1. THE words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; 3 vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath man of all his labour wherein he 4 laboureth under the sun? One generation goeth, and another generation cometh; and 5 the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hast- 6 eth to his place where he ariseth. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it turneth about continually in its course, and the wind returneth again 7 to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again. 8 All things are full of weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, 9 nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the 10 sun. Is there a thing whereof men say, See this is new? it hath been already, in the ages 11 which were before us. There is no remembrance of the former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after. 12. I the Preacher was king over Israel in 13 Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of men 14 to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after 15 wind. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting 16 cannot be numbered. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I have gotten me great wisdom above all that were before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart hath had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after 18 wind. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. 1. In this, its title, the book clearly purports to be the production of Solomon. King is in apposition with Preacher, and not with David; and as Solomon was the only son of David who was king in Jerusalem, he must be meant. J. M. M. 2. God raised up Solomon. He made him healthy and handsome—wise and brilliant. He poured wealth into his lap, till it ran over; He made him absolute monarch of the finest kingdom which the world at that time offered; and He put into his hand a peaceful sceptre, and saved him from the hardships of the field and the perils of the fight. Thus endowed and favored, Solomon commenced the search after happiness. Everything except godly, he devoted himself to the art of enjoyment. And in carrying on his own experiment he unwittingly but effectually became God's demonstration. Into the crucible he cast rank and beauty, wealth and learning; and, as a flux, he added youth and genius; and then, with all the ardor of his vehement nature, he urged the furnace to its whitest glow. But when the grand projection took place, from all the costly ingredients the entire residuum was, Vanity of vanities! Hamilton. The number of things which he specifically presents to our view as vanities is not indeed very great. He evidently designs those which he presents to be regarded as specimens of all the rest. But the objects presented are shown in various aspects and relations. He has, indeed, repeatedly brought several topics before us; but he places them each time in a different attitude and in new relations; and it soon becomes evident that he has insisted on them so frequently only because of their relative importance to his main object. M. S. 3. What profit hath a man. The question is, as in the analogous one of Matt. 16:26, the most emphatic form of a negation. The word for "profit" occurs only in this book. Its strict meaning is "that which remains," the surplus, if any, of the balance-sheet of life. The question is in substance, almost in form, identical with that of our times, "Is life worth living?" E. H. P. The question stated in this verse is substantially the same as is referred to in chaps. 2:3, 22; 3:9; 5:16; 6:11, etc.; it is the great practical inquiry of the book, and receives its final answer in chap. 12:13, 14. When this question was asked (Rupert of Deutz observes) the Lord had not yet said, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Profit. This word occurs with remarkable frequency in Ecclesiastes, and always in the sense of profit, or pre-eminence. It is therefore opposed to vanity. Its derivation is from a word signifying to hang over, overflow, abound, remain over and above. W. T. B. What profit has a man of all the pains he takes? Observe that the business of this world is described as labor; the word signifies both care and toil; it is work that wearies men; it is labor under the sun, a phrase peculiar to this book, where we meet with it twenty-eight times. There is a world above the sun, a world which needs not the sun, for the glory of God is its light, where there is work without labor and with great profit, the work of angels; but he speaks of the work under the sun, the pains of which are great and the gains little. H.—Solomon's inquiry then is equivalent to the question, What profit hath a man of all his labors for this life? In other words, his inquiry is, What advantage is there in this life irrespective of another? What advantage has life without another life? And by degrees, as will appear, he prepares the mind of his auditors for the great announcement, there is a future reward! Y. 4-7. Ceaseless toil, in one perpetual round with no real progress; so man lives and labors and gets no resulting good. This seems to be the central thought in these several illustrations. Human generations come and go; the earth on which they dwell abides unchanged. The sun rises and sets each day, and according to the ancient modes of expression, hastens by some unknown path from his setting place to his rising, to come forth again "like a strong man to run a race." The winds blow toward the south; then return toward the north, sweeping round their ever-varying circuits; and just so the waters are in ceaseless motion, flowing in rivers to the sea, but never filling it; for evaporation lifts those waters again into the atmosphere, where they form clouds which pour the same waters again upon the earth—filling the springs, swelling the rivers, which again run into the great deep sea. So the order of nature gives us perpetual revolution, which in one aspect of it is labor without progress. It is in this special aspect that Solomon compares these features in the course of nature with the course of human life. It is indeed a sombre view of human life, as it is also of the course of nature; but, as to the masses of men in every age of the world yet, not more sombre than true. For what has been the product of substantial good from the toilsome lives of the myriads who have been born, have lived, and have died in the lapse of the thousands of human generations since the world began? What have they done to bless each other and to make the world better, and thereby to gain for themselves the solid pleasures of a useful life? Obviously Solomon is thinking only of the never-ceasing routine of human toil, selfishly designed and selfishly applied; and to get from nature the symbol of this he must think of the ceaseless march of human generations from the cradle to the grave with no progress in human well-being, of the naked fact of everlasting sameness in the revolutions of the sun and the winds and the waters of our globe. H. C. 4. Generation passeth and generation cometh. If there is no future, the coming and going of generation after generation is of little consequence. There is no result worthy of the great Author of all things. Man is less important than the earth on which he lives so short a time. He comes and goes, "but the earth abideth." If man's labor terminates on earthly things, and he perishes when he dies, then the true order is reversed; man is not immortal, while the earth is immortal. The earth is the abiding stage, while human life is a coming on and going off—a mere passing scene soon to terminate without any important result. "What profit?" Y. There is no phenomenon of human life mere solemn than its succession of generations. "One generation passeth away, another generation cometh." And, as if to put this in a light as affecting and indelible as possible, the writer immediately adds, "the earth abideth forever." A thought that gleams like a lightning flash across this panorama of life, burning it into the beholder's brain forever. Even the rude, gross, material earth, which we were created to subdue, and upon which we so proudly tread, is represented as having to the palpable sense this advantage over us. The abiding earth constitutes a little eternity, compared with the duration of its changing inhabitants. We come into it and pass over it, obliterating, perhaps, some footprints in its dust by the impress of our own, to be in their turn effaced, and then leave it with amazing rapidity, as a hireling man accomplishes his days. H. Allon. Think sometimes when you traverse the city how many entire generations have walked along some of those streets; or look over it from one of the neighboring eminences, and think of the difference between the scene of all its busy crowd, and of that mightier multitude of which not one being now mingles with that crowd! But the hill is the same, the general landscape the same—"the earth abideth forever!" And now we tread this same ground, or fix our eyes on the same objects; we, too, shall disappear, but they will still be there. J. F. 6. The Bible frequently makes allusions to the laws of nature, their operations and effects. But such allusions are often so wrapped in the folds of the peculiar and graceful drapery with which its language is occasionally clothed, that the meaning, though peeping out from its thin covering all the while, yet lies in some sense concealed until the lights and revelations of science are thrown upon it; then it bursts out and strikes us with exquisite force and beauty. Maury.—Maury has vividly described the currents in the atmosphere from the equator to the poles, and from the poles to the equator—the one current ranging along a lower level, the other on a higher, and both exchanging their heights at the equator and the tropics, like overlapping belts on higher and lower wheels in a factory, while at the north and south poles they move from right to left and left to right respectively, around a circular mass of air, and are steady in their course as the Gulf Stream. Unlike the trade winds, they know no rest. Their circuit is ceaseless; and no one can examine the facts which have been ascertained and the principles which they represent, without delighting in the new meaning which lights up this Scripture sentence. W. Fraser.—In this single verse Solomon describes the circulation of the atmosphere as actual observation is now showing it to be. That it has its laws, and is obedient to order as the heavenly host in their movement, we infer from the fact announced in the next verse, which contains the essence of volumes by other men. Maury. 7. Can any history of rivers be more definite and succinct than that which is given here, when they are represented as hasting to the sea from the hills and the clouds, and as again returning to renew their course? W. Fraser.—Motion is the law of the universe. Work is the law of the Christian life. God bestows His gifts not that they may be kept, but diffused. If we keep them, and are full, where is the room for more, which God is so anxious to bestow? What would the sea gain by refusing to part with its vapors? It could not be fuller, and its waters would become stagnant, but now they are ever being lifted heavenward and purified, to be returned again in showers that fill the streams which pour their freshness and abundance back again into the sea. The whole universe is in motion; nothing is made merely for rest; everything is shining, flowing, ripening, yielding, sustaining, beautifying, cheering, comforting, or something of the kind. We fail to discern the final cause of our creation if we live unto ourselves. If grace has renewed our souls, then must grace have its fruit, or heaven's highest purpose in our salvation is defeated. We must never pause. "Work here, rest in heaven." The more we receive, the more let us do. There is no danger in receiving ever so much, in being ever so rich, ever so wise, ever so distinguished, if as we attain these we employ them for God and humanity. Only so can a life that the world calls prosperous be a life really blessed. Northwestern Christian Advocate. 8. It is not any quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell; for nothing can fill, much less extend, the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of God; and therefore Solomon, speaking of the two principal senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than the content. Bacon.—You may as soon fill a bag with wisdom or a chest with virtue as the heart of man with anything here below. A man may have enough of the world to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfy him. T. Brooks. 9. There are no novelties, no wonders, no discoveries. This universe does not yield an eye-full, an ear-full, to its occupant. The present only repeats the past, the future will repeat them both. The inventions of to-day are the forgotten arts of yesterday, and our children will forget our wisdom only to have the pleasure of fishing up, as new prodigies, our obsolete truisms. There is no new thing under the sun, yet no repose. Perpetual functions and transient objects—permanent combinations, yet shifting atoms, sameness, yet incessant change, make up the monotonous medley. Hamilton—Ancient histories, and monuments older than history, disclose to us that there were, two, three, and four thousand years ago, nations scarcely less advanced in material civilization and in the arts of social life than ourselves, and who certainly possessed arts that we do not, and were able to execute works which we cannot surpass, and some that we cannot equal, sufficient to counterbalance our possession of arts which they had not acquired, and our execution of works they had not imagined. It has been proved that many, and it may prove that more of our inventions and improvements are but revivals of old things. This was felt twenty-seven centuries ago by one who knew the primeval history as well as we do, if not better; and there is deep truth in the words of the Preacher, "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun." Kitto. 10. In the kingdom of Providence, though the course and method of it have not such known and certain rules as that of nature, nor does it go always in the same track, yet in the general it is still the same thing over and over again; men's hearts are still the same; their desires, pursuits, and complaints still the same; and what God does in His dealings with men is according to the Scripture, according to the manner, so that it is all repetition. What is surprising to us need not be so, for there has been the like; the like strange advancements and disappointments; the like strange revolutions and sudden turns of affairs; the miseries of human life have always been much the same, and mankind tread a perpetual round, and as the sun and wind are but where they were. H. —11. What then comes of human toil? All human glory perishes. Life is but a treadmill process, with no resulting good that endures and pays him for his labor. This is the outcome of every pleasure-seeking life. H. C. 12. Hitherto we have heard Wisdom, in highly poetic language, declaring generally the vanity of all things. Now, Solomon begins in less rhythmical language to relate his personal experience, which is continued to the end of the second chapter. Beginning with the time of his accession to the throne, when the gifts of wisdom and riches were specially promised to him, he relates the anxious efforts which he made, with his unprecedented resources, to advance wisdom, pleasure, grandeur, and every personal gratification, and how the result of his experience was "no profit," and a conviction that all, even God's gifts of earthly good to good men, in this life are subject to vanity. His trial of his first gift, wisdom, is recounted in vs. 12-18 I was king. It is alleged that this expression implies that at the time when these words were written Solomon was no longer king, and that consequently the passage must have been written by some one personating him after his death. But, whatever may be the force of the preterite in other languages, in Hebrew it is used with strict grammatical propriety in describing a past which extends into the present. Gesenius says that the Hebrew preterite is used "for our present, where this denotes a condition or attribute already long continued and still existing, or a permanent or habitual action." After giving examples, he goes on to exemplify its use when the speaker views the action or state expressed by the verb as then first about coming to pass, in progress, or perhaps occurring at the instant. The words in italics exactly describe the use of the preterite by Solomon in this passage. W. T. B.—Hengstenberg says: "The use of the preterite is no argument against Solomon's being the author of the book. The preterite is very frequently employed in descriptions of a past which stretches forward into the present, and therefore is it rendered with perfect justice in the Berleburger Bible, 'I the preacher have been king thus far, and am one still.'" Indeed, if the writer was speaking of the past only, it was perfectly natural for him to say, "I tried my experiments in the most favorable circumstances, I was king over Israel in Jerusalem." This by no means implies that he had ceased to be king. Y. 13. It is the vanity of human effort after such knowledge as will secure and render stable our present happiness which the writer is going to discuss. He declares at the outset that this employment is an unhappy one, although Providence has seen fit to discipline men thereby. M. S. God. Thirty-nine times in this book God is named as Elohim, which was common to the true God and to false gods, and was used by believers and by idolaters; but the name Jehovah, by which He is known peculiarly to the people who are in covenant with Him, is never once used. Perhaps the chief reason for this is that the evil which is the object of inquiry in this book is not at all peculiar to the chosen people. The whole human race, all creation (Rom. 8), groans under it. Both the partial explanation given of it in this book—viz., the disharmony between God's will and man's will, and the advice founded on that explanation, were, in the time of the old dispensation, capable of being understood and practised almost equally by persons without the covenant as by Israelites. Though the Preacher's reasoning would come home with more convincing force to a believing Jew, yet it would meet with a response from the heart of many a pious and thoughtful heathen. He does not write of or to the Hebrew race exclusively. W. T. B. 14. All is vanity and striving after wind. One of the most striking passages in the whole compass of English literature on the vanity of human glory occurs in Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." For once the infidel historian moralizes like a Christian preacher, or at least responds to the sentiment of the wise man, "All is vanity." After reviewing the sixty successive reigns of the Greek emperors, most of them of very brief duration, he makes these reflections: "A being of the nature of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and contempt on the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager, in a narrow span, to grasp at a precarious and short-lived enjoyment. It is thus that the experience of history exalts and enlarges the horizon of our intellectual view. In a composition of some days—in a perusal of some hours—six hundred years have rolled away, and the duration of a life or reign is contracted to a fleeting moment; the grave is ever beside the throne; the success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the loss of his prize; and our immortal reason survives and disdains the sixty phantoms of kings that have passed before our eyes, and faintly dwell even in our remembrance." The historian looks not beyond the horizon of time. The dates of the birth and the "downfall" of an empire bound his vision. But what would have been his reflections could he have taken his stand beyond the bounds of time, and surveyed the sweep of human ambition from the heights of eternity! Anon. 15. The passage (7:13) seems manifestly parallel to this, and therefore may give us a clew to the meaning here. "Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked?" In consequence of sin God has subjected the course of nature to certain physical evils, e.g., destructive storms, ruinous droughts, extremes of heat and of cold, earthquakes, pestilence, disease, death. The sense of the original words is, Who can reduce to order that which God hath put in disorder? Who can change the ordinations of His providence in the rule of earthly things? H. C.