; but they soon clog the senses, the power of enjoyment is blunted, and life itself regarded with disgust.
2. It promised that life would still be unfolding new scenes of pleasure, but now it has led him to blank despair. (Ecc_2:20.) He had hoped much from his high capacity for pleasure, from his wealth, from his skill in those great public works which would promote his magnificence, and draw attention to his genius. But now his ingenuity is exhausted, his spirits spent, and all is flat and weary—the world has no more to offer. The night of despair has come, and the bright and gaudy colours of life have faded away into confusion.
II. That he is tormented by some ever-recurring thought. (Ecc_2:18; Ecc_2:21.) The Royal Preacher had dwelt upon the idea before, that his wealth and all the products of his labour and skill must be left to some unworthy successor. This is with him a standing grief. Here the same thought rises again. What he had gathered with care, and produced by great labour of contrivance, would be laid waste by some foolish man. Amidst all the pleasures of his life, thin terrible thought would come to the surface. Men of pleasure find that painful and anxious thoughts are ever arising to disturb their enjoyment. The reflection is forced upon them that time is fast passing away that their glory will soon descend into the grave, that all their earthly joy will fade in the last sickness and before the tomb, and that in the distant future even their very children will forget them in their own merry laugh and joy. Some deep thought is ever coming uppermost before which pleasure grows pale.
III. That he enjoys no true repose. (Ecc_2:23.) He has no rest during the progress of his work, nor even when his task is done. The night, which invites repose, is invaded by care and trouble. His wealth can procure luxury; but the heart is unquiet, and sleep is not to be had at any price. This shows us—
1. That there is a majesty in our nature which disdains to be satisfied with mere worldly pleasure.
2. That a sense of the solemn facts of our nature and destiny cannot be banished from the mind by mirth.
3. That the God of our soul can alone satisfy it.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecc_2:17. If God has disappeared from the efforts of men, a disgust of life appears sooner or later [Gerlach].
There is a contempt of the world which is not genuine religion. Pleasure may heartlessly spurn away those with whom she has played; they may become weary of the world, and yet be without the consolations of God. The disgust of life may lead to remorse instead of true repentance, and a stoical resignation to inflexible fate may closely imitate the calm anticipation of the joys of heaven.
The disorder of the mind darkens the whole scene of life. The brightest glory of the world may be clouded by the gloom of our own hearts.
To hate life is to destroy the foundations of all happiness, for without existence no happiness could be possible. The gift of salvation can turn existence into a blessing. Our creation is a pledge of guardianship. It is to us a sure sign and token that “God will not forsake the work of His own hands.”
The original expresseth itself more fully, “I hated lives,” not only this kind of life, or that kind of life; nor only this time of life, or that time of life; not only the life of this man, or of that man; but the lives of all men, of all kinds, of all times. I hated mine own life, “because the work that is done under the sun is grievous unto me;” the life of others, because “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” [Jermin].
The things of this life have true bitterness, false contentment, certain grief, uncertain pleasure, hard labour, fearful rest, matter full of misery, hope empty of happiness [Augustine].
Ecc_2:18. It is only the result of our labours that we pass on to posterity. The toil is ours, and theirs the fruit. The effects of our labour and skill remain after we are gone. They endure for others, but not for us.
We are only the conveyers of the things of this life to others, not the possessors of them.
As a thief comes in one night, and bears away the fruits of many toilsome days, so a man may leave his possessions to some one unworthy and unprofitable.
Man is but a tenant under the great Lord of all. He has no lease of life; but is liable to be turned out at a moment’s notice. He occupies his little holding for a brief space, and then departs, leaving all he has gathered and wrought to those who come after.
We cannot be truly said to possess that which can be severed from us, leaving us poor indeed. God is the only portion of the soul for ever.
Ecc_2:19. He who has gathered spiritual treasure is rich in the wealth of immortality, and will be for ever master of all his possessions. In the future kingdom only the wise shall rule.
The works of faithful souls shall follow them beyond the world. They shall not be left behind to run the chance of being wasted or spoiled by others.
Man has but a brief sovereignty over his earthly labours. A fool, from motives of mischief, or from some vain notion of improvement, may spoil the work of the wisest man.
It is one of the vanities of wealth that a man knows not to what use it will be put by his successor.
Ecc_2:20. Here we have set down the two causes of despair—vanity and vexation. Vanity is a great cause of despair, for when men have laboured hard, and find no success, that makes them despair of any success [Jermin].
Even the utmost depths of despair cannot overwhelm the cry of the soul.
The darkest hour of the night is before the dawn. The darkest hour of the soul may be the prelude to a cheerful and prosperous day.
Some will not seek the highest resource until all that is earthly has failed. They must be driven to feed upon the husks of despair before they will think upon the bread which is in their Father’s house.
Ecc_2:21. An excess of carefulness for posterity may prove a hindrance in the duty that lies before us.
We enter into the labours of others, build upon their foundation, and come into the easy possession of what they have won by careful thought and labour. If we are true spiritual workers, we have a wealthy heritage. Let us strive to use it well.
