Ecclesiasteschapter 4
16 verses · Solomon, by tradition · 10th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
I saw that all labor and success spring from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
Introduction
Solomon, by tradition, Wisdom and poetry, Ecclesiastes Overview.
This chapter belongs to the book of wisdom that tradition gives to Solomon, and here the king looks at his society from underneath. It was heard by ordinary Israelites under a strong government, including those whom that government pressed hard. The chapter moves through a series of scenes: the oppressed, the rival, the idle, the lonely worker and the forgotten ruler. Listen for the repeated pattern of better and worse, and for the arithmetic of one, two and three. It offers a practical answer to a meaningless grind in the form of a companion.
Context
- Who
- Ordinary Israelites under a strong government, including those it pressed hard
- What
- A set of observations on oppression, envy, lonely labor, friendship and the brief fame of rulers.
- Where
- Israel under the monarchy, among forced laborers, travelers on the roads and the crowds of the capital.
- When
- Late in the reign of Solomon, about 940 BC, on the traditional reading; many date the book's Hebrew to the Persian period, so the date is held with less certainty than the setting.
- Why
- To show the reader the cost of a life lived alone for gain, and the worth of standing with another person.
Historical context
"I 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." Solomon's building programme ran on levied labour, conscripted work gangs sent in rotations to the quarries and the timber. The complaint here comes from the throne that organised it.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
"Two are better than one… for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow." This is travel advice before it is a saying about friendship. Roads were rough, unlit, and worked by robbers; a man alone who broke an ankle in a wadi at dusk was in real danger. "If two lie together, then they have heat" is about nights in the hill country, which get genuinely cold, with a cloak as the only blanket.
"A threefold cord is not quickly broken" comes from rope making. Fibres were spun into strands and the strands twisted together, and the strength of the finished rope was far more than the sum of the single strands. Anyone who had hauled a bucket or tied a load knew it.
The story of the poor and wise youth who comes out of prison to reign, and is then forgotten by the next generation, reflects a real pattern in ancient courts, the sudden rise of an outsider, and the equally sudden forgetting.
Significance
The first hearers were being shown their own society from underneath: the labourer with no comforter, the man with no brother and no son working himself blind for nobody, the crowd that cheers a new king and forgets him.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
In the middle of it sits the practical rescue: find someone. The chapter's answer to a meaningless grind is not a philosophy but a companion.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard in the synagogue once a year, when the whole book is read at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that reading and sources it to Tractate Soferim 14:3; it printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for this book.
The chapter's last verse in the Hebrew numbering, the seventeenth, speaks of going to the house of God, and Rashi reads it as a rule for the worshipper who brings an offering. "Watch" how you go. To bring a thanksgiving offering or a peace offering is good, but a man should take care not to need a sin offering or a guilt offering (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:17:1). The corpus carries two passages of Berakhot on that verse, at 23a:6 and 23a:7. The corpus numbers this chapter by the Hebrew text, which runs it to a seventeenth verse, so a reader counting in an English Bible may find it numbered differently.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern, and the edition's own notes are never quoted as his.
The oppressions of the first verse Rashi reads beyond this life. The king considered them "By means of the Holy Spirit", and they are those "made to be oppressed in Gehinnom for the deeds that were committed" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:1:1 and 4:1:2). The dead whom the second verse praises are those who died before the evil inclination could turn them from God, like the Patriarchs, through whose merit Moses was answered. He adds David, for Solomon was not answered with twenty-four praises until he said, "Remember the kind deeds of Your servant Dovid" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:2:1). The one never born of the third verse he takes from Midrash Koheles: the 974 generations decreed to be created that were never created (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:3:2).
The labour and envy of the fourth verse he reads as sin. Skilful work done "for one’s envy of his friend" and not for the sake of Heaven is vanity (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:4:2). The fool who folds his hands does not toil, "and he eats only from robbery" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:5:2). The handful with quiet is a small possession gained by honest toil, "so that his Creator should have satisfaction from them" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:6:1).
The verses on two and three he reads twice, and says so. The plain sense stands first. For Torah study the companion reviews a hard lesson and corrects an error heard from the teacher (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:10:1). The threefold cord is a scholar with his son and grandson, from whose line the Torah will not cease. It is also the one versed "in Scripture, Mishnah, and [having] good manners", who will not quickly sin (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:12:1). Rashi then reports that the Midrash reads these verses of God, and adds his own judgment of it: "the sequence of all these verses does not correspond with their interpretations" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:12:1).