—Human efforts are vain and fruitless, because they cannot change or amend the constitution and course of things. What the writer means in the present case is that there are numerous causes of human misery and suffering which lie under no control of man. Many things are lacking which might administer to his comfort that cannot be at all supplied by any human effort. 18. The reason is here given of what is asserted at the close of the preceding verse. Irritation or vexation and sorrow result from the often-disappointed hopes and efforts to extend one's knowledge. M. S.—Is this life worth living? No, he tells us, if this world is all of life. The changes, new and wondrous to the young, soon mock us with their ever-recurring cycle, and sink to the unceasing iteration of monotone. There is no joy or good for the heart and soul in wisdom that goes no farther than "all that is done under the sun," for, while it has its great advantages, it brings along its inseparable skeleton, sorrow. Wisdom soon finds out its petty limitations, and beats in vain against the myriad knots it cannot untie. It cannot even insure a man bread, or deliver him from the accidents of life. It cannot answer the question of all questions, "What is best for a man in this life?" nor reveal a moment of the future, nor save man from death. H. Osgood. Though this proposition may require to be received with some limitations, certain it is that the mere knowledge of things, the mere perception of truth, is something extremely different, something entirely separable from the enjoyment of things, the possession of real happiness. There is not between the two the slightest necessary connection; there may exist in the same character the scantiest portion of the one in union with the largest measure of the other. We by no means find that the more things we know the more we enjoy our existence; and the simple reason is that knowledge has its abode in the understanding, while happiness is seated, not in the understanding, but in the heart; so that the condition of the rudest peasant may be an object of envy to the most enlightened philosopher. In a word, happiness is a state which we are all equally concerned to attain; but wealth and knowledge are conditions accessible only to a few. Happiness has its seat in the heart; but wealth and knowledge are not adapted to satisfy our affections; therefore wealth or knowledge cannot be supposed to constitute that proper happiness of man, without which he is "made in vain." R. Hall. Mere earthly knowledge is painful in its contents. For an illustration of this we may go to history. Take away our hope in God, and history becomes a sea of tumbling billows, dark and shoreless; nations rising only to fall; great souls shooting across the horizon like dying meteors; and all the spiritual longings of the past written down but to tell us of the vanity of our own efforts. We could bear to study history only as we forget all the higher ends it might serve as a school of training for immortal souls, and as the steps of a Divine Architect through the broken scaffolding and scattered stone-wreck upward to a finished structure. The very glimpse of this is reviving, but to give up at once Architect and end, and see human lives shattered and strewn across weary ages, and human hearts torn and bleeding, with no abiding result, this surely would fill a thoughtful mind with pain. The more of such history, the more of sorrow. Mere earthly knowledge is hopeless in its issue. For an illustration of this we may take the field of abstract thought. Let a man seek the origin and end of things without God, and doubt grows as search deepens, for doubt is on the face of all things if it be in the heart of the inquirer. As he enlarges the circumference of knowledge he enlarges the encircling darkness, and even the knowledge yields no ray of true satisfaction. Ker There is an increase of sorrow, both because the objects of knowledge do but increase and the more he knows do multiply the more upon him, so as to beget a despair of ever knowing so much as he shall know himself to be ignorant of; and a thousand doubts about things he hath more deeply considered which his confident (undiscovered) ignorance never dreamed of or suspected. And thence an unquietness, an irresolution of mind, which they that never drove at any such mark are (more contentedly) unacquainted with. And also, because that by how much knowledge hath refined a man's soul, so much it is more sensible and perceptive of troublesome impressions from the disorderly state of things in the world; which they that converse only with earth and dirt have not spirits clarified and fine enough to receive. So that, except a man's knowing more than others were to be referred to another state, the labor of attaining thereto, and other accessory disadvantages, would hardly ever be compensated by the fruit or pleasure of it. Howe. Mere earthly knowledge is discouraging in its personal results. Earthly science can do very much to improve man's external circumstances. It can occupy his reason, it can refine and gratify his taste; but there are greater wants that remain. If the man seeks something to fill and warm his heart, all the wisdom of this world is only a cold phosphorescence. He must say with Goethe, "Alas that the yonder is never here!" The tree of knowledge never becomes the tree of life. Ker. The mistaking or misplacing of the farthest end of knowledge is the greatest error of all the rest; for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to obtain the victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; but seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale—and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate. Bacon. It must be felt at once that the increase of knowledge, merely as such, does not make the soul larger or smaller; that in the sight of God all the knowledge man can gain is as nothing; but that the soul, for which the great scheme of redemption was laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is all in all; and in the activity, strength, health, and well-being of this soul lies the main difference, in His sight, between one man and another. And that which is all in all in God's estimate is also all in all in man's labor; and to have the heart open and the eyes clear, and the emotions and thoughts warm and quick, and not the knowing of this or the other fact, is the state needed for all mighty doing in this world. Therefore let us take no pride in our knowledge. We may, in a certain sense, be proud of being immortal; we may be proud of being God's children; we may be proud of loving, thinking, seeing, and of all that we are by no human teaching, but not of what we have been taught by rote... With respect to knowledge we are to reason and act exactly as with respect to food. We no more live to know than we live to eat. We live to contemplate, enjoy, act, adore; and we may know all that is to be known in this world and what Satan knows in the other, without being able to do any of these. We are to ask, therefore, first, is the knowledge we would have fit food for us, good and simple, not artificial and decorated? and, secondly, how much of it will enable us best for our work, and leave our hearts light and our eyes clear. Ruskin. In the region of revealed truth, increasing knowledge will always be increasing conviction, if that knowledge be progressively reduced to practice. If knowledge be merely speculative, in extending it a man may only "increase sorrow;" for it is "with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness," and it is to the "doers" of his Father's will that the Saviour promises an assuring knowledge of His own "doctrine." Hamilton. Unless it include the knowledge of the living God, there is sorrow in much science—that is, the more a man knows, unless he also knows the Saviour, the sadder may we expect him to become. Of this we have an instance in a late philosopher, who, like Solomon, united to ardor of physical research a thoughtful and musing spirit, and who, in his "Last Days of a Philosopher," has bequeathed to the world a manual of mournful "Consolations." It was not from any drawback in his outward lot, nor from any disappointment of his hopes, that Sir Humphry Davy took leave of life so gloomily. Of the sons of science few have been so favored. His whole career was a series of rare felicities. Nor was he the anchoret of science, a lonely and smoke-dried alchemist. He was a man of fashion, and, like Solomon, mingled "madness and folly" with graver pursuits. Yet with all his versatile powers—orator, philosopher, poet—and with all his distinctions glittering around him, his heart still felt hollow, and in his later journals the expressive entry was, "Very miserable." What was it that he wanted? He himself has told us: "I envy no quality of mind or intellect in others—not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights, calling up the most delightful visions, where the sensualist and sceptic view only gloom, decay, and annihilation." Hamilton. "I have ever been esteemed," Goethe wrote, "one of Fortune's chiefest favorites; nor will I complain or find fault with the course my life has taken. Yet, truly, there has been nothing but toil and care; and I may say that, in all my seventy-five years, I have never had a month of genuine comfort. It has been the perpetual rolling of a stone, which I have always had to raise anew." It is the grandeur of the soul which God has given us which makes it insatiable in its desires—an infinite void which cannot be filled up. A soul which was made for God, how can the world fill it? God is love and goodness. Fill the soul with goodness, and fill the soul with love, that is the filling it with God. There is nothing else that can satisfy. So that when we hear men of this world acknowledge, as they sometimes will do, when they are wearied with this phantom chase of life, sick of gayeties and tired of toil, that it is not in their pursuits that they can drink the fount of blessedness; and when we see them, instead of turning aside either broken-hearted or else made wise, still persisting to trust to expectations—at fifty, sixty, or seventy years still feverish about some new plan of ambition—what we see is this: we see a soul formed with a capacity for high and noble things, fit for the banquet table of God Himself, trying to fill its infinite hollowness with husks. F. W. R. Why does the human intellect crave perpetually for new fields of knowledge? It was made to apprehend an Infinite Being; it was made for God. Why does the human heart disclose, when we probe it, such inexhaustible capacities for love, and tenderness, and self-sacrifice? It was made to correspond to a love that had neither stint nor limit; it was made for God. Why does no employment, or success, or scene or field of thought, or culture of power or faculty, or friend or relative, arrest definitely and forever the onward, craving, restless impulse of our inner being? No other explanation is so simple as that we were made for the Infinite and Unchangeable God, compared with whom all else is imperfect, fragile, transient, and unsatisfying. This indeed is the true moral of this wonderful book, in which a superficial and unspiritual criticism, which indeed must move a Christian's deepest compassion, can see nothing but "the doubts and confessions of a jaded epicurean." All that is not God is vanity, in that it yields no true response to the deep and irrepressible cravings of the soul of man. H. P. L. There must be another world, a higher life, a sublimer sphere. That alone can be the complement of this human, mortal experience. Admit that there is an unseen God, an immortal future, a perfect life beyond the grave, and what is otherwise vanity becomes filled with inspiring significance; what was otherwise vexation is compensated by boundless consolation. Augustine was right: "Thou, O God, hast made us for Thee; and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee." Man can only reach his wholeness in holiness; and this world can only become bright and beautiful as it wheels into its orbit about the Sun of Righteousness. Pierson. 1. I SAID in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleas- 2 ure: and, behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What 3 doeth it? I searched in mine heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, mine heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. 4. I made me great works; I builded me 5 houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and parks, and I planted trees 6 in them of all kinds of fruit: I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where 7 trees were reared: I bought menservants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all that were before me in 8. Jerusalem: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons 9 of men, concubines very many. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom re- 10 mained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them: I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced because of all my labour; and this 11 was my portion from all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun. 12. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that 13 which hath been already done. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light 14 excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness: and yet I perceived that one event 15 happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that 16 this also was vanity. For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance for ever; seeing that in the days to come all will have been already forgotten. And how doth the wise man die even as the fool! 17. So I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me: for all is vanity and a striving after wind. 18. And I hated all my labour wherein I laboured under the sun: seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 19. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed wisdom under the 20 sun. This also is vanity. Therefore I turned about to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labour wherein I had 21 laboured under the sun. For there is a man whose labour is with wisdom, and with knowledge, and with skilfulness; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity 22 and a great evil. For what hath a man of all his labour, and of the striving of his heart, wherein he laboureth under the sun? 23. For all his days are but sorrows, and his travail is grief; yea, even in the night his heart taketh no rest. This also is vanity. 24. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I 25 saw, that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, 26 more than I? For to the man that pleaseth him God giveth wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that pleaseth God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. 1,2. SOLOMON had tried learning and discovered that he could not find solid and lasting happiness in its pursuit and acquisition; he next makes trial of pleasure. He bids his soul enjoy the gratification of appetite, of refined tastes, and of earthly grandeur. But this attempt proved more vain than the former one. J. M. M. Innocent mirth, seasonably and moderately used, is a good thing, fits for business and helps to soften the toils and chagrins of human life; but when it is excessive and immoderate, it is foolish and fruitless. H.—Leaving out the people of God, could we analyze these two things—the world's mirth and the world's morality—we should make an ominous discovery. Amid all the abounding laughter and hilarity we should find no happiness truly Divine. We should find no gladness which the thought of God had kindled; we should find very little but what the thought of God would quench and extinguish it. And amid all the decorum and good conduct prevailing in many places, we should find no morality truly devout. We should find virtuous conduct prompted by the love of kindred, the love of reputation, the love of a quiet conscience, but very little prompted by the love of God. We should find the happiness all hollow and the goodness all counterfeit. Assuming godliness as the standard of genuineness, we should find the morality was not gold, but gilding, and that the mirth was not the wine of paradise, but earth's cold water colored purple. Hamilton. 3. From chap. 1:13 to the end of this chapter he is relating his attempt to find something which should answer the question (1:3), something exempt from vanity and really "good for the sons of men." Here (2:3) he says that in the course of this attempt, while his heart was directing him (as a charioteer directs his horses or a shepherd his sheep) with wisdom, and while he was following that guidance, he determined to draw on with him his flesh by wine, thus making his flesh, which he speaks of as distinct from himself, a confederate and subsidiary in his attempt. So, in Rom. 7:25 the apostle speaks of the mind, the flesh and himself, as if they were three distinct personalities. W. T. B.—His studies and his feasts were foils to each other, and he tried whether both mixed together would give him that satisfaction which he could not find in either separately. This Solomon proposed to himself, but he found it vanity. H. 4-8. This is a chapter of Solomon's personal history. The reader will find much of it in its historic form in 1 Kings 9 and 10. He built a magnificent house (temple) for the Lord his God; one for himself; one for his Egyptian wife; another for a royal arsenal, "the house of the forest of Lebanon." The last clause of v. 8, it is now generally conceded by the best critics, must have the sense—a wife and wives. The original words seem to have no reference whatever to musical instruments. "The delights of the sons of men" are amorous pleasures. The prominence of these pleasures in the actual life of Solomon forbids their omission in this list. Indeed their very prominent place in his life corresponds to their place in the climax here. It also appears in the history that he had one wife "par excellence"—viz., the daughter of Pharaoh; and besides her, many subordinate wives. H. C. 5, 6. "The Pools of Solomon" lie south of Bethlehem, upon the usual route from Hebron to Jerusalem, and about six miles from the Holy City. They lie at the south end of a small valley, and below them is another valley, narrow and rocky, about two miles in length, terminating in a close ravine, and shut in by high hills which rise as straight as palisades. Kitto.—Here are the remains of a very remarkable aqueduct which carried the water from the sealed fountain at Solomon's Pools across the valley by means of a stone siphon, and afterward delivered it at Jerusalem at a level high enough to supply Herod's palace and the whole city with water. The stone tubing is finished in the most beautiful manner, and the several portions are joined together by a very hard, fine cement. The so-called Pools of Solomon lie in a valley to the southwest of Bethlehem, and consist of three large tanks, so arranged that as much water as possible may be collected and stored for the use of the city. The lower pool is the largest, being 582 feet long, about 180 feet broad, and 50 feet deep, and it presents some peculiar features in its construction; round the sides are rows of seats with steps leading from one to the other, and there are several other arrangements that would lead us to believe that it was at one time used as a naval amphitheatre for nautical displays. One of the chief sources of water-supply is a subterranean fountain close to the upper pool. The distance given by Josephus, 400 stadia (six miles), agrees very fairly with the length of the aqueduct from the source to Jerusalem. Of the date of the pools themselves we can form no certain opinion, but there is nothing to preclude the idea that some of them at least were made by Solomon. Wilson. 