Even the best men must be content to accept the failure of much of the results of their works and wisdom. In every mental and moral effort for the good of others, there is some waste of power. The real effective force of our life is small—both in regard to the present generation, and in regard to posterity.
The Lord in His wise Providence sees it fit that great things of the world should fall for a portion to men who have neither wit nor experience for purchasing or improving them, that all may be convinced that these things are not infallible signs of His love; and that men who get them may be allured to their duty by them, or the more severely punished when he reckons with them [Nisbet].
Ecc_2:22. The pleasures of the world depart one by one, and leave men the sad heritage of weariness and vexation.
There is nothing here that is an adequate recompense for our anxiety of thought, and wasting labour. If this life be all, even our supremacy in the empire of mind is but a poor consolation, seeing our stay is so short and death strikes the sceptre from our hand.
It is well to pause in the midst of our labours, and ask ourselves to what profit do they tend? This is the attitude in which the soul hears the voice of God, bidding her return to enduring pleasures and works of lasting profit.
For when it is asked what hath a man of all his labour, perhaps some one may answer—Behold I fill up my sacks, my walls do hardly hold that which I get, my gains do flow out every way, and money runs like a stream into my purse. Yet this is no answer; for that thy sack may be filled, thy soul fevereth with cares; that thy gold may increase, thine honesty is diminished; that thou mayest be richly clothed without, thou art spoiled and left naked within [Augustine].
Ecc_2:23. The joys of the children of this world are but the illusions of a dream. There is a deep sorrow running through life which men strive in vain to hide.
Much of the work of the world is pursued beyond what is simply necessary for the sustenance and ornament of life. Men try to avoid being left alone with themselves. They contrive to draw off the attention from their own misery. Yet the grief of life remains, and, like a fatal distemper, cleaves to the soul.
Sleep is the gift of God, who secures it to the contented mind and clear conscience.
God has access to our spirit at all times, and when at night we rest from labours and strive to shut out care, He can trouble us with unknown terrors.
There is only one pillow on which the heart can rest—the bosom of the Infinite Father.
The magnetic needle has one position of rest—when it trembles to the pole. In all other positions it is under constraint, and tends to swing itself to rest. So the soul can have no true repose until the affections rest in God.
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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v20 The Vanity of Labor in Itself
The Vanity of Labor in Itself
v. 20. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun, he was inclined to regard his life as a failure, if viewed from this standpoint alone.
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v. 21. For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity, who possesses wisdom, applies it to the circumstances of every-day life, and uses the proper ability in so doing; yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he leave it for his portion, another will reap what he sowed. This also is vanity and a great evil, for it seems to place wisdom and its proper application at a disadvantage.
v. 22. For what hath man of all his labor, and of the vexation of his heart, the hard work with which he applies wisdom and knowledge in all his transactions, wherein he hath labored under the sun?
v. 23. For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief, that seems to be the only result and reward of all his labor; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night, since he is troubled with anxiety and kept awake by worry. This is also vanity. Solomon therefore states his conclusion, so far as this life in itself is concerned.
v. 24. 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 labor, cheerfully making use of all the blessings which God bestows on His children and accepting them with a grateful heart. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God, namely, the feeling of quiet and appreciative contentment in the midst of all the wearing vicissitudes of life.
v. 25. For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, to the enjoyment of God’s gifts, more than I? Christians may profit by the sad experiment which Solomon made without paying the high price which the Jewish king had to pay for the wisdom so gained.
v. 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in His sight, who lives before Him in the fear of God, wisdom, and knowledge, and joy, as a reward dealt out by His mercy; but to the sinner, the godless, the unbeliever, he giveth travail, misery and tribulation, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God, unconsciously, of course, and in spite of himself. Solomon, conducting himself with piety, enjoyed his wealth in agreement with God’s blessing upon him; the same king, forsaking the precepts of the Lord, became unhappy, while the riches which he had heaped up became the prey of the Egyptian king, 2 Chronicles 12. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit, but the lesson which it teaches should be heeded well by all believers.
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 vv17, 19, 21 all the work done
all the work done
This can be stated in active form. AT: "all the work that people do" (See: Active or Passive)
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was evil to me
"troubled me"
vapor ... an attempt to shepherd the wind
These two phrases are both metaphors that emphasize the idea of things being useless and futile. (See: Parallelism)
vapor
"mist." The author speaks of useless and meaningless things as if they were "vapor." See how you translated this in Ecclesiastes 1:14. AT: "as useless as vapor" or "meaningless" (See: Metaphor)
an attempt to shepherd the wind
The author says everything that people do is as useless as if they were trying to control the wind. See how you translated this in Ecclesiastes 1:14. AT: "as useless as trying to control the wind" (See: Metaphor)
under the sun
This refers to things that are done on earth. See how you translated this in Ecclesiastes 1:3. AT: "on the earth" (See: Idiom)
to the man who comes after me
"to the man who inherits it after me"
translationWords
life
evil
shepherd
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 vv17, 19, 21 2:17-20 The Teacher came to hate life because of…
2:17-20 The Teacher came to hate life because of its griefs (1:18), toils (2:18), and apparent futility (2:19-20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.