The poor and wise child of the thirteenth verse is the good inclination. It is called a child "Because it comes to a person only at the age of thirteen years" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:13:1). The living under the sun of the fifteenth verse he found "in the Midrash of this Book" to be the generation of the flood (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:15:1).
The corpus carries two further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 4:2:1 and 4:7:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the tears of the oppressed, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 12:8, Kohelet Rabbah 4:1:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:1:1. On the second, the praise of the dead, it holds Devarim Rabbah 3:15 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 2:10 and Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 2:13. On the third it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:3:1. On the fourth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 9:7, Kohelet Rabbah 3:11:3 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:4:1. On the fifth, the fool who folds his hands, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Terumot 2:1:10, 4:1:5 and 4:1:6.
The handful and the lone man carry the next run. On the sixth verse the corpus holds Kohelet Rabbah 4:6:1 with Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:6:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 47:28:1. On the seventh it holds Kohelet Rabbah 4:7:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:7:1. On the eighth it holds Aggadat Bereshit 31:3, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 39 and Devarim Rabbah 2:33. On the ninth, two are better than one, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 8:3, Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 18:4 and Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 8:8:2. On the tenth it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:10:1 and Midrash Tehillim 119:27. On the eleventh it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:11:1 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 16:29:308. On the twelfth, the threefold cord, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 14:3 and Bava Batra 59a:5.
The child and the king carry the rest. On the thirteenth verse the corpus holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Chayei Sarah 3 and Kohelet Rabbah 4:13:1. On the fourteenth it holds Aggadat Bereshit 67:2 and Avot DeRabbi Natan 16:2. On the fifteenth and the sixteenth it holds Kohelet Rabbah 4:15:1 and 4:16:1 with Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 4:15:1 and 4:16:1. On the seventeenth, the house of God, it holds Berakhot 23a:6 and 23a:7. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ecclesiastes 4:1:1 to 4:17:1, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 4:2:1 and 4:7:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ecclesiastes/4.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this book and printing parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, and the festival reading at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week, sourced there to Tractate Soferim 14:3.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The Tears of the Oppressed, and They Had No Comforter
I saw the tears of the oppressed: The Teacher turns to a scene he considered, all the oppression taking place under the sun. He saw the tears of the oppressed, and no comforter stands twice, once for the tears and once for the power ranged against them. The verse names a real grief and leaves it unanswered.
Ecclesiastes 4:1
“Such oppressions are done under the sun; above the sun righteousness reigns for ever. Wise men will consider these oppressions, and contrive to do something for the relief of those that are oppressed. Blessed is he that considers the poor.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 4:2-3
So I admired the dead: The Teacher writes, I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive. Above both he rates the one who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. The verdict comes after the oppression of verse 1.
Ecclesiastes 4:2
“I praised - I judged them less miserable. For this is certain, that setting aside the future life, which Solomon doth not meddle with in the present debate; and considering the uncertainty, and vanity, and manifold calamities of the present life, a wise man would not account it worth his while to live.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
who has not yet existed: Gill takes the one who has not yet existed as the unborn, better off than the dead and the living, and points to Job 3. Wesley reads seen as felt. To see evil, he says, is to suffer it, as to see good is to enjoy it.
Ecclesiastes 4:3
“Better is he - Who was never born. Not seen - Not felt: for as seeing good is put for enjoying it, so seeing evil is put for suffering it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
I saw that all labor and success spring: The Teacher names a second grief behind ordinary work: all labor and success spring from a man’s envy of his neighbor, achievement driven by rivalry. The verdict follows the book's pattern, This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind. He files it without a remedy attached.
Ecclesiastes 4:4
“What little conscience most men have, that they will bear a grudge to a neighbour, give him an ill word and do him an ill turn, only because he is more ingenious and industrious than themselves, and has more of the blessing of heaven. Cain envied Abel, Esau Jacob, and Saul David, and all for their right works. This is downright diabolism.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 4:5-6
The fool folds his hands: Two errors stand side by side: The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh, and the driven man's two hands stay full. Between them stands the proverb, Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil. Enough gained in peace outweighs more at the cost of rest.
Ecclesiastes 4:5
“Let one who still doubts hear the testimony of the Gospel, for the Son of God said, "We have played for you, and you have not danced." The Jews who did not dance and knew not how to clap their hands were abandoned, but the Gentiles were called and applauded God in spirit. "The fool folds his hands together and eats his own flesh," that is, he becomes involved in the concerns of the body and eats his own flesh, just as does all-powerful death. And such a one will not find eternal life.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letters 51-60 (Letter to Bishop Sabinus)patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:5
“Foldeth his hands - The envious man is here exhibited in the attitude of the sluggard (marginal references). Eateth his own flesh - i. e., “Destroys himself:” compare a similar expression in Isa 49:26; Psa 27:2; Mic 3:3.”
