Bible Commentaries

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of [such as were] oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors [there was] power; but they had no comforter.

So I returned, and considered. — Here is a second instance of corruption in civil state, added to that of Ecclesiastes 3:16 , to fill up the nest of vanities.

And behold the tears of such, … — Heb., Tear; as if they had wept their utmost, et vix unicam lachrymulam extorquere possent, and could hardly squeeze out one poor tear more for their own ease. For as "hinds by calving," so men by weeping "cast out their sorrows." Job 39:3 Expletur lachrymis egeriturque dolor. - Ovid. Now tears are of many sorts: Lachrymas angustiae exprimit crux; lachrymas poenitentiae, peccatum; lachrymas sympathiae, affectus; lachrymas letitiae, excellentia gaudii; denique lachrymas nequitiae, vel hypocrisis, vel vindictae, cupiditas. Alsted. Oppression draws tears of grief; sin, tears of repentance; affection, tears of compassion; good success, tears of joy; hypocrisy or spite, tears of wickedness.

And they had no comforter. — This was Job’s doleful case, and David’s, Psalms 69:21 and the Church’s in the Lamentations. Lamentations 1:2 Affert solarium lugentibus suspiriorum societas, saith Basil Pity allays misery; but incompassionateness of others increaseth it. This was one of Sodom’s sins, Ezekiel 16:49 and of those epicures in Amos. Amos 6:6 The king and Haman sat drinking in the gate; but the whole city of Shushan was in heaviness. Esther 3:15

And on the side of their oppressors, … — The oppressed Romans sighed out to Pompey, Nostra miseria tu es magnus. You, our misery, is great. The world hath almost as many wild beasts and monsters as it hath landlords in various places. It is a woeful thing, surely, to see how great ones quaff the tears of the oppressed, and to hear them make music of shrieks.

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Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.

Wherefore I praised the dead. — Because they are out of the reach of wrong doers; and if dead in the Lord, they have "entered into peace, they do rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness." Isaiah 57:2 But if otherwise, men had better do anything, suffer anything here than die; since by death, as by a trap door, they enter into those terrors and torments that shall never either mend or end. Men, like silly fishes, see one another caught and jerked out of the pond of life but they see not, alas! the fire and pan into the which they are cast that die in their sins. Oh it had been better, surely, for such if they had never been born, as Christ said of Judas, than thus to be "brought forth to the murderer" Hosea 9:14 - to the old manslayer - to be hurled into hell, there to suffer such things as they shall never be able to avoid or abide.

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Yea, better [is he] than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Yea, better is he than both they. — The heathen could say, Optimum non nasci: proximum mori. Life is certainly a blessing of God, though never so calamitous. Why is living man sorrowful? saith the prophet: Lamentations 3:39 and it is as if he should say, Man, if alive, hath some cause of comfort amidst all his miseries; if he may escape though but "with the skin of his teeth," Job 19:20 and have his life for a prey, he should see matter of thankfulness, and say, "It is the Lord’s mercy that I am not consumed" Lamentations 3:22 - that I am yet on this side hell. But those that have set their hearts upon earthly things, if ever they lose them, they are filled almost with unmedicineable sorrows; so as they will praise the dead above the living, and wish they had never been born. These are they whom Solomon in this sentence is by some thought to personate.

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Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This [is] also vanity and vexation of spirit.

That for this a man is envied of his neighbour. — This is another piece of life’s vanity; that, as greater men will lie heavy upon you and oppress you, so meaner men will be envying at you and oppose you: as Cain did Abel, Saul’s courtiers did David; the peers of Persia, Daniel; the Scribes and Pharisees, our Saviour. Every Zopyrus shall be sure to have his Zoilus. The garment of righteousness, parti-coloured with all variety of graces, is a great eyesore to the wicked, and makes the saints maligned. See Proverbs 27:4 . See Trapp on " Proverbs 27:4 "

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The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.