7. Above all that were in Jerusalem before me. This expression (compare also v. 9 and 1:16) has given occasion to cavil, inasmuch as David was the only king of Israel who had preceded Solomon in Jerusalem. It is not necessary to explain this by referring to the fact that there had been a long line of kings in Jerusalem from the time of Melchizedek, and, we do not know how long before. No mention is made in this verse of kings prior to Solomon, but only of inhabitants of Jerusalem generally; and it is no unheard-of thing for private citizens to be possessed of princely fortunes, and to rival kings in the magnificence of their style of living. W. H. G. 9. In v. 3 he tells us that he indulged in wine under the guidance of wisdom or discretion. Here he tells us that his discretion was ever retained, in the midst of all his various indulgences. In other words, he never gave himself up to immoderate and excessive indulgences, but acted as a sober man, earnestly making experiments in order to learn what the true good is. Tempered by this same discretion were his indulgences at large, which he next describes. M. S. 10. He did not restrict himself in anything that he desired, or that could afford him gratification. And he had a real inward pleasure in all that he was doing, in the success of his schemes and enterprises, in the beauty, the magnificence, and refinement with which he had surrounded himself. This was my portion from all my labor. He was not a person of a morose and discontented humor, whom nothing could please. He was capable of enjoying these various sources of pleasure, and he did enjoy them. W. H. G.—The pleasure which Solomon found in the act of working, here and in chap. 3:22 and chap. 9:9, described as a portion, and also perhaps the pleasure felt in the process of acquiring wisdom (1:13; 2:13, 14), is admitted to be good, if received from God (2:26; v. 18. Compare 1 Tim. 4:4). But such pleasure being transitory is subject to vanity, and therefore does not afford a sufficient answer to the repeated question, “What profit hath a man?” (1:3.) W. T. B. 11. Then I looked on (or, turned to) all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored (or, toil that I had toiled) to do. Now comes the time of serious reflection. He ponders all this, and undertakes to estimate it at its real value. It had, indeed, afforded him a passing enjoyment. But was this, after all, man's best and highest occupation? The gratification was certainly short-lived. All this wealth and splendor could not arrest the stroke of death; and then what would become of all these things in which he had taken so much pride? (See vs. 18-21.) As the result of these reflections he came to the conclusion all was vanity, empty, fleeting, unsubstantial. W. H. G. He thus concludes his account of this costly and grand experiment, by including in the inventory all that could please his eyes or give the least joy to his heart. Not one of these things were beyond his reach. He had as much delight from them as mortal could derive. If any other man had experienced any worldly pleasure of which he could boast, Solomon more. But this fleeting enjoyment was all the portion or reward which he received from his labor in providing all these vast and expensive means of pleasure. There was no lasting happiness to be had as the reward or portion for all this outlay and toil. J. M. M.—The curse of unsatisfiableness lies upon the creature. Honors cannot satisfy the ambitious man, nor riches the covetous man, nor pleasures the voluptuous man. Man cannot take off the weariness of one pleasure by another, for after a few evaporated minutes are spent in pleasure, the body presently fails the mind, and the mind the desire, and the desire the satisfaction, and all the man. T. Brooks. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which in truth is very low; whereas those who have not experienced always overrate them. When I reflect on what I have seen, what I have heard, and what I have done, I cannot persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry of bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; but I look on all that is past as one of those dreams which opium commonly occasions, and I do by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive dream. Shall I tell you that I bear this melancholy situation with that resignation that most men boast? No, I really cannot help it. I bear it because I must bear it, whether I will or no. I think of nothing but killing time the best way I can, now that time is become my enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage during the remainder of the journey. Chesterfield.—When a Christian minister speaks slightly of the world he is supposed to do it in the way of his profession, and to decry, through envy, the pleasures he is forbidden to taste. But here, I think, you have the testimony of a witness every way competent. No one ever knew the world better or enjoyed more of its favors than this nobleman. Yet you see in how poor, abject and wretched a condition, at the time when he most wanted help and comfort, the world left him and he left the world. The sentences above cited from him compose, in my humble opinion, the most striking and affecting sermon on the subject ever yet preached to mankind. Bishop Horne. 12-16. The writer has now come to the end of his experiences in regard to the means of happiness. Neither efforts to acquire wisdom nor folly in indulgence will secure this, nor even these combined (vs. 1-11). He comes then deliberately to inquire whether wisdom in itself has any pre-eminence over folly. In some respects, he says, it has; but still these are not sufficient to exempt it from the imputation of being vanity; for, first, it dies with every man who acquires it, and passes not on by heritage to another. Every one must acquire it for himself. Next, it does not exempt the wise man from the same common lot with the fool. All are the sport of accident alike, and all die at last alike and are equally forgotten. Thirdly, a repulsive aspect is given to life by the fact that all which one has laboriously and skilfully toiled to acquire passes, at his death, to others of whom he cannot know whether they will be wise or foolish. What good, then, can come to him which will compensate for all the toil and suffering and wakeful nights which he has endured in order to obtain substance? Who can look on all this but with feelings of despair? The conclusion then to which he comes is, that the only real good to be derived from all is that which we enjoy from day to day in the gratification of hunger and thirst and other appetites which are the sources of present pleasure. This is our own, and we may regard it as a kind of good. But even this, to whatever it may amount, comes all from the hand of God. Such as are good in His sight-i.e., the objects of His favor, may sometimes be permitted to enjoy what the sinner, His enemy, has labored to provide. But, after all, even this will not exempt the whole from the category of vanity and empty pursuit. Such pleasures are too low and fleeting to confer substantial good on rational beings. M. S. 12. The text admits of this explanation: "What is any man that in this study of wisdom and folly shall come after me, who, from my position, have had such peculiar advantages (see 1:16, and compare 2:25) for carrying it on? That which man did of old he can but do again; he is not likely to add to the result of my researches, nor even to equal them." W. T. B. 13. From the view thus taken of sagacity or wisdom, considered in respect to its power of conferring solid and lasting happiness, the writer turns, for a moment, to the consideration of the natural and essential difference between wisdom and folly in themselves considered or viewed merely in respect to their proper nature. In this view of the matter he felt himself compelled to yield to the superior claims of wisdom. It gives insight into things, and explains many of them which must remain dark to folly. The pre-eminence asserted is illustrated and confirmed by the next verse. 14. To say that one's eyes are in his head means that he has eyes, and that they are in their proper place and will be appropriately employed -i.e., that the man who has them will employ them to see. But the fool, who has no mental eye, must of course walk in darkness. Yet the latter part of the verse dashes down, in the main, the hopes which any one might be inclined to cherish from the circumstance of the essential difference between the two. One destiny awaits all-i.e., they have after all a common lot; all are subject to toil and suffering and death, to loss of property, loss of friends, and loss of hopes. M. S. 15-17. "Saying in the heart" is thoughtful reflection, talking to one's self, and turning the matter over and over in one's mind. As it happeneth to the fool, so it will happen to me, even to me (wise though I am); why, then, have I been so very wise? That is, what comes of it? Of what use does it prove to be to me, since in the end I must succumb to the common destiny of all mortal men, whether wise or foolish. Common to both is this inevitable oblivion that sweeps over the deeds and the life of all mankind. They will none of them be long remembered. "That which is now, in the days to come will have been long ago forgotten," and therefore be quite lost from the thought of all the living. The last clause of v. 16 is better read as an exclamation of sadness: "And how dieth the wise man like the fool!" Alas! to think that the wise no less than the fool must die; that both are doomed to the same inevitable destiny of death! Taking this view of the subjection of all human life to this revolting necessity of passing away from earth and being forevermore forgotten, I hated life, for all the work done under the sun appeared odious to me. My heart sickened at the thought of such death and oblivion-the unavoidable conditions of all human existence. H. C. 15. If death is the end of man, what sufficient motive have we for cultivating our minds and extending our knowledge? Why should we enter upon a course of intellectual cultivation; why store our minds with knowledge, if, in the midst of this glorious pursuit, with new fields opening before us rich in mines of wealth and the thirst of acquisition ungratified, we are to be struck down and the intellectual light forever quenched within us? And who would not dread to be endowed with powers capable of such vast compass—with an imagination that takes a universe for its field, or can find a world in an atom—at home both in the past and in the future, and making both equally subservient to its purposes—if in their full and vigorous exercise they are to be brought to a sudden and everlasting close? If the only end to be reached by study is the grief of having the objects of knowledge multiply around us, and the despair of ever knowing as much as we are ignorant of, the savage or the idiot may well be congratulated on their happiness. J. M. M. 16. Of the wise man no remembrance. If there be no eternal remembrance of the world's wise men any more than of its fools, it is otherwise with the wise ones of the heavenly kingdom. God has so arranged it that "the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance." The only posthumous fame that is truly permanent is the memory of God, and the only deathless names are theirs for whose living persons He has found a place in His own love, and in the love of holy beings like-minded with Himself. Hamilton. 17. I hated life. This expression, extorted from Solomon by the perception of the vanity of his wisdom and greatness, may be compared with Paul's emphatic words (Rom. 8:22, 23) in view of the subjection of creation to vanity. The words of Moses (Num. 11:15) and of Job (3:21; 6:9) are scarcely less forcible. W. T. B. 18. 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, nor would the remembrance of them do him any good. 19. He knows not whom he must leave it to (for God makes heirs), or 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 labor, and foolishly undo that which his father wisely did. H. 20. He speaks just as every man who gives himself to serious, calm reflection, however successful he may have been in his enterprises, must speak. If death is to end all; if he has no treasures laid up in heaven; if there be no heaven in which to lay up treasures, well may he give up his heart to despair in respect to the work to which his strength and life have been devoted. J. M. M. 22,23. These verses look simply at the case of the man who is toiling to amass wealth. How hard he works! How diligently he plans! How intense are his anxieties! Sleep will not come at his bidding. Hengstenberg well translates, "For all his days are sorrow, and discontent is his plague." Truly such a life is a vanity. H. C. 24. The best use, therefore, to be made of the wealth of this world is to use it cheerfully, to take the comfort of it and do good with it. We must not over-toil ourselves so as, in pursuit of more, to rob ourselves of the comfort of what we have. We must not 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. 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 labor; we must use these things not to excuse us from, but to make us diligent and cheerful in our worldly business. H. Solomon meant to say that the surest and the best of all the good that is properly of this world consists in the moderate enjoyment of our daily bread, and in our labor to supply these natural wants of those who are dependent upon us. So much God gives us to enjoy, and it should be accepted as His gift. These moderate enjoyments are here put in contrast with the corroding anxieties, the ever-grasping spirit and never-ceasing labors of the man who is bent on hoarding immense treasures and building up a vast estate. Solomon would say, Take the moderate enjoyment of what suffices to meet your wants, and desist from those infinite toils for what you can never enjoy. H. C.—This sentiment recurs repeatedly as the result of the author's meditations upon life. (See 3:12, 13, 22; 5:18-20; 7:14; 8:15; 9:7-10; 11:9.) From a comparison of these passages together with chap. 5:1-7 and the whole of chap. 12, it is manifest that it is not sensual indulgence which the author commends as the best thing a man can attain in a world of vanity, but only such a cheerful, joyful participation of present blessings as is consistent with the thought of God and retribution, or with obedience to the commands of the Creator. Noyes. It is from the hand of God. The good things themselves that we enjoy are 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. A heart to enjoy them, too, is the gift of God's grace. Unless He gives 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 favor in the world's smiles, we cannot make our souls enjoy any good in them. H. 25. Here, as in v. 12, Solomon appeals to his own experience as conclusive by reason of his superior advantages. This verse may be read as a parenthesis. 26. Even the best gifts of God, so far as they are given in this life "beneath the sun," are not permanent, and are not always efficacious for the purpose for which they appear to us to be given. Compare Augustine—"Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it repose in Thee." W. T. B.—There is as much disguise thrown round the expressions of the displeasure as of the love of God. To the worldly man prosperity is as often a cloaked enemy as to the Christian adversity is a cloaked friend. And of the two the disguise is far easier to penetrate when a spiritual benefit comes in the form of earthly trial, than when a spiritual calamity comes in the form of earthly indulgence and success. Yet the one is as often, at least, the minister of the Lord's anger as the other is of His love. W. Hanna. Thus we are brought, step by step, after passing prominent particulars in review, to the general conclusion that no possessions or pursuits of men secure the good which they need and seek for, and that the most we can make out of all these is the enjoyment which we experience from the actual satisfying of the wants and cravings of our physical nature. Even this is not the result of our own efforts merely, but is bestowed upon us by the special favor of God. M. S. The self-centred life is a weary round and round; it comes home to lodge every night. It is the fountain of the ennuic and dissatisfaction of the world. It groans for a change, but takes none. It seeks life in an eternally recurring self. Man has not begun to live till he has carried the centre of life away from self into the heavens. All that is good and lovely, all that is sweet and peaceful, all that is heroic and wise, all that is truest in life, is born of this self-distanced theory of life; for it is the measure to which the morning stars first set the song of life. G. S. Eldridge. 1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which 3 is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to 4 build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to 5 dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a 7 time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew: a time to 8 keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, 9 and a time for peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised 11 therewith. He hath made every thing beautiful in its time: also he hath set the world [or, eternity] in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done 12 from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them, than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they 13 live. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, 14 is the gift of God. I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God hath done it, that men 15 should fear before him. That which is hath been already; and that which is to be hath already been: and God seeketh again that which is passed away [or, requireth that which is past]. 16 And moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, 17 that wickedness was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every 18 purpose and for every work. I said in mine heart, It is because of the sons of men, that God may prove them, and that they may see that they themselves are but as beasts. 