Better one handful with tranquility: The voices divide on who speaks. Wesley and Henry hear the fool of verse 5, who excuses his idleness with a true saying, and Barnes prefers this to the Teacher's counsel. Jerome takes it as wise counsel: a little gained with righteousness is better than much gained by injustice.
Ecclesiastes 4:6
"Better is one handful of pleasantness than two fistfuls of labour and vexation of the spirit." It is better to have modest power, than great riches of sins. And in Proverbs it says, "To receive a little through righteousness is better than gaining much by injustice." [Prov. 16, 8.] Justice rightly has rest, injustice toil. And since a single number is always seen in a good context and a dual seen as wickedness, therefore one fist has rest, and two hands are full of toil.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ecclesiastespatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:6
“As the sluggard's argument for the excuse of himself in his idleness. He folds his hands together, and abuses and misapplies a good truth for his justification, as if, because a little with quietness is better than abundance with strife, therefore a little with idleness is better than abundance with honest labour: thus wise in his own conceit is he, Prov. xxvi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A Threefold Cord Is Not Quickly Broken
Ecclesiastes 4:7-8
Again, I saw futility under the sun: The Teacher finds a fresh case, a man all alone, without even a son or brother, with no end to his labor. The question For whom do I toil has no speaker named, and the Teacher supplies what the man never asks himself. The verdict follows: This too is futile.
Ecclesiastes 4:7
“Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun. Another vanity besides what he had taken notice of, and is as follows. Aben Ezra's note is, "I turned from considering the words of this fool, and I saw another fool, the reverse of the former.''”
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:7
The spectacle of a prosperous man whose condition is rendered vain by his brotherless, childless isolation. Ecc 4:8 A second - Any one associated or connected with him. Ecc 4:9-12 Compare a saying from the Talmud: “A man without companions is like the left hand without the right.”
Ecclesiastes 4:7
“In our spiritual warfare we may be helpful to one another as well as in our spiritual work; next to the comfort of communion with God, is that of the communion of saints. He concludes with this proverb, A threefold cord is not easily broken, any more than a bundle of arrows, though each single thread, and each single arrow, is.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a man all alone: Clarke reads the portrait as avarice: the man is alone, with no wife, son or heir, yet he labors as if he had a family. Jerome renders the question as one the man never puts to himself, and Wesley answers it: he has no one to enjoy his wealth.
Ecclesiastes 4:8
“There is one alone, and there is not a second - Here covetousness and avarice are characterized. The man who is the center of his own existence; has neither wife, child, nor legal heir; and yet is as intent on getting money as if he had the largest family to provide for; nor does he only labor with intense application, but he even refuses himself the comforts of life out of his own gains! This is not only vanity, the excess of foolishness, but it is also sore travail.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one: Against the lone man, the Teacher argues for companionship in four parts: a good return, help to lift him up, warmth together, and strength. The case closes on its proverb, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken, read since the Targum as friendship strengthened by a third.
Ecclesiastes 4:9
“Two are better than one - Married life is infinitely to be preferred to this kind of life, for the very reasons alleged below, and which require no explanation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
his companion can lift him up: Basil reads the verse against living alone: God made each man to need the help of another. Peter Chrysologus ties it to Christ sending two by two. Bonaventure adds Deuteronomy 22, where a man must help lift up his brother's fallen donkey.
Ecclesiastes 4:10
Fittingly does Ecclesiastes say, "For if one falls, he raises up his companion." He himself is not raised up, for Christ was not raised up by another's help and power, but he himself raised himself. Indeed, he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. This he said of the temple of his body."
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letters 81-91 (Letter LXXXI)patristic
if two lie down together: The Targum adds in the winter and takes the two as a man and his wife, and Gill takes it as good for others too. To Bonaventure, the two keep warm and are kept from the cold. The one who lies down alone lacks that help.
