Ecclesiastes5chapter 5

Ecclesiastes 5:1-3

The Preacher turns from riches to reverence: keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God means watch how you approach worship, ready to hear rather than quick to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know they do evil. The warning against a rash mouth and a heart hasty to utter words before God follows the same caution into speech. Henry reads the parallel plainly, a dream comes of much business the way a fool's voice is known by many words, both signs of a mind too full and too quick.

Ecclesiastes 5:4-7

The vow doctrine follows straight from the caution on words: when thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools, and better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Gill reads the warning against pleading before the angel, likely the priest or messenger who received the vow, that it was an error, since that excuse does not remove the debt and may bring God's anger on the work of the hands. The multitude of dreams and many words carries its own vanities, so the counsel closes where it began, fear thou God rather than talk before him.

Ecclesiastes 5:8-9

Official corruption might seem to answer to no one, but the Preacher gives it a chain of accountability: if thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment in a province, do not marvel, for one higher than the highest regards it, and there are higher still above them. Clarke reads the higher ones as the ranks of authority under a king, each watched by the next, with God himself over all. Verse 9 adds a plainer fact of agrarian economy, the profit of the earth is for all, and even the king is served by the field, so no rank stands outside the ordinary needs of the land.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-12

Three observations state wealth's diminishing returns: the lover of silver is never satisfied with silver, nor the lover of abundance with increase, itself a vanity. When goods increase, the household that eats them increases too, so the owner gains little but the sight of his own goods. Bridges sets the labourer's sweet sleep against the rich man's sleeplessness as the chapter's plainest proof, wealth adds worry before it adds rest.

Ecclesiastes 5:13-15

The Preacher files a case study in one sore evil under the sun, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt, wealth that survives only to injure the man who hoarded it. The riches perish by evil dealing, and the son inherits nothing though his father kept everything back for him. Henry reads verse 15 as Job's own confession set to the Preacher's key, as he came forth of his mother's womb naked shall he return, taking nothing of his labour away in his hand.

Ecclesiastes 5:16-17

The case closes on its second sore evil: in every point as he came so shall he go, and what profit is there in having laboured for the wind, wealth that gives nothing back for the chase. Clarke reads the picture of eating in darkness, with much sorrow, sickness and wrath, as the miser's whole life rather than a single bad year. The two evils of verses 13 and 16 frame the riches case as loss coming, then loss going, with nothing gained between.

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

Against the riches case just filed, the Preacher states the refrain for the third time in the book: it is good and comely to eat and to drink and enjoy the good of one's labour under the sun, for it is his portion, God's gift rather than a reward seized by force. Bridges reads the addition in verse 19, power to eat thereof, as the real gift within the gift, since wealth without appetite or occasion to enjoy it is exactly the hurt just described. The chapter ends on a man who does not much remember the days of his life because God answers him in the joy of his heart, contentment supplied rather than counted.