19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; and man hath no pre-eminence above the beasts: for all is 20 vanity. All go unto one place; all are of 21 the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether 22 it goeth downward to the earth? Wherefore I saw that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him back to see what shall be after him? 1-15. THERE is in this chapter a transition from Solomon's personal experience of life to that of mankind generally; but it is closely connected with the preceding chapter. There (v. 26) he contemplated the different conditions of two men each leading an active life. The works of the first, through God's ordinance, bring him a portion of happiness; but the works of the second are not beneficial to the doer. It follows that the works of men are subject in their results to another will besides that of the doer, or are under the control of God. Here we have in fact the germ of the great question of later times—how to reconcile man's free will with God's decrees. Solomon's way of stating it is that to every separate work which goes to make up the great aggregate of human activity (i.e., the "travail," 1:13; 3:10), there is a season, an appropriate time which God appoints for its being done (3:1-8). To the question (v. 9), What profit has man the worker therein? he answers that the works of men, if done according to God's appointment, are a part of the work that God maketh (v. 11), that beautifully arranged scheme of Divine Providence which, as a whole, is, by reason of its extent and duration, incomprehensible to us, notwithstanding our far-reaching aspirations, and the power of looking before and after which God gives us (v. 11). Man's good is to rejoice and do good in his lifetime, which he can do only as God appoints (vs. 12, 13). God's work, of which this would be a part, is forever and is perfect (and so not subject to vanity), and calculated to teach men to fear Him (v. 14). His work, which was begun long ago, is now going on to completion; His work hereafter will be a complement of something which was done previously; and He recalls the past in order to add to it what shall make it complete and perfect (v. 15). The principle of Divine government—that every work in order to be permanent and successful must be God's work as well as man's work—is declared in Psalm 127:1, 2 (attributed to Solomon) quite as plainly as in this chapter. W. T. B. That which he insists on is the thought that the circumstances and events of life form part of a Divine Order, are not things that come at random, and that wisdom and, therefore, such a measure of happiness as is attainable, lies in adapting ourselves to the order and accepting the guidance of events in great things and small, while shame and confusion come from resisting it. E. H. P. 1-8. The sense of the special clauses in this passage is for the most part clear. Every earthly life has its beginning and its close, both determined in the plan of God's providential rule of human affairs. Planting and plucking up are to vegetables what birth and death are to men. So killing and healing relate to man; breaking down and building up to cities and the great works of human art and labor. Weeping and mourning come of calamity; but laughing and dancing express good fortune and joy. "Casting forth stones" (v. 5) was practised by an enemy to injure arable lands for cultivation. Thus Israel treated the best lands of Moab (2 Kings 3:19). I understand him to say simply that this world is so governed providentially under God's hand that these unlike events are in fact constantly occurring, and have their place in the completed history of human affairs. They actually occur in the routine of human life, yet are thought of here rather in their relation to the agency and purpose of God in them than as related to the moral agency of man. In the Divine ordering of human affairs there is perpetual doing and undoing. Life is full of changes and even reverses. And these changes in the mortal lot of mankind come of the purposes and ways of God's providence in His moral discipline of our race. He breaks up the smooth and even tenor of man's earthly life for the sake of turning his eye upward to the overruling hand that shapes all. This is indicated particularly in v. 14, "God doeth it that men should fear before Him." These frequent changes, coming in a way that baffles and defies the best foresight of men, have a most vital bearing on the pursuit of human happiness—especially on that pleasure-seeking pursuit which makes earthly good its supreme and sole end. How vain it must be for man to toil thus intensely to do, when God's order of things in this word involves so much perpetual undoing! H. C. We have accumulating evidence that the course of history has been directed by a Divine hand. It has not flowed for the shortest distance in a given course fortuitously. Great conquerors and rulers have arisen; God raised them up as instruments to carry out His purposes. Great nations have appeared, and when the Divine purposes in respect to them have been answered, have disappeared again. J. M. M.—Those revolutions which in their progress precipitate dynasties and nations to the dust, those heaps of ruin which we meet with in the sands of the desert, those majestic remains which the field of human history offers to our reflection, do they not testify aloud to the truth that God is in history? Gibbon, seated on the ancient capitol, and contemplating its noble ruins, acknowledged the intervention of a superior destiny. He saw—he felt its presence; wherever his eye turned it met him; that shadow of a mysterious power reappeared from behind every ruin; and he conceived the project of depicting its operation in the disorganization, the decline, and the corruption of that power of Rome which had enslaved the nations. Shall not that mighty hand, which this man of admirable genius discovered among the scattered monuments of Romulus and of Marcus Aurelius, the busts of Cicero and Virgil, Trajan's trophies and Pompey's horses, be confessed by us as the hand of our God? D'Aubigné. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God—a Divine biography marked out, which it enters into life, to live. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by His secret nurture; a Divine study for the man himself and for others; a study that shall forever unfold in wondrous beauty the love and faithfulness of God; great in its conception, great in the Divine skill by which it is shaped; above all, great in the momentous and glorious issues it prepares. What a thought is this for every human soul to cherish! What dignity does it add to life! What support does it bring to the trials of life! What instigations does it add to send us onward in everything that constitutes our excellence! We live in the Divine thought. We fill a place in the great everlasting plan of God's intelligence. We never sink below His care, never drop out of His counsel. . . . Let it fill thee with cheerfulness and exalted feeling, however deep in obscurity your lot may be, that God is leading you on, girding you for a work, preparing you to a good that is worthy of His Divine magnificence. If God is really preparing us all to become that which is the very highest and best thing possible, there ought never to be a discouraged or uncheerful being in the world. H. B. Know well this truth: of all fixed laws in the universe, the most unalterably fixed is the prevalence of that holy and unchanging will that makes for righteousness—no vague, blind tendency in a fortuitously evolving universe, but the personal will of a personal God, whose eye is now and will evermore be upon you as a person, who claims from you the personal love of your finite being, while He offers you the sustaining, personal love of His infinite personality. In this busy, self-blinded world, wherever God so touches the eyes of a man that he sees clearly this great truth, there is evoked the power that is and ever has been the soul of the world. And without this soul-power, this moral earnestness, this spirit of unselfishness, of what avail is all the progress of our nineteenth century? What is all this vast body of material wealth, increased production by machinery, facility of intercourse between nations, rapid transit, and electric thought and speech, unless there be the high-souled, noble purpose to animate it? The world has never seen, the world will never see, "that light which is the master light of all our seeing," save as it flashes down from heaven to earth. From a higher source than self must come that light, that inspiration which is the soul of him who seeks it, and which makes the men who have it the soul of the community in which they dwell. In the proportion in which this soul-life from above, this moral energy that is poured into the lives of men, from the contemplation of the revealed will of God, from the consciousness of personal relations with a personal God who became man and died to save us from ourselves, takes hold upon the rich material life and scientific spirit of this our nineteenth century, in just that proportion will future ages call our age a blessed one. M. E. Gates. 1. To everything—i.e., as the sequel shows, to all human actions and conditions. Season used only here and Neh. 2: 6, Esth. 9: 27, 31, designates a defined, appointed, or certain time; it means specially opportune season or time. The sentiment is, that the when and the where of all actions and occurrences are constituted and ordained of God. They are not within the power of man, and cannot be controlled by him. What is thus announced here in the way of a general proposition is confirmed by the particulars that follow in vs. 2-8. The series begins with the birth and death of every man, and proceeds with recounting some of the more striking actions and occurrences of human life. M. S. 2. Solomon here mingles events which depend entirely on the will of God with those which seem to depend more upon the will of men, to teach us that the latter class of events is as much subject to His controlling providence as the former. J. M. M.—There is “a time to be born,” and however much a man may dislike the era on which his existence is cast, he cannot help himself; that time is his, and he must make the most of it. There is a time to die; and though we speak of an untimely end, no one ever died a moment sooner than God designed, nor lived a moment longer. Hamilton. With respect to the events that may befall us, especially in reference to that great and final event, death, were the period perfectly certain, we should be tempted during the interval to sit down in the indulgence of security. Such knowledge would induce in most men the greatest rashness and presumption. While the event was at a distance they would gratify their appetites without restraint; they would, upon system, procrastinate attention to their eternal interests; whereas the uncertainty of its arrival furnishes the highest reason for being always ready, and renders the neglect of preparation the greatest folly and infatuation. R. Hall. If length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life; think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them. And since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this life will never be far from the next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of it. Browne.—The heavenly Divine life that is communicated by the Spirit of Christ to believers remains entire when the sensitive life is lost. The natural order is, “There is a time to be born, and a time to die.” The supernatural is, there is a time to die, and a time to be born. Bates. 3. Time to break down, . . . to build up. (By accommodation. B.) In our day, a waking rest of travel, change of scene, new society is permitted, and when it is a privilege assumed by faithful men to recruit them for their works of duty, they have it by God's sanction, and even as a part of the sound economy of life. Going after a turn of gayety or dissipation, not after Christian rest, or going after rest only because you are wearied and worried by selfish overdoings, troubled and spent by toils that serve an idol, is a very different matter. The true blessing of rest is on you only when you carry a good mind with you, able to look back on works of industry and faithfulness, suspended for a time, that you may do them more effectively. Going in such a frame, you shall rest awhile, as none but such can rest. Nature will dress herself in beauty to your eye, calm thoughts will fan you with their cooling breath, and the joy of the Lord will be strength to your wasted brain and body. Ah! there is no luxury of indulgence to be compared with this true Christian rest. Money will not buy it, shows and pleasures cannot woo its approach, no conjuration of art or contrived gayety will compass it even for an hour; but it settles, like dew, unsought, upon the faithful servant of duty, bathing his weariness and recruiting his powers for a new engagement in his calling. Go ye thus apart and rest awhile if God permits. H. B. There is a time to rest. And the chief value of it is not for that jaded muscle or jaded brains; but in giving larger and juster views of life, in recognizing our relations to one another and adjusting them, in evening things up in the life march of battle. When we rest we give our better selves a chance. We give the passions a chance to cool off, and some shy sentiments of our better manhood are given a hearing, which in the whirls of our ambition they never get. Life will be a rounder thing, when to the passion for getting and doing and ruling we add the sweet contentment of being—the sweet nobleness of serving; when to the egoism of self-centring action we add the altruism of benevolence and kindness. To be really great we must take counsel of our whole selves—we must have the tenderness that forbears as well as the bravery that strikes. Let us sit down with ourselves under the trees, where the birds sing and the dust of the world is far away, let us cool our foreheads and ask, “What will it profit a man if he gain the world and lose his soul?” Then in the silence let us insist on our souls, and the gains that come to them, through surrender of world-gains and the rest from world-toils, the gains which, being once our own, shall make toil a constant delight, and, smoothing from our foreheads the lines of care, shall crown them with that holy peace, which is the sign of right living. Interior. 4. There is a time when God's providence calls to weep and mourn, and when man's wisdom and grace will comply with the call; on the other hand, there is a time when God calls to cheerfulness, and then He expects we should serve Him with joyfulness and gladness of heart. The time of weeping is put before that of laughter, for we must first sow in tears and then reap in joy. H. 7. To keep silence, to speak. We must have times of solitude and spaces of withdrawing; and we must have the liberty of our own thoughts to keep them back or give them out. To have joys ventilated always by expression—the same expression or the same roundelay of praise—would drug our sensibility and become wearisome beyond endurance. H. B.—There is danger in unwise speech, but there is also danger in unwise silence. When one ought to speak and yet remains silent, silence is absolutely sinful. When one might speak to advantage and yet refrains, silence is culpable and sometimes even cruel. It may be a duty to cry out in alarm, in warning, or in protest; and to fail of so doing may make one a sharer of the unaverted evil. A word of approval or of sympathy may help a crushed or a struggling soul into new life and new achieving of success. S. S. T.—A bitter word may make a wound that will never heal. A kind word may win a friend that will never turn. A caution may save a soul; and yet silence is sometimes more stinging, and at other times more soothing than any word. Anon. To whatever sphere speech belongs, it would seem to stand unsurpassed—nay, unequalled in it—by anything else. If it be a production of nature, it is her last and crowning production, which she reserved for man alone. If it be a work of human art, it would seem to lift the human artist to the level of a Divine Creator. If it is the gift of God, it is God's greatest gift; for through it God spake to man, and man speaks to God in worship, prayer, and meditation. Max Müller.—Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together, so that at length they may emerge, full formed and majestic, into the daylight of life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Carlyle. There is a time when silence is the speech of faith. It is the time when the iron of bereavement and other suffering enters into the soul. "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it." This silence, which asks not why God did, but is dumb because He did it, is the highest eloquence of faith. For the instinct of suffering is to ask a reason. Faith consists in neither asking nor answering that terrible "Why?" The highest speech of faith in such an hour is silence. C. C. Hall. 9,10. There is indeed no profit in that where-in we labor; the thing itself, when we have it, will do us little good; but if we make a right use of the disposals of Providence about it, there will be profit in that. I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men, not to make up a happiness by it, but to be exercised in it, to have various graces exercised by the variety of events, to have their dependence upon God tried by every change, and to be trained up to it, and taught both how to want and how to abound. H.—Here it is distinctly asserted that all the vicissitudes of life are divinely appointed, and are not left to fate or accident, and that Solomon viewed them as all under the direction of God, for the discipline of man. This he makes more clear in the next verse. 11. He asserts that there is a beauty in all the works and ways of Divine Providence. Beautiful expresses the true meaning. He is describing how these works and ways strike the mind of a beholder, who surveys them from the true standpoint. He sees how every event takes place at the proper time and fits each into its proper place, carrying forward with a steady movement the great plan of Divine wisdom; and all this vast machinery moving with as much silence as precision and order. He listens, and hears no jar, no grating. "Beautiful!" he exclaims. He next tells us what that true standpoint is, or how it is that man, amid the seeming defeats, disasters, and cross-purposes which surround him, can discover beauty in the mysteries of Divine Providence. God hath placed eternity in his heart, without which he could not understand the work which God doeth from beginning to end, i.e., he hath planted the idea or conviction of immortality in every human heart; and it is in the light of that duration that he sees the perfection and consummate, beauty of all God's works and ways. J. M. M. It may be difficult to define beauty. It may not be important to do so. Indeed, beauty may be simple as truth, and ultimate as the right, and undefinable as either; yet it is none the less real, and is recognized and known by a correlated, sympathetic faculty of the soul. This spiritual faculty or aesthetic sense is native to the human soul. Analysis, as it discovers delicacy and variety of color; regularity and symmetry of form; waving lines and lines of grace; ease and gentleness of motion; purity and nobility of expression; the repose of power or the calm of a meek and quiet spirit; the harmony of poetic numbers or the melody of music; nicely adjusted order and proportion; higher than all (if not comprehending all), unity in variety; and highest of all, the beauty of holiness, whether human, angelic, or Divine—such analysis may illuminate, but it cannot originate the vision of beauty. Conscience may purify and ennoble, but it would not, it cannot, nullify or abrogate this fine and kindred faculty of the soul. And this faculty or aesthetic sense of the soul may be developed by use, strengthened by judicious exercise, improved by proper discipline, quickened, refined, cultivated by careful training. Thus it may be brought to recognize more quickly, to feel more sensitively, to know more surely, to comprehend more largely, to understand more thoroughly the spiritual significance of the beautiful, rejecting more and more the sensuous and the sensual, rejoicing more and more in the pure and perfect, communing more habitually and cordially with the true and good. And Divine inspiration would enlarge our view and clarify our vision and unite—re-unite—the ministry of the beautiful with the true and the good. The Scriptures have much to say of beauty. Many of its loveliest and loftiest utterances are upon this exalted theme. We meet with them in Prophecies, and Proverbs, and Psalms, in Gospels and Epistles, in the Parables, in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The theme is not only attractive, but is all comprehensive, e.g., in Ecclesiastes we read, “God hath made everything beautiful in His time.” We read of “the beauty of the Lord our God,” and pray that “it may be upon us;” of “the beauty of holiness,” and are directed to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” The divine promise is, “He will beautify the meek with salvation.” The prophet declares of Messiah the Prince that He shall “appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning;” and of him who walketh righteously and turneth away his eyes from beholding evil, that “he