Ecclesiastes 4:11
“Again, if two lie together, then they have heat,.... The Targum adds, in the winter; when it is a cold season, they warm one another by lying together. The Targum interprets it of a man and his wife; it is true of others; see 1Ki 1:1; but how can one be warm alone? not soon, nor easily, in time of cold weather.”
a cord of three strands: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the cord of three strands as many joined together, such as a man, his wife and his children. Untwist it, they add, and each strand is quickly broken. Gregory the Dialogist sees in the three strands faith in the Trinity, woven by preachers.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
“Paul fled too, that he might pass out through a window and be lowered in a basket. Yes, he knew that the triple-stranded rope could not break, but he fled so that he might preach the gospel of the Lord in the entire world, and consequently he was taken up into paradise. Let us also flee through the window while heeding the Lord's precepts and keeping them with steady vision and chaste eyes.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Flight from the World 9:54patristic
Better a Poor Wise Youth Than an Old and Foolish King
Ecclesiastes 4:13-16
Better is a poor but wise youth: The last case sets a poor but wise youth against an old but foolish king. The youth comes from the prison to the kingship, a reversal Scripture records in Joseph's rise. Yet the successor will not be celebrated by those who come even later, so the wisest rise ends futile.
Ecclesiastes 4:13
“The "wise" child, though a supposed case of Solomon, answers, in the event foreseen by the Holy Ghost, to Jeroboam, then a poor but valiant youth, once a "servant" of Solomon, and (1Ki 11:26-40) appointed by God through the prophet Ahijah to be heir of the kingdom of the ten tribes about to be rent from Rehoboam.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:13
“To-day, Hosanna --tomorrow, Crucify. It cannot but be a great grief to princes to see themselves thus slighted by those they have studied to oblige and have depended upon; there is no faith in man, no stedfastness. This is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ecclesiastes 4:13
“These verses set forth the vanity of earthly prosperity even on a throne. Opinion as to their application is chiefly divided between considering them a parable or fiction like that of the childless man in Ecc 4:8: or as setting forth first the vicissitudes of royal life in two proverbial sayings Ecc 4:13-14, and then Ecc 4:15-16, the vicissitudes or procession of the whole human race, one generation giving place to another, Which in its turn will be forgotten by its successor. On the whole, the first appears to have the better claim. Ecc 4:13 Child - Rather, young man.”
come from the prison to the kingship: Clarke reports that the rabbis saw Abraham come from the prison to be king, while Nimrod was made poor. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see David's rise from poverty under Saul, and an irony that points to Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Bonaventure cites Wisdom 10 on the just man given a kingdom.
Ecclesiastes 4:14
“This unconscious presaging of his own doom, and that of Rehoboam, constitutes the irony. David's elevation from poverty and exile, under Saul (which may have been before Solomon's mind), had so far their counterpart in that of Jeroboam. whereas . . . becometh poor--rather, "though he (the youth) was born poor in his kingdom" (in the land where afterwards he was to reign).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:14
“For out of prison he cometh to reign - “Then Abraham left the country of the idolaters, where he had been imprisoned, and came and reigned over the land of Canaan; and Nimrod became poor in this world.” This is the fact to which the ancient rabbins supposed Solomon to allude.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the youth who succeeded the king: The Targum, as Clarke reports, applies the verse to Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the second one as the king's own son, second as the successor of his father. Wesley sees here the fickle people of every kingdom.
Ecclesiastes 4:15
"I considered all the living," the present generation, in relation to ("with") the "second youth" (the "legitimate successor" of the "old king," as opposed to the "poor youth," the one first spoken of, about to be raised from poverty to a throne), that is, Rehoboam. in his stead--the old king's.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
There is no limit: Clarke quotes Suetonius: most people adore the rising sun. When the new king grows old, Clarke adds, few regard him. Wesley counts three generations in the verse, the crowd, those before them and those who come later, all with the same inclinations.
Ecclesiastes 4:16
“There is no end of all the people - This is supposed to refer to the multitudes of people who hail the advent and accession of a new sovereign; for, as Suetonius remarks, A plerisque adorari solem orientem, “Most people adore the rising sun.” But when the new king becomes old, very few regard him; and perhaps he lives long enough to be as much despised by the very persons who before were ready to worship him. This is also a miserable vanity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ecclesiastes 4:16
“No end - This humour of the common people hath no end, but passes from one generation to another. Before them - Before the present generation. And so here are three generations of people noted, the authors of the present change, and their parents, and their children; and all are observed to have the same inclinations.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ecclesiastes 4:16
“Notwithstanding their now worshipping the rising sun, the heir-apparent, I reflected that "there were no bounds, no stability (2Sa 15:6; 20:1), no check on the love of innovation, of all that have been before them," that is, the past generation; so also they that come after--that is, the next generation, shall not rejoice in him--namely, Rehoboam.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Basil of Caesarea, THE LONG RULES 7; Bonaventure, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 4; Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Ecclesiastes; Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book 33, Section 18; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Peter Chrysologus, SERMON 170.