Ecclesiastes4chapter 4

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.”

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.”

Ecclesiastes 4:3

“Yea, better is he than both they which hath not yet been,.... That is, an unborn person; who is preferred both to the dead that have seen oppression, and to the living that are under it; see Job 3:”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Ecclesiastes 4:5

“The fool foldeth his hands together,.... In order to get more sleep, or as unwilling to work; so the Targum adds, "he folds his hands in summer, and will not labour;'' see Pro 6:”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.''”

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 4:7-8

“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.”

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.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9

“Two are better than one,.... The wise man takes occasion, from the solitariness Of the covetous man before described, to show in this and some following verses the preferableness and advantages of social life; which, as it holds true in things natural and civil, so in things spiritual and religious; man is a sociable creature, was made to be so; and it was the judgment of God, which is according to truth, and who can never err, that it was not good for man to be alone, Gen 2:”

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.”

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."

Ecclesiastes 4:11

“As for the advantage in preserving he adds: "And if two sleep together, they will warm each other," that is, they will be preserved from the cold: Ephesians 5: "No one has hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it." The solitary man lacks …”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Ecclesiastes 4:14

"That from prison and chains sometimes one goes forth to a kingdom": Wisdom ten: "She did not abandon the just man who was sold into bondage, but freed him from sinners, until she brought him the scepter of the kingdom." "And another, born to a …

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.”

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).”

Ecclesiastes 4:15

“With the second child that shall stand up - The Targum applies this to the case of Jeroboam and Rehoboam. History affords many instances of mean persons raised to sovereign authority, and of kings being reduced to the meanest offices, and to a morsel of bread. Agrippa himself ascended the throne of Israel after having been long in prison. See Josephus, Ant. lib. 18: c. 8. This the heathens attributed to fortune. Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul; Si volet haec eadem, fies de consule rhetor. Juv. Sat. vii., ver. 1”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”