shall see the King in His beauty,” “who is the chiefest among ten thousand and the One that is altogether lovely.” And the promise transcendent is, “When He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is”—a beauty and blessedness including yet surpassing even a home in the New Jerusalem and the mansions in heaven. Thus the Divine Word with inspired vision ranges all the realms of beauty, material and mental, moral and spiritual, human and Divine. Prophets and apostles, the Psalmist and the Saviour, each and all point to the beautiful as valid and valuable, and present us ideals that are pure and purifying—related evermore to the true and the good. R. B. Welch. God has placed us in a world that witnesses of Him in two ways. It is a world of manifold and most marvellous contrivances, and exhibits Him as a mechanician of extraordinary skill and power, working, moreover, with the manifest design of advancing man's bodily and social interests. It is also a world of intense and varied beauty and sublimity, so arranged as, in a certain sense, to give us an adumbration of Him, "a revelation of the character of God in the way of material type and similitude." The beauty which some would elevate into a religion is no religion in itself, but it speaks of a God, who has impressed on nature as far as was possible shadows of His attributes. It speaks of His perfection, of His glory, of His worthiness to absorb us and fill us with a passion of love. To rest in beauty without going further and tracing it to its source is to stop short where God intended us to reach forward. It is to forget that though the sublimity and beauty of nature may please the imagination and even refine and exalt it, they cannot in themselves affect the soul or change the heart. It is only when we "look through nature up to nature's God" that we reach the real teachings of nature, and hear her true voice. G. R. There is a chord in the human heart to which the beautiful and sublime respond, whether these appear in the material or spiritual world. If we could only take men away for a little out of the dull, dead round, and from the corroding and often debasing things that draw them down in their common life, there are objects such as these appealing to them daily and hourly, and asking them if they have not a soul. Rich sunsets and moonlit skies are there, requiring only eyes to see them, and acts of self-devotion and heroism are being performed, and lives of patient suffering led, under our sight, which are as capable of thrilling as anything recorded in history. Ker. We see an incalculable amount of things fitted to give enjoyment—useful things, beautiful things, sublime things; things grateful to the ear, to the sight, to the soul; pleasant lights and shadows; sweet perfumes and sounds; golden grains and fruits; lovely features, forms, flowers, landscapes; glorious rivers and cataracts and mountains and oceans and skies—in thronging hosts which no arithmetic can compute. Further, mixed up with this natural good is a great amount of such as is of a still higher nature. There are many fair and noble spiritual qualities revealing themselves within our observation or knowledge; there are generous impulses and affections, exalted patiences, fortitudes, heroisms, magnanimities; above all, pure solid Christian virtue in very many incontestable and even glorious instances, the record of which thrills us as we read. If, then, we hold God responsible for the sorrows, disorders, and other disadvantages of the world, it is but fair to give Him credit for the happiness and virtue, and manifold advantages that exist. If one class of facts is allowed to argue against a good God, then the other class must be allowed to argue in His favor. And confessedly, the happiness of the world is far greater than its sorrow; almost every living creature has a thousand moments of comfort to one moment of pain. Confessedly, the noxious things, the deformed things, the things that wound the senses and the esthetical nature, bear no sensible proportion to the useful, the comely, the gratifying things that be-green and be-blossom this beautiful world. Burr. We cannot look round us without being struck by the surprising variety and multiplicity of the sources of beauty of creation, produced by form, or by color, or by both united. It is scarcely too much to say that every object in nature, animate or inanimate, is in some manner beautiful; so largely has the Creator provided for our pleasures through the sense of sight. It is one of the revelations which the Creator has made of Himself to man. He was to be admired and loved; it was through the demonstrations of His character that we could alone see Him and judge of Him; and in thus inducing or compelling us to admire and love the visible works of His hand, He has taught us to love and adore Himself. Macculloch. Christian thought and feeling may appropriate to its own high uses all that is noble in taste and beautiful in art, and, by the inner transforming power of devotion, ennoble and spiritualize these outer things. Nay, religion, in one sense, asserts its right to all that is beautiful and noble and lovely on earth, and by its regal touch confers on earthly things a heavenly dignity. There are ways in which all the treasures of genius, all the creations of poetry, all the resources of art, may be made tributary to the cause of Christ. Still, it should never be forgotten that the refinements of art may become not the means, but the end. Caird.—Surely beauty is a good, for it is the Divine handiwork. Surely that living God who has made the sea like amethyst and the body of heaven like paved work of a sapphire stone, who has filled the groves with song, and embroidered the meadows with flowers, and clothed the mountain with garments of glory, he who has planted in man the secret spring of music and planned that delicate organism which vibrates so sensitively to the breath of pleasure, He would not have us stand blind and deaf and dumb in the midst of His fair universe. He framed man for delight in loveliness. He gifted him with power to imitate and interpret and idealize works of nature in human art. He claimed the services of these faculties in the decoration of His own most sacred temple. And he has forever reminded us, in the words of Christ, that the beauty of the world is a Divine creation, and that the very raiment of the lilies is woven and colored by the hand of God. Christianity has no room in it for asceticism, for a silent, sullen, downcast, unbeautiful existence. Let us bring beauty into our lives; but let it be the beauty of holiness. Let us make our churches and our homes fair as well as pure, bright as well as good. Let us accept the gracious ministry of art as a service to our higher nature, and use it to adorn the doctrine of God, our Saviour. Van Dyke. We do not sufficiently dwell upon the moral and spiritual uses of beauty in God's universe. That everywhere His loving, wooing hand should touch the flower into grace and deck all barren places with glory and with fairness—what does that reveal to us about Him? It says to us, He does not give scantily; it is not the mere measure of what is wanted, absolutely needed to support a bare existence, that God bestows. He taketh pleasure in the prosperity of His servants. Joy, and love, and beauty, belong to Him; and the smile upon His face that comes from the contemplation of His own fairness flung out into His glorious creation is a prophecy of the gladness that comes into His heart from His own holiness and more ethereal beauty adorning the spiritual creatures whom He has made to flash back His likeness. The flowers of the field are so clothed that we may learn the lesson that it is a fair Spirit and a loving Spirit, a bountiful Spirit and a royal heart that presides over the bestowments of creation and allots gifts to men. A. M.—He hath made everything beautiful. But nothing is so "beautiful" in His sight as the heart that trusts and loves Him. He has made the laws of fitness and of grace to be steadfast and sacred; but he tells us that all the outward graces of propriety and art are but dim symbols of the clustering group of spiritual graces that His own immediate Spirit makes to bud and unfold and yield their ripened fruitage in the believing soul of man. F. D. H. 11. To set eternity in their heart means to give them the faculty of considering and being moved by the past and the future. As to the word “olam,” interpreters are divided between two meanings. “Eternity,” not as metaphysically conceived, but in the sense of a long, indefinite period of time, in accordance with the use of the word throughout this book and the rest of the Old Testament. Delitzsch says, “God has placed in the inborn constitution of man the capability of conceiving of eternity, the struggle to apprehend the everlasting, the longing after an eternal life.” The other meaning is “the world,” or the universe in which we dwell. With this meaning the context is explained as referring either to the knowledge of the objects in this world, or to the love of its pleasures. This meaning seems to be less in harmony with the context than the other; but the principal objection to it is that it assigns to the word (olam) a sense which it never bears in the language of the Old Testament. W. T. B.—Gesenius defines it, “remote time, eternity, everlasting.” Hengstenberg says it is “never used in the entire Old Testament in any other sense than of ‘unmeasured time’ and of ‘eternity;’ and in this book above all is it employed in the signification ‘eternity.’” Y. No other meaning but that of a duration the end or beginning of which is hidden from us, and which therefore is infinite, is ever connected with this word in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and this is its uniform sense in this book. We must translate, as the nearest equivalent, He hath set eternity (or, the everlasting) in their heart. Man has the sense of an order perfect in its beauty. He has also the sense of a purpose working through the ages from everlasting to everlasting, but “beginning” and “end” are alike hidden from him, and he fails to grasp it. E. H. P. I translate, “God hath done (and is ever doing) everything beautifully in its season; also, He hath put eternity in their heart, without which man will not (or, cannot) find out the work that God doeth from beginning to end.” That is, he hath given man the thought or idea of eternity, and without its aid no man could ever understand these works of God in providence in all their just and far-reaching relations. For these providential agencies of God in their plans and results reach onward into eternity. They lap over from this world into the next, unfinished here, to be completed there. Retribution for the deeds of earth, beginning sometimes here, is to be finished there. The frustration of human plans for time has an outlook to the hopeful compensations of eternity. “These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” and therefore are wise in God’s plan and well for His children. Hence there is no understanding the ways of God here save as you take into the account their bearings upon the destiny that awaits men there. All the other words in this passage conspire to sustain this interpretation. The first word, “also,” implies something more of the same sort. This corresponds with the construction which I suggest. God hath done two things of kindred bearing and significance—viz.: First, He hath done everything in His providence most beautifully and fitly in its time; secondly, He hath also put in man’s heart the idea of eternity, without which man could not find out either the wisdom or the love of these works of God’s providence from beginning to end—another gift to man quite analogous to the former gift of a well-ordered course of Providence. First, to ordain a course of providential dealings wisely; and, secondly, to give man the idea of eternity, so that he can understand what would otherwise seem to him inexplicable and perhaps unjust—these two things complement each other, and fill out the plan of God for revealing Himself and His ways to men. Further, the words rendered, “so that,” which express the relation between God’s giving man the idea of eternity and man’s not finding out God’s works perfectly, have for their first and legitimate sense, without which. That is, without this idea of eternity man neither will nor can find out God’s work fully. Finally, the construction above suggested and defended corresponds admirably with the qualifying clause, “find out the work that God doeth from the beginning to the end;” for, without the idea of eternity, man might find out some of God’s works and ways, at least in some of their bearings and relations. But those methods of God’s providential government over men which embrace the moral discipline of suffering here, correlated to glorious compensation there; or His long-suffering endurance with sin here, to be set right at last by swift and just retribution there, can by no means be understood by the human mind save with the aid of this idea of eternity. Whenever we take in the whole range of those far-reaching plans of God which stretch “from the beginning to the end,” we must have eternity in our hearts; and hence He has given it. Thus every several point—I might say every word of this passage—harmonizes admirably with the construction above given, leaving, it would seem, nothing more in the way of sustaining proof to be desired. H. C. I believe that God has set eternity in the hearts of men, as the royal preacher declared when discoursing on the vanity of all earthly good; that God made man an image of His own eternity, as the author of the Book of Wisdom affirmed; and that without such a postulate human life becomes a hollow mockery and a biting irony. It is a wondrous unanimity of intuitive conviction that meets us in the tombs of Egypt and the temples of China, in the hieroglyphics of Assyria and the Indian legends, and in the world's profoundest thinkers in Greece, Rome, and Palestine. There is a swing in the soul's thought that carries it beyond what it can prove in the affirmation of its own dignity and destiny. Behrends.—Man's real dignity and supremacy lies in this, that he is made for immortality; that he is capacious of the Divine; that he has relations to the infinite and the eternal; that his present state is but the vestibule of his being; and that when his journey through this toilsome and hazardous waste of earth shall have been accomplished he shall, provided he have worthily achieved his probation, reach the proper home and resting-place of his spirit in heaven. W. L. A. The sense of immortality is deepened by all that brings the personal soul consciously face to face with the personal God who made it. The sense of immortality is deepened by penitence; for penitence is the sincere exercise of memory upon our past existence, under the guidance of the love of God. It is deepened by prayer; for prayer is the voice of the inmost soul consciously speaking to its God. It is stimulated by acts of self-sacrifice, which kindle into intense consciousness the immortal germ of life, though they may for awhile depress, at the bidding of eternal principles, its earthly tenement. It prompts and is strengthened by a genuine love of man as man. Doing justice to the greatness of human destiny, it has no heart to dwell upon the accidents of birth, or station, or income, or accomplishments which overlie the mighty reality upon which alone its gaze is persistently fixed. But it attains its greatest strength, it prepares for its loftiest triumphs, at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, since the agony of the Divine Victim reveals the price and yields the measure of the life of the human soul. Thus they who, like David, have gazed on the dying Redeemer by the light of prophecy, or who, like Paul, in the full sunshine of the Gospel, have determined "to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified" have enjoyed in the highest degree the sense of immortality. H. P. L. The more profoundly we feel the reality of the great eternity whither we are being drawn, the greater do all things here become. They are made less in their power to absorb or trouble, but they are made infinitely greater in importance as preparations for what is beyond. How absurd, how monotonous, how trivial it all is, all this fret and fume, all these dying joys and only less fleeting pains, all this mill-horse round of work which we pace, unless we are, mill-horse-like, driving a shaft that goes through the wall, and grinds something that falls into "bags that wax not old" on the other side. The end makes the means important; and if we believe that God is preparing us for immortal life with Him by all our work, then we shall do it with a will; otherwise we may well be languid as we go on for thirty or forty years, some of us doing the same trivial things, and getting nothing out of them but food, occupation of time, and a mechanical aptitude for what is not worth doing. But when we see that all paths lead to heaven, and that our eternity is affected by our acts in time, then it is blessed to gaze, it is possible to love the earthly shadows of the uncreated beauty, it is worth while to work. A. M. God hath set eternity in our hearts. He has given us a hunger which can be satisfied only with the Bread of Life, a thirst which can be quenched only by the living water from the Rock of Ages. Eternity is in our hearts, and there is a strange contrast between it and the world in which we all are, for which alone some of us are living. To do our duty here, to trust calmly in a future with God, where all our higher cravings shall be satisfied—that was the conclusion at which the Preacher arrived as the sustaining power amid the wrongs, and weariness, and inequalities of life. We stand with that great teacher in the twilight, but our faces are turned toward the rising Sun. God hath set eternity in our hearts. Are we living worthy of it? Anon. 12. Over and above the life of honest labor and simple joys which had been recognized as good before, the seeker has learned that "doing good" is in some sense the best way of getting good. E. H. P.—To rejoice, and to do good. The pleasure of doing good remains after a thing is done, the thoughts of it lie easy in our minds, and the reflection upon it ministers to us ever after joy and delight. In this passage Solomon, after all his experience of wordly pleasures, pitches at last upon this as the greatest happiness of human life, and the only good use which is to be made of a prosperous fortune. Archbishop Tillotson.—What have we our beings, capacities, and estates for but to be some way serviceable to our generation? We mistake if we think we were born for ourselves; no, it is our business to do good, it is in that that there is the truest pleasure, and what is so laid out is best laid up and will turn to the best account. Observe, it is to do good in this life, which is short and uncertain; we have but a little time to be doing good in, and, therefore, had need to redeem time. Every man's life is his opportunity of doing that which will make for him in eternity. H. If you labor to create good company in this life by trying to make other people round you good, you shall enjoy forever in the next world the good company which you have helped to make. If you labor to make yourself good in this life, you shall enjoy the fruit of your labor in the next life by being good, and, therefore, blessed forever. Your labor is not vanity and vexation of spirit. It is solid work, which shall receive solid pay from God hereafter. Kingsley.