The fool foldeth his hands together. — A graphical and lively description of a sluggard, fitly called a fool ( φαυλος ), a naughty person. "Thou idle and evil servant." Matthew 25:26 God puts no difference between nequaquam and nequam, a drone and a naughty pack, seem he never so "wise in his own eyes," Proverbs 26:16 and have he never so much reason to allege for himself - as in the verse here next following; a fool he is, and so he will soon prove himself; for "he folds up his hands and hides them in his own bosom." Proverbs 26:15 A great many chares he is likely to do the while: See Trapp on " Proverbs 19:24 " And as ( Neque mola, neque farina - nothing do, nothing have) "he eateth his own flesh" - he maketh many a hungry meal, he hath a dog’s life, as we say. "Ease slayeth this fool"; Proverbs 1:32 , marg. poverty comes upon him as an armed man; grief also slays him; Proverbs 21:25 envy consumes his flesh, and he is vexed at the plenty of painful persons, and, because he cannot come at, or rather pull out their hearts, he feeds upon his own.

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Better [is] an handful [with] quietness, than both the hands full [with] travail and vexation of spirit.

Better is an handful with quietness. — This is the sluggard’s plea, whereby he bolstereth himself up in his wickedness, and would make you believe that he did, non sine ratione insanire, not play the madman without good reason. To what end, saith he, should a man toil and tire out himself with hard labour to compass commodity - making a drudge and a beast of himself for a little pelf, since he knows not who shall have the spending of it, and he is sure to be either squeezed by his superiors, as Ecclesiastes 4:1 or else envied by his neighbours? as Ecclesiastes 4:4 Is not a little with ease better? a penny by begging better than twopence by true labour? It is well observed by an interpreter, that this sentence uttered by the sluggard, is, in its true meaning, not much different from that of the wise man in Proverbs 17:1 , but ill applied by him. Good words are not always to be trusted, from ill men especially.

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Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun.

Then I returned, and saw vanity, …, — i.e., Another extreme of vanity, visible wherever the sun is seen. Dum vitant stulti vitium in contraria currant: Fools while they shun the sands rush upon the rocks, - as Herod would needs prevent perjury by murder. The sluggard here, seeing those that do best to be envied of others, resolves to do just nothing. Again, the covetous miser, seeing the sluggard lie under so much infamy for doing nothing, se laboribus conficit, undoes himself with over doing. Sed nemo ita perplexus tenetur inter duo vitia, quin exitus pateat absque tertio, saith an ancient; but no man is so held hampered between two vices but that he may well get off without falling into a third. What need Eutyches fall into the other extreme of Nestorius? or Stancarus, of Osiander? or Illyricus, of Strigelius? but that they were for their pride justly given up to a spirit of giddiness.

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There is one [alone], and [there is] not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet [is there] no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither [saith he], For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This [is] also vanity, yea, it [is] a sore travail.

There is one alone, and there is not a second. — A matchless miser, a fellow that hardly hath a fellow; a solivagant, or solitary vagrant, that dare not marry for fear of a numerous offspring. Child he hath none to succeed him, nor brother to share with him, and yet "there is no end of all his labour"; he takes incessant pains and works like a horse, "neither is his eye satisfied with riches"; that lust of the eye - as St John calls covetousness 1 John 2:16 - is as a bottomless gulf, as an unquenchable fire, as leviathan that wanteth room in the main ocean, or as behemoth, that "trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth." Job 40:23

Neither saith he, For whom do I labour and bereave my soul of good? — Si haec duo tecum verba reputasses, Quid ago? respirasset cupiditas et avaritia paululum, saith Cicero to Nevius. Orat. pro Quinti If thou wouldst but take up those two words, and say to thyself, What do I? thy lust and covetousness would be somewhat rebated thereby. But lust is inconsiderate and headlong; neither is anything more irrational than irreligion. The rich glutton bethought himself of his store, and resolved to take part of it, Luke 12:17 so did Nabal; but this wretch here hath not a second, he "plants a vineyard and eats not of the fruit thereof." 1 Corinthians 9:7

And bereave my soul of good, — i.e., Deprive myself of necessary conveniences and comforts, and defraud my genius of that which God hath given me richly to enjoy; 1 Timothy 6:17 or, bereave my soul of good, of God, of grace, of heaven, never thinking of eternity, of "laying up for myself a good foundation," that I may "lay hold upon eternal life"; 1 Timothy 6:19 but by low ends, even in religious duties, making earth my throne and heaven my footstool. "This is vanity" in the abstract; "this is a sore travail," because, Nulla emolumenta laborum, No good to be gotten by it - no pay for a man’s pains; but, as the bird that sitteth on the serpent’s eggs, by breaking and hatching them brings forth a perilous brood, to her own destruction, so do those that sit abrood on the world’s vanities.

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