—The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven. Richter. Whatever apparent incompatibility there may be between having a residence in one world and a conversation in another, the religion of Christ boldly meets that difficulty and puts it out of the way. A life which reconciles these contradictory things is not only possible, but is the practical object and the triumph of every Christian man. We can be busy, neighborly, charitable, enterprising, getting our livelihood, making some earthly spot more beautiful as well as more righteous, and all the time “looking for and hastening unto” an immortality infinitely better—wearing on our whole manhood or womanhood the stamp of a consecrated purpose and an unworldly secret in the soul. No man living to himself, no man dying to himself, life and death are both transfigured by an indestructible communion with an invisible Friend and Lord. We can, by the Spirit’s help, be in the world without “minding” earthly things selfishly, greedily, ambitiously, or irreligiously. F. D. H. Be helpful! Communicate ideas! Give out moral energy! Let the light we have shine! We do not lose moral or intellectual power by giving an impulse to our neighbor. Here is the difference between mechanical forces and intellectual, moral, social forces. If you give your neighbor a “cut-off” with half the electric current that lights your house or runs your factory, your own house must go half-lighted, your own factory can do but half its work. But when you give him your best thought and your heartiest, friendliest sympathy, there is more light, more warmth, more power for you both. By giving, you gain! Your own thoughts become clearer. Your own conviction is more intense. Your own power of right feeling and right willing is strengthened. By such unselfish efforts for others we keep the horizon broader and the heart fresher. To do such service we shall need a steady fire of love in the heart. To overcome inertia in ourselves and in others; not to be overawed and silenced by the numbers of the dull, the timid, and the vicious, who oppose all changes for the better; to make our way up steep grades of moral progress; to draw our load steadily every day, and with our own burdens to bear also the burdens of others less strong than we—this calls for an impelling power constantly renewed and unfailing. M. E. Gates. 13. Recognizes the fact that God has provided for us sources of physical enjoyment in our daily bread, and in the consciousness of power and success in producing desired results. These are gifts of God to men. An infinite Father to us, He delights to see His children enjoying His bounty, and with humble acknowledgment and grateful love exercising the powers of labor and acquisition which He has bestowed. A just sense of our relations and obligations to God will guard us against the gross and grievous mistake of living to eat and drink, and thus of eating and drinking so as to debase ourselves even below irrational animals. Hence while commending the moderate enjoyments of our constitutional appetites, Solomon continually suggests the thought that these enjoyments come to us from God, our Great Father. H. C.—Let us make ourselves easy, rejoice and enjoy the good of our labor, as it is the gift of God, and so enjoy God in it and taste His love, return Him thanks, and make Him the centre of our joy; eat and drink to His glory, and serve Him with joyfulness of heart in the abundance of all things. Grace and wisdom to do this is the gift of God, and it is a good gift, which crowns the gifts of His providential bounty. H. 14. It is a thought worthy of Almighty God that everything He touches partakes of His own immortality; that He cannot lay to His hand in vain; that what has once lain in His counsels must one day, sooner or later, stand out into the light, and that which once has taken form under His power must go on forever. J. Vaughan.—And God rules thus with supreme authority and with a wisdom all His own and a steadfastness of purpose that no created being can change, in order that men may fear before Him. Such majesty and such immutability in wisdom, justice, and love, become the infinite throne of the universe. It is altogether well that the universe has such a Father, such a Ruler, such a God! H. C. Permanence and perfection are the two grand qualities of all God's works. Man's work at best is only imperfect and unenduring. The effect of a studious and earnest contemplation of God's work is to make men "fear before Him." To see that it is essentially unchanging through all the mutations of human affairs, and that it can neither be improved by addition nor subtraction, overwhelms us with awe. Pierson.—The works of God are distinguished by opportuneness of development and precision of purpose. There is a season for each of them, and each comes in its season. All of them have a function to fulfil, and they fulfil it. To which he here adds that they are all of their kind consummate—so perfect that no improvement can be made, and, left to themselves, they will be perpetual. How true is this regarding God's greatest work, redemption! What more could He have done to make it a great salvation than what He had already done? or what feature of the glorious plan could we afford to want? And now that He has Himself pronounced it a "finished" work, what is there that man can put to it?—what is there he dare take from it? And in doing it He has done it "forever." Hamilton. 15. Requireth for judgment, as the word specially means in 2 Sam. 4:11; Ezek. 3:18, etc. It is obvious from vs. 14, 16, and 17 that this is the meaning here. The meaning of the verse is that there is a connection between events past, present, and future, and that this connection exists in the justice of God, who controls all W. T. B. God requireth the past for our present consolation. He takes up all we have left behind in the plenitude of His existence. The friends who have gone from us live in Him; the days that are no more are revived in Him. The successive periods of our existence, like lights and shadows on a sunny hill, have not perished in the using; their fleeting moments and impressions have been laid up forever in the storehouse of the infinite mind. In converse with Him in whom thus all our life is hid, upon whose mind the whole picture of our existence is mirrored, we feel that, though lonely, we are not alone; though the perishing creatures of a day, we are living even now in eternity. God requireth the past for its restoration. As the context indicates, it is a law of the Divine manifestation, a mode of the Divine working in every department, that the past should be brought forward into the present, the old reproduced in the new. God never wearies of repeating the old familiar things. He keeps age after age, generation after generation, year after year, the same old home-feeling in His earth for us. And is not this a strong argument that He will keep the old home-feeling for us in heaven; that we shall find ourselves beyond the river of death in the midst of all the former familiar things of our life, just as when we get out of the winter gloom and desolation of any year we find ourselves in the midst of all that made the former springs and summers so sweet and precious to us? God requireth the past for judgment. It is an awful thought that the indictment of the impenitent sinner at the bar of Divine justice has been carried about with him unconsciously all his life in his own bosom, that he himself is the strongest witness against himself. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked and slothful servant." Macmillan. All things are to come up again. Nor are they to come up merely for judgment; they are to come up again also for life. They are to come up as seed comes up in harvest. They are to come up as elements of character. Men have been and are now everywhere putting into the furrows of their being the germs of what they are to be, to do, or to suffer hereafter. They are germs of indestructible activity and power. They are habits and elements whose roots strike here, but whose life and fruits are to fill eternity. Men write their future in their present, not only because God keeps the record of their past and will judge it, but because God hath made their present time their spring-time; and present character, character between the cradle and the grave, determines the eternal character. So all things are to come up, as elements of joy or grief, comfort or disappointment. Thoughts, things, words, feelings, experiences, knowledges, forms of discipline, losses, adversities, trials, blessings, enjoyments, opportunities, privileges, neglects, omissions, prayers, efforts, struggles, failures, successes— all things are to come up; in themselves for judgment, in their consequences for existence, for experience, for the life of life, or the life of death, for life in life, or life in death, forever! For God requireth it. Cheever. I feel assured that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind. A thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever, just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn. De Quincey.—There is both proof and instance that relics of sensation may exist for an indefinite time in a latent state in the very same order in which they were originally impressed; it is even probable that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable, and if the intelligent faculty should be rendered more comprehensive it would require only a different and apportioned organization—the body celestial instead of the body terrestrial, to bring before the human soul the collective experience of its whole past existence. And this—this, perchance, is the dread Book of Judgment, in whose mysterious hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded. Coleridge. 16,17. The sixteenth and seventeenth verses bring out the great doctrine of a future judgment in all its force and clearness. He saw “under the sun,” in this world, “the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.” He saw earthly judges partial and unrighteous—wronging the innocent, and clearing the guilty. And God seems to be like them, if we look no further than this world. But this leads Solomon to the great utterance of his heart in the seventeenth verse: “I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” The great idea is here fully brought out, for which he had been preparing the minds of his hearers—viz.: Since there is incompleteness, and crookedness, and sorrow, and apparent injustice under the sun, and man labors in vain if his prospects terminate with this life, there must be a future judgment of the righteous and the wicked; there is a future judgment. Y. We are told often and confidently that the ancient Hebrews had no idea of a future state and a future judgment, and therefore Coheleth could have no reference to either. What then did the Hebrews think had become of Enoch and Elijah, after their translation? What is the meaning of being gathered to one's fathers? (Gen. 49:29; Jud. 2:10) Then what means, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore"? (Psalm 16:11.) What shall we say of Psalm 17:13, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake in Thy likeness"? And Daniel, what means he when he tells us that "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt"? Here is not only futurity, but a resurrection of the body itself. Isaiah, too, has added his testimony: "Thy dead men shall live; with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust [i.e., ye dead]; for Thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out [bring forth, in the Hebrew] the dead" (26:19). Beautiful imagery this, in which the grave is represented, like the grass on which dew falls, as fructiferous, and bringing forth its dead as the fruit. This is now generally admitted to refer to the resurrection. And when the Saviour says respecting the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living," does not He suppose the Jews, with whom He was reasoning, to believe in a future state? How can any man reasonably suppose that the Hebrews, with Moses and Samuel and David, Solomon and Isaiah, and other highly distinguished men to teach them, and above all if we believe them to have been inspired—that the Jewish nation knew less than the Egyptian and other heathen nations around them about a future state of existence? Still, I would not claim for Coheleth more than his book will justify. Those who find Gospel-clearness in the Old Testament on such subjects seem to forget that Paul has assigned to the Gospel of Christ the high prerogative of "bringing life and immortality to light." It has brought out into noonday splendor what before was seen only in the twilight. M. S. 18-20. One common law of physical mortality reigns over both man and beast. Each alike receive their bodies from the dust of the earth, and give them back to their mother earth. Considered closely with reference to this part of our being, man has no pre-eminence above a beast. This close construction is obviously demanded by the course of thought—“all go to one place”—the earth; all are made of dust, and all return to it again. This must refer to the body only. H. C.—The thought implied is that without a higher faith of some kind, man stands as having only an animal life, on the same level as other animals. 20. All go to one place.** The "place" thus spoken of is simply the earth, as at once the mother, the nourisher, and the sepulchre of every form of life. E. H. P. A worldly, earthly-minded man has no pre-eminence above the beast, for all that which he sets his heart upon, places his confidence and expects a happiness in, is vanity. Most men live as if they were to be here always, or as if, when they die, there were an end of them; and it is not strange that those live like beasts who think they shall die like beasts; but on such the noble faculties of reason are perfectly lost and thrown away. H.—There are those who lead the life of the ephemeron, in whom there is nothing immortal, spending their days like the beasts that perish—nay, less fitted for eternity than they. No deep thoughts, no acts fought out on deep abiding principles, have been theirs. They live mere accidental beings, light mortals who dance their giddy round above the abysses, looking at the things seen, with transient tears for sorrow and transient smiles for joy. This life is their all, and at last they have fluttered out their time and go forth into endless night. F. W. R. 21. This passage does not deny but, on the contrary, affirms that the spirit of man goes upward to God, who gave it, while the spirit of beasts goes downward to the earth, becoming (as the passage seems to imply) extinct with the dissolution of the body. But in the words "Who knoweth?" the writer assumes that many things respecting the spirit of man and the spirit of beasts were yet unknown. It seems plain that the ancient people of God had from the first this general idea, that the souls of the good at death return to God to dwell in His presence with all who have gone before in purity and blessedness. See Psalms 17:15; 16:11; 73:24, 25; Gen. 15:15; 25:8; 49:29, 33, and 37:35, which last passage shows that this being gathered to one's people was not merely the burial of the body in a common grave. Inasmuch as this is the obvious and usual sense of Solomon's words in this passage, and inasmuch as he certainly avows this sentiment in his last chapter, it must be reasonable to assume that this is his meaning here. H. C. 22. The same sentiment above, in chaps. 3:12, 13; 2:24—his doings, all his actions and efforts. Let each one take all the enjoyment which his efforts can secure. Rational and moderate enjoyment, not epicureanism, is doubtless to be understood here. Confining our view merely to the world of sense, this advice is beyond all doubt correct and proper. Every being instinctively desires enjoyment, and Coheleth would have him secure what he can derive from his efforts, but to enjoy it with moderation and caution. To satisfy our innocent natural appetites and supply our wants is all to which we can attain in the present world. This he urges all to do in order, as it plainly seems, that they may be more contented, happy, and cheerful. M. S. The conclusions to which the author arrives at the various stages of his argument show clearly that a secondary theme—subordinate to the vanity of earthly pleasure—was the real good which God does give man to enjoy in this mortal state. Remarkably he carries along these two great themes—how to abuse the world and make it a worthless vanity, and how to use it so as to get its real good most effectively. H. C. All highest values resolve themselves into personal relations and personal considerations. Instead of the question, "For what do you mean to live?" let me ask you the supreme, all-inclusive question, "For whom do you mean to live?" To this question the tenor of every man's life gives no uncertain answer. Whether he knows it himself or not, his life sends out an answer, clear enough to his fellow-men. The answer, consciously or unconsciously given by every man's life, vibrates full and strong to the keynote of one of these three brief replies: "I mean to live for myself," "I mean to live for my fellow-men," "I mean to live for God." And the last answer is the right answer. He who once sees its force knows well that it includes the second, which may be the mistaken effort of a noble soul striving to rise to the correct answer. This reply cuts the very central nerve of purpose of the first reply. He who lives for God will find himself irresistibly impelled to the best and widest service of his fellow-men. He who lives for self, however carefully he may strive to strengthen his position by maxims of worldly prudence or of a utilitarian philosophy, fails ignominiously of all the highest ends of living. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. THEN I returned and saw 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 2 they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive; 3 yea, better than them both did I esteem him which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. 4. Then I saw all labour and every skilful work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This also is vanity and a 5 striving after wind. The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. 6. Better is an handful with quietness, than two handfuls with labour and striving after wind. 7. Then I returned and saw vanity under the 8 sun. There is one that is alone, and he hath not a second; yea, he hath neither son nor brother; yet is there no end of all his labour, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches. For whom then, saith he, do I labour, and deprive my soul of good? This also is vanity, yea, it is a sore travail. Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth: but how can one be warm alone? And if a man prevail against him that is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 13 Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king, who knoweth not how to receive admonition any more. For out of prison he came forth to be king; yea, even in his kingdom he was born poor. I saw all the living which walk under the sun, that they were with the youth, the second, that stood up in his stead. There was no end of all the people, even of all them over whom he was: yet they that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind. Chap. 4. HAVING arrived in chap. 3:22 at a partial answer to his question (3:9; 1:3)— viz., that there is positive good (i.e., a portion) in that satisfaction which is found in working, Solomon now turns to the case of such happiness being interrupted and reduced to vanity by various contingencies—by oppression (vs. 1–3), by envy (vs. 4–6), by loneliness (vs. 7–12), by decay of working power (vs. 13–16); the first two instances seem taken from the lower ranks of life, the last two from the higher. 1. Some readers have been surprised that instances of injustice and misery, such as are here described, should have occurred in the happy reign of Solomon; and such passages as 3:16; 4:1, and 5:8 have been used as an argument in favor of the hypothesis that the book was written at a later time, e.g., when Palestine was ruled by a governor deputed by the Persian kings. These cases, however, represent only a small portion of the condition of the people described in Ecclesiastes. They cannot be separated from the much more numerous descriptions of wealth, abundance, and enjoyment which would suit no age so well as that of Solomon. Indeed the condition of the people described here and in the Book of Proverbs is one in which a great deal of external prosperity is mixed with a certain amount of violence and injustice. If in Proverbs such passages as chap. 3:10 be compared with chap. 3:31; or chap. 22:1, 2 with chap. 22:16, 22, the whole picture seems to be so much like that which is given in Ecclesiastes, that both descriptions will be recognized as appropriate to the same age. Moreover, the happiness of Solomon's reign must not be exaggerated. The historical description of it (1 Kings 4:20–25) strictly refers only to the kingdom of Israel. In the enormous territory recently annexed thereto by conquest, much confusion, injustice, and oppression by local governors must inevitably have prevailed. However beneficent the personal influence and character of the distant monarch at Jerusalem might have been, yet he could not efficiently control the proceedings of his numerous subordinate officers; and a wise king must have been aware of this state of things. But even in Palestine itself all was not happiness. We are told of the degradation of the non-Jewish inhabitants to a state of slavery by the exaction of forced labor and tribute (2 Chr. 2:17, 18; 8:7, 8, 9); and furthermore of the heavy burden (1 Kings 12:4) imposed even on the Israelites themselves, which contributed to bring about the disruption of the kingdom. Further, we are nowhere told that the cases of oppression mentioned in Ecclesiastes occurred within the dominions of Solomon. There is no reason to suppose that he would abstain from referring, when it suited his purpose, to the condition of other nations as it was made known to him by his intimate acquaintance with the Tyrians, by his intercourse both with Ethiopia and with the countries whose line of traffic passed through Tadmor, and by his commerce with Egypt and with Ophir. W. T. B. 2. If there be no avenger of the wrongs of the oppressed, no time appointed when God will judge the righteous and the wicked, then those who have got through with the miseries of this life are better off than those who are still enduring them. J. M. M. 3. Non-existence is better than existence, if there is no future. To the wicked existence is a curse—they make it so. It had been better for Judas if he had not been born. It is better not to be brought into being than to live a little while in suffering and anxiety and then cease to live forever. This verse cannot be explained on any other principle. Y.—Very ghastly is the picture which our world presents when we look at it as the scene of injustice and cruelty; and very painful is the view it gives us of our arbitrary and oppressive human nature. Could we only see what God is daily seeing and hear what God is daily hearing, we would be apt to join with Solomon, and without the hope of future adjudication we should certainly join with him in praising the dead who are already dead, and who are past our pain or danger. In the music of the spheres its Maker may have given to our world its proper note; but it is a minor tune which is ever sung by its inhabitants, by neighbor nations, and by the several classes of society, evermore to one another crying, “Woe, woe, woe.” Hamilton. 4. Skilful work. Successful work managed skilfully and accompanied with good fortune, so as to ensure the best results. For this a man is envied of his neighbor. And this envy detracts very seriously from the enjoyment of good fortune and success. It brought Solomon to the conclusion: This, too, makes wealth a vanity and a vexation of spirit. H. C.—“Who can stand before envy?” The wealth, honor, success, and especially the virtue of others, awaken envy and hate in the heart of the wicked man. Y. 5. To fold the hands is to assume the position of one unemployed and idle. And consumeth his own flesh. In other words, through idleness he lacks the means of healthful nutriment, and his body pines away under its deprivations. 6. In other words, it is better to be contented with what can be obtained in a quiet way, than to toil incessantly in order to get both hands full, i.e., an overflowing abundance. Cohelet would choose, for himself, neither the extreme of the bustling, covetous man, nor yet that of the idle man, whose inaction must bring him to want. Strive for a sufficiency and be content with that; for this can be procured consistently with quiet. Therefore neither overdo nor be idle. Both are vain and fruitless in their issue. M. S.—Very many rich men wear out life prematurely and deny themselves almost all the common enjoyments of life through having both hands full, with travail and vexation of spirit. Alas! what a comment on the miseries of wealth and on the folly of its too eager pursuit. This passage is remarkably in harmony with the scope of the entire book. Throughout the author commends the moderate amount of earthly good which man needs and can really enjoy, but does not commend the abundance and superfluity which goes far beyond the supply of all legitimate wants. H. C. 7,8. Solomon sketches another picture, in contrast with that of the idle and thriftless man; it is that of the busy miser; and viewing human nature and the world under this aspect, again discovers its vanity as a source of real happiness. J. M. M.—This is the case of a miserly recluse, solitary in the world, with no son and no brother, and, of course, no wife or daughter; who yet toils excessively, and has not the wisdom and the good sense to ask himself, For whom am I wearing out my life and denying myself life's real good? H. C. He never thinks he has enough. His eye is not satisfied with riches. He has enough for his living decently in the world, but he has not enough for his eyes; though he can but see it, can but count his money, and not find in his heart to use it, yet he is not easy because he has not more to regale his eyes with. He denies himself the comfort of what he has. He bereaves his soul of good. Many are so set upon the world that, in pursuit of it, they bereave their souls of good here and forever, bereave themselves not only of the favor of God and eternal life, but of the pleasures of this world too, and this present life. H. The love of money, like all other passions, grows by what it feeds on. Indulgence serves only to strengthen it, and to render it the more insatiable. What seemed a fortune before it was attained dwindles into comparative poverty when it has been actually acquired. It is measured every year by a new standard—the standard of a more ambitious style of living—of new wants and more expensive tastes. That which at an earlier stage of his career would have been accounted extravagance has now almost the aspect of meanness. The point at which he is prepared to say that it is enough is like the horizon, to which the traveller, however far and however fast he journeys, never gets any nearer. The case now described is, to the full, as common in our day as it could have been in the time of Solomon. Buchanan. Great accumulations do but stimulate the appetite for more, and the close of life, instead of being devoted to quiet preparation for death and eternity, is frequently harassed by the vexing cares of acquisition. This is misery indeed. Take away the blessed sun, and everything becomes wintry, frozen, all but dead; take away more blessed love, and the heart is dumb, cheerless, insulated, meanly poor, so that the Latins named such a one miser. Such old age is hopeless and wretched. So Solomon concludes: "This also is vanity; yea, it is a sore travail." J. W. A. 9-12. The proverbs in these verses are illustrated by a saying quoted from the Talmud, "A man without companions is like the left hand without the right." W. T. B.—It is not good for man to be alone in the journey of life. Let him always have a next friend at hand if he fall to help him rise—himself meanwhile the next friend of his companion, to minister in like manner to every need. The doctrine of the passage was probably intended to apply to lawful marriage—the union of one man and one woman; perhaps also to business partnerships, and in general to the closer intimacies and friendships of human life, in which the ministries of affection and of aid are mutual and mutually beneficent. H. C. 10-12. These illustrations appear to be drawn from the experience of two travellers (v. 10). If one slip or stumble on a steep or rocky path, the other is at hand to raise him; or (v. 11), sleeping on a cold and stormy night under the same coverlet, two friends kept each other warm; or (v. 12), against one the robber's attack would be successful; but the two friends defend each other and are saved. E. H. P. There is nothing which gives a greater help to any one who is tempted to flinch from his duty, than to see others doing that very duty cheerfully and heartily. We can help each other very much by being more especially careful to avoid joining in what is wrong. How many have been led into lying or bad language, into unseemly jesting, into sinful disobedience, simply because they found others willing to join them or show them the way! How often has it happened that two coming together have done what neither would have done alone! How often have two mean souls given each other strength in sinning! And if it is easy to combine for evil, clearly it becomes an imperative duty to combine for good. Bishop Temple. 13-16. The remaining verses in this chapter give the mutations of earthly life as seen in the case of kings. Here also we may see that wisdom is better far than folly; wisdom in the sense of sagacity; folly as manifesting itself in egregious self-conceit and stolid ignorance. Better is a child, poor but wise, than a king, old (and rich withal) but foolish, who knows not to be any more enlightened, i.e., who is past being taught—past learning anything—being too wise in his own conceit to be ever really any wiser. H. C. Solomon must have had a prophetic glimpse of the future by his own inspiration or that of the seer Ahijah. The “old and foolish king” is himself. He who “comes out of prison” to glory, like a second Joseph, is Jeroboam. If the prophecy came through himself, he is rapt unto the future. He looks back from the quiet land upon this crowded, passionate life. He sees the throngs of living men moving restlessly to and fro. But in that day they walk not with David’s heir, but with the “second young man,” i.e., Jeroboam; and in the following verse there is an allusion to the meaning of the name Jeroboam (i.e., “whose people are many”). But “the people that come after” shall not rejoice in him. Bishop Alexander. 1. KEEP thy foot when thou goest to the house of God; for to draw nigh to hear is better than to give the sacrifice of fools: for 2 they know not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon 3 earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh with a multitude of business; and a fool's voice with a multitude of 4 words. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou 5 vowest. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not 6 pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the 7 work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities and in many words: but fear thou God. 8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for one higher than the high regardeth; and there be higher than they. 9 Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field. 10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance 11 with increase: this also is vanity. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what advantage is there to the owner thereof, saving the beholding of them 12 with his eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. 13 There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept by the 14 owner thereof to his hurt: and those riches perish by evil adventure; and if he hath begotten a son, there is nothing in his hand. 15 As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labour, which he 16 may carry away in his hand. And this also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath 17 he that he laboureth for the wind? All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he is sore vexed and hath sickness and wrath. 18 Behold, that which I have seen to be good and to be comely is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labour, wherein he laboureth under the sun, all the days of his life which God hath given him: 19 for this is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his 20 labour; this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. Chap. 5. At the beginning of this chapter a difference of style marks a transition to a new branch of the main subject. The Preacher now begins to address his hearer in the second person. The soliloquy, hitherto unbroken, is henceforth interrupted by personal addresses, which are repeated with increasing frequency from this place to the end of the book. Knobel, who divides the whole book into two parts, the first theoretical, the second practical, begins his second division here. The writer, he says, is gradually quitting the position of a philosophical inquirer, and begins to lay down the principles and maxims which he has deduced from his view of life. W. T. B. The discourse becomes preceptive and monitory, which thus far it has not been. The first great question for a man who reverences God is, "How shall I demean myself toward Him, when His providence has placed me in the midst of such trials and disappointments, from which there is no escape? Shall I shun His presence and cease to worship Him, since I despair of any solid good in the present life? If not, how can I worship Him acceptably?" Here Coheletth feels it needful to give his advice in the way of precepts and precautions. M. S. 1. It is of the house of God, which in its full significance means a dwelling made by man for God, by God's command, the building which He calls His dwelling-place, within which He hath inscribed His name, and so consecrated as man's house of prayer and praise, man's place of devout heed to what God Himself declares through His Word and by His Spirit; it is of this consecrated house that the Spirit speaks directively and solemnly in this text. And the direction, Keep thy foot when thou goest thither, and be ready to hear, plainly refers to and intimates what disposition of mind and heart, what tone of thought and feeling befits the soul in entering and abiding within this house. B. "Keep thy foot" enjoins that the very approach to the house of God should be with reverence, even as the Lord said to Moses, "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Ex. 3:6). Draw near to hear is precisely the sense of the second clause, and exhorts the worshippers to enter the inner court, where the priests were accustomed to read the law, and to listen there to this reading as better than to remain without, feasting in a merely sensual way on the portions of their slain animals which in certain forms of sacrifice were designated for this purpose. These professed worshippers really acted the part of fools in neglecting to hear the Word of God and in resorting to the temple only for the sake of these low forms of sensual gratification. Solomon says of them, "They are reckless as to the doing of evil." They seem to have no thought or care how much they sin. H. C. To rest in the sign and ceremony and the outside of the performance, without regarding the sense and meaning of it, that is the sacrifice of fools; none but fools will think thus to please Him who is a Spirit, and requires the heart. They are fools, for they consider not that they do evil; they think they are doing God and themselves good service, when really they are putting a great affront upon God and a great cheat upon their own souls by their heartless devotions. H.—God is much displeased with listless minds, irreverent postures, and heedless spirits in His Church. No doubt it may be pleaded that such faults come of want of thought, and not of any evil intent; but want of thought is itself a very grave offence in such a matter as the service of God. Even levity is inexcusable; for, at all events in adult persons, it comes of hardness of heart, ingratitude to Christ, neglect of reflection on sacred themes and objects, engrossment of thought and affection with the things which are seen, and an indifference to the presence and purpose of the Holy Spirit. Let us study reverence. "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the holy ones, and to be had in reverence of all that are round about Him." D. F. The eye that searches and knows us penetrates to the heart, and there only God finds the genuine elements of worship. The lowly sense of personal unworthiness, the wondering contemplation of the Divine love, the eager longing for mercy to pardon and grace to help, the faith that grasps the promises, the hope that is anchored within the veil, the kindness that breathes benediction all round, the love that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things—it is these things, breathing forth from the hearts of a congregation, that give pleasure to God. W. G. B.—He that truly loveth his friend transporteth himself often to the place where he was wont to see his friend; he delighteth in reading his letters, and in handling the gages and monuments that he hath left behind him. How grateful is the sight of anything that presents unto him the memorial of his absent friend! And thus the child of God, to testify his love to Him, transporteth himself often to the place where he may find God, in His sanctuary, among His saints. He delights in His letters (the Scriptures), in those holy pledges (the sacraments) which He hath left behind Him, as tokens of His good-will, until He come again. Thomas de Trugillo. Though the most remarkable progress of the believer may be upon his knees in secret intercourse betwixt God and him, yet public ordinances are the means of these private intercourses; though the secret may be more comfortable and refreshful, yet the public ordinances lay the foundation of that secret comfort and refreshment. Public ordinances are the wells; but, for ordinary, the children of God are not so much refreshed with the water thereof till once they get home to some secret corner with it, and there they get a more hearty, refreshing drink of the water of life than they got at the public well; but still it was from thence it was fetched; and so the foundation of these private and refreshing meals is ordinarily laid in the public ordinances. It is true, some that go to fetch home water from the well may, according to their need, get a hearty drink of water even at the side of the well, before they bring any water home; and so the Lord's people may, and sometimes do, get a very heartsome and refreshing draught of living water, even at the well-side of public ordinances, while they are hearing the Word, or receiving the Sacrament of the Supper. Erskine. —In cases of necessity Christ in the sacrament vouchsafes to come home to me, and the court is where the King is. His blessings are with His ordinances wheresoever; but the place to which He has invited me is His house. He that made the great supper in the Gospel called in new guests; but he sent out no meat to them who had been invited, and might have come, and came not. Chamber prayers, single or with your family, chamber sermons, sermons read over there, are blessed assistants and supplements to a believer; but when he is become a part of the congregation he is joint tenant with them, and the devotion of all the congregation, and the blessings upon all the congregation, are his blessings and his devotions. Donne. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. A man who is not a church-goer has fallen below a right comprehension of human relations and social reciprocations. Behold the solitary wanderer who has gone away by himself on the holy Sabbath morning! He has missed the Divine idea. He should have said, No; to the centre! to the meeting-place! to the rendezvous!—together, all together—common prayer, common song, common study; and then radiate as you please, carrying the public personality with the narrow individualism, and enlarging the little unit by the infinite completeness of human nature. To hear another human voice is a hint of fellowship, a hint of consolidation, a hint of heaven. We need the Sabbath day, the memorial sacraments, the Holy Book, the preaching man, the fellow-suppliant, the congregation. J. P. Church vagrancy is a legitimate outcome of the Sunday lyceum view. Those who seek little beyond entertainment in going to church will go where they can get the most of it, and will always be drawn by a fresh attraction. We have "auditories" nowadays, and congregations often appropriately figure as "audiences." We cannot too seriously remind ourselves that we ought to go to church, first, last, and always, to worship God, and that everything about the place and the service should help us to do that. New York Examiner. Let thy words be few. Do not speak much, and as men in light and free conversation with familiar friends and equals are apt to do. Speak as penetrated by reverential awe of the exalted majesty and power of God. M. S.—3. This caution applies to all words addressed to God. A multitude of words, poured out irreverently and without serious thought, is compared to the incoherent and unmeaning fancies of dreams when the mind has been overborne with business and cares. In no such manner and spirit should men approach the great God. Let them rather think of Him as filling the highest heavens and yet as condescending in His great compassion to bend His ear thence to the humble prayer of mortals. Let them, therefore, approach his mercy-seat with profoundest gratitude and reverential awe, blended, indeed, with a filial but never a reckless spirit. H. C. He is a profane person that performs holy duties slightly and superficially; all our duties ought to be warmed with zeal, winged with affection, and shot up to heaven from the whole bent of the soul. Our whole hearts must go into them; and the strength and vigor of our spirits must diffuse themselves into every part of them. Truly all our Christian sacrifices, both of praise and prayer, must be offered up to God with fire; and that fire which alone can sanctify them must be darted down from heaven; the celestial flame of zeal and love which comes down from heaven, and hath a natural tendency to ascend thither again, and to carry up our hearts and souls upon its wings with it. Bishop Hopkins. 4,5. The Mosaic Institutes permitted and regulated these solemn vows. (See Num. 30 throughout and Deut. 23: 21-23.) The latter passage is fully in harmony with these words of Solomon. The spirit of the admonition here is, Do not make a rash vow, and then resort to this plea of inadvertence to excuse or extenuate your guilt or justify non-fulfilment. Rather consider beforehand and act deliberately. Make no solemn vow without a serious purpose to perform it. When made, see that you do perform it faithfully. Why should you provoke the displeasure of Almighty God by your rash words and your guilty irreverence, and so bring down His judgments upon the work of your hands? 6. In this somewhat difficult passage I understand the mouth to be named as the organ of speech in making vows and in irreverent prayers. Let not thy mouth rashly involve thy entire person in guilt and consequent suffering. The "angel" here is doubtless the priest, so called because in a sense the messenger of God—the agent acting for God—in the matter of vows especially and of sacrifices and Divine worship generally. H. C. 7. Here the multitude of words refer both to the unmeaning, wordy prayers, and the rash and hasty vows described in the preceding verses. Such prayers and vows are likened to the dreams of the night; they have no meaning, no value; therefore avoid them. Fear God; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. J. M. M.—Men are in peril when they talk too much, and especially when they speak rashly and thoughtlessly before God. The precept of wisdom in this case is, Fear thou God. Let a deep and wholesome reverence toward God possess thy soul and guard thy tongue against rash words before Him. H. C. 8. Solomon, having clearly announced the doctrine of a future judgment (3: 16, 17; 4: 1), in connection with the oppressions and injustice which are permitted to exist among men, reasserts it here. There is a Higher One in heaven, to whom the highest earthly rulers are accountable. J. M. M.—The last clause of this verse I would translate, "For one who is higher than this high one is observing, and the Most High is over them both;" the meaning of which is that a higher officer is over this oppressive magistrate, taking cognizance of his acts; and the Most High God is over both of them, so that if the superior human ruler fails to bring his subordinate to account, the great God will punish both. H. C. 9. This puts a great honor upon the husbandman's calling, that it is the most necessary of all other to the support of man's life; the many have the benefit of it, the mighty cannot live without it; it is for all. H. 10. Not be satisfied with silver, . . . with increase. The love of money is a passion which money cannot gratify in full. The passion is increased in strength, and made more clamorous by that on which it feeds. As age advances, the restless, insatiable passion exerts a still mightier away. Silver cannot—it never did and never can—satisfy the love of silver. What emphasis truly is there in the words of Solomon, "This is also vanity!" J. M. M.—One evil which attends the possession of riches is an insatiable desire of getting more. It would be no hard matter to assign more instances of such as riches have made covetous than of such as covetousness has made rich. Upon which account a man can never truly enjoy what he actually has through the eager pursuit of what he has not; his heart is still running out, still upon the chase of a new game, and so never thinks of using what it has already acquired. And must it not be one of the greatest miseries for a man to have a perpetual hunger upon him, and to have his appetite grow fiercer and sharper amid the very objects and opportunities of satisfaction? Yet so it is usually with men hugely rich. They have, and they covet; riches flow in upon them, and yet riches are the only things they are still looking after. Their desires are answered, and while they are answered they are enlarged; they grow wider and stronger, and bring such a dropsy upon the soul that the more it takes in, the more it may. South. To greed there may be "increase," but no increase can ever be "abundance;" for could you change all the pebbles on the beach into minted money, or conjure into bank-notes all the leaves of the forest; nay, could you transmute the solid earth into a single lump of gold, and drop it into the gaping mouth of avarice, it would only be a crumb of transient comfort, a cordial drop enabling it to cry a little louder, Give, give. Hamilton.—If this be the nature of this vice, the more it gets still to covet the more, then nothing can be more unreasonable than to think to gratify this appetite; because, at this rate, the man can never be contented, because he can never have enough. Nay, so far as it is from that, that every new accession to his fortune sets his desires one degree farther from rest and satisfaction; for a covetous mind having no bounds, it is very probable that the man's desire will increase much faster than his estate; and then the richer he is, he is still the poorer, because he is still the less contented with his condition. Tillotson. 11. With the increase of wealth in goods, cattle, lands, there comes a demand for an increase of servants and employés to manage them. All these must be fed. Thus the outgoes advance with the incomes. What good, then, has the owner above his servants, except in this, that he can look on these possessions and say, All these are mine! Each alike has his daily bread; the owner no more; and his family, his household and servants no less. Hence the actual enjoyments of life are more nearly equal than is commonly supposed; the special advantage of the rich man above the poor is less than he is wont to think. These facts have a wholesome bearing upon the class for whom Solomon is specially writing. Luther comments tersely: "Whoso then gathers riches, gathers devourers. Therefore, why plague thyself to increase thy treasure? However many possessions thou hast, thou canst not do more than fill and clothe thy poor body. If God gives thee riches, use thy share as thou usest thy share of water, and let the rest flow on; and if thou doest it not, thy gathering will still be in vain." H. C. Translated into its equivalent, money just means food and clothing and a salubrious dwelling. It means instructive books and rational recreation. It means freedom from anxiety and leisure for personal improvement. It means the education of one's children and the power of doing good to others. And to inveigh against it, as if it were intrinsically sinful, is as fanatical as it would be to inveigh against the bread and the raiment, the books and the Bibles, which the money procures. It would be to stultify all those precepts which tell us to provide things honest in the sight of all men; to do good and to communicate; to help forward destitute saints after a godly sort; to make friends of the unrighteous mammon. "Remembering the words of our Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive," the true disciple will value wealth chiefly as he can spend it on objects dear to his dear Lord. To him money is a talent and a trust; and he will feel it a fine thing to have a fortune, because it enables him to do something notable for some noble end. Hamilton. 12. Comparing the man of daily labor with the man of wealth, the former is pretty sure to eat as well and to sleep much better. Such labor almost insures health, and with health the best pleasures of food and sleep. On the other hand, abundance—an excess above his real wants—is so much to be cared for and kept, often with a degree of anxiety that forbids sleep. In this balancing of the relative enjoyments of the two classes, the laborer has altogether the advantage. This also is wholesome doctrine for the wealthy classes, to whom Solomon specially addresses his book. 13. A sore evil it is that riches, the avails of so much labor, should be hoarded by their owner to his damage; kept, locked from use, to be only a curse to their possessor. What a man has paid for so dearly, one would think ought to pay him well in return. What, then, if it only pays him in hurt—rewards him with calamities and curses! The true wisdom of life lies in laboring not for one's self, but for others. Riches accumulated and used on this principle are choice and precious blessings, not only to the great number of others blessed thereby, but specially to the almoner of these blessings. How unlike his expanded and overflowing heart is the shrivelled soul of the miserly man who hoards and keeps to his hurt, so that the more he has, he is only the more wretched! H. C. It is easy to be ruined by success; success is very often failure, and failure success. It is surprising how soon children come to take the conferments of their parents as a matter of course. It is surprising how soon we come to take the conferments of God as a matter of course. C. H. P.—Relatively to others a man may have a right to do what he will with his own, but in truth and before God, no man has a right to use anything except for the end for which it was given. No man has a right to destroy his property wantonly or to use it foolishly, though no other man may have a right to prevent him. M. H. 14. Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great estate left to an heir is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment. Bacon.—Great wealth often proves disastrous to the children of its possessors. It begets dispositions and habits which unfit them to meet the reverses and rebuffs of life. The expectation of a large inheritance prevents their cultivation of those self-reliant feelings and those habits of application to useful employment which are of greater advantage to a young man than the most extensive patrimony. 15,16. Should a man retain all his wealth, and go on adding thereto up to the very hour of his death, he must then leave it all. He can carry nothing away with him when he dies. "In all points as he came, so shall he go." "As his friends," says Henry, "when he came naked into the world helped him with swaddling-clothes, so when he goes out they help him with grave-clothes, and that is all." J. M. M.—The value of all works may be proved by this very simple test, will they follow us? Accompanying us in this world, will they go with us into the next? That only is of real value to a man which he can carry with him. A touchstone that, which neither gold, nor houses, nor broad acres, nor sounding titles, nor household comforts can stand! Guthrie.—We shall have only what we are. What we have made of our life will be all that we can carry with us out of this world up to the judgment-seat. The test of success will be what survives our dust. And that which is most precious does survive. And what is it? The results, the harvest, for good or evil, for weal or woe, of these fleeting years. What shall these be? They are your inventory for eternity. They are your portion forever, to rejoice in or regret. Gillett. 16. The ever-recurring question rises once again, "What profit?" As in Prov. 11:19; Job 16:3; Isa. 26:18, the "wind" is the emblem of emptiness and nothingness. E. H. P. 17. The general sentiment is that this rich man does not even enjoy his food, but all his life eats in darkness, i.e., in sadness, anxiety; is full of discontent; his infirmities irritate his temper and make him intensely unhappy. Probably the writer alludes to those diseases which naturally result from luxurious living, and which so often help to poison the cup of the rich. Thus closes one of the most vivid and truthful descriptions ever drawn by human pen of the wretchedness and folly of the selfish pursuit of wealth. 18. "To this conclusion," he says, "I have come from my observation of human life. It is both good in itself and comely, in the sense of appropriate, befitting man in all his relations, whether to God or to his fellow-men, that he should eat and drink what is needful and wholesome, and should enjoy the good of his labor as he passes on through life, accepting it all with grateful heart to his great Benefactor and Preserver." The beauty of the passage lies in its recognition of God's hand in both the gift of days to live in, and the gift of food and drink to enjoy while he lives. It is pre-eminently wholesome in its moral bearings to keep this sense of God's favor in the gift of days and of daily food evermore fresh upon the heart. It begets a humble trust for the future; allays all wasting anxieties for great accumulations; and inspires us to a ready sympathy and benevolence toward our fellows who may have fallen under sore affliction from the hand of the Lord. This is using the world as not abusing it; using it so as to fill it with heavenly influence toward a filial trust and a grateful love of our Divine Father. H. C. Devotion does not enjoin contempt of the pleasures of human society. It brings amusement under due limitation, without extirpating it. It forbids it as the business, but permits it as the relaxation of life; for there is nothing in the spirit of true religion which is hostile to a cheerful enjoyment of our situation in the world. Blair.—It is lawful and right moderately to taste those pleasures which gratify the innocent sensibilities of our nature, and temperately to join in those rational amusements which serve to recruit the mind after great exertion, and to prepare it for future activity. As sleep is necessary to refresh the powers of the body, so relaxation and amusement are useful in restoring the energies of the mind. But there is great risk of running to excess in these things, and sinking into idleness and frivolity, or something worse. The point of a wise care is to guard against the gradual encroachments of a love of amusements which, though not positively wrong, may come to absorb the whole heart and consume the whole time, rendering us insensible to our proper duties, and at length incapable of discharging them. William Fleming. Christianity forbids no necessary occupations, no reasonable indulgences, no innocent relaxations. It allows us to use the world, provided we do not abuse it. It does not spread before us a delicious banquet and then come with a "touch not, taste not, handle not." All it requires is that our liberty degenerate not into licentiousness, our amusements into dissipation, our industry into incessant toil, our carefulness into extreme anxiety and endless solicitude. So far from forbidding us to engage in business, it expressly commands us not to be slothful in it, and to labor with our hands for the things that be needful; it enjoins every one to abide in the calling wherein he was called, and perform all the duties of it. It even stigmatizes those that provide not for their own, telling them that they are worse than infidels. When it requires us to "be temperate in all things," it plainly tells us that we may use all things temperately; when it directs us to “make our moderation known unto all men,” this evidently implies that within the bounds of moderation we may enjoy all the reasonable conveniences and comforts of the present life. Porteus. The worldly spirit says, “Time is short; take your fill; live while you can.” Christianity says, “Use the world, but do not abuse it. All things are yours. Take them and use them; but never let them interfere with the higher life which you are called to lead.” Unworldliness is the spirit of holding all things as not our own, in the perpetual conviction that they will not last. It is not to put life and God’s lovely world aside with self-torturing hand. It is to have the world, and not to let the world have you; to be its master and not its slave. To have Christ hidden in the heart, calming all, and making all else seem by comparison poor and small. Worldliness is determined by the spirit of a life, not the objects with which the life is conversant. It is not the “flesh,” nor the “eye,” nor “life” which are forbidden, but it is the “lust of the flesh,” and the “lust of the eye,” and the “pride of life.” Worldliness consists in these three things: devotion to the outward, to the transitory, to the unreal; in opposition to love for the inward, the eternal, the true; and one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other. If a man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. But let a man once feel the power of the kingdom that is within, and then the love fades of that emotion whose life consists only in the thrill of a nerve, or the vivid sensation of a feeling; he loses his happiness and wins his blessedness. Let a man get but one glimpse of the King in His beauty, and then the forms and shapes of things here are to him but the types of an invisible loveliness; types which he is content should break and fade. F. W. R. Christianity does adopt and welcome and embrace every trait that the intuition of right minds follows with its admiration. It asks no man to be a whit less manly, less cordial in his fellowships, less cheerful in his temper, less companionable and genial in his relations to society, less penetrating in his sagacity, less noble in his manners, or less punctual in his industry. Manliness enters into the composition of piety. All that the unperverted judgment of the world approves, the Gospel invites. The religion of Jesus has realized its own promise—completing not only Judaism, but all good yearnings and beginnings everywhere. It did not come to destroy, but to fulfil. It had its kindly word at the outset, even for those that, having not the law, did by nature the things contained in the law. And ever since it has spread the benignant arms of its adoption over every worthy purpose and every pure aspiration that will acknowledge its guardianship. Wherever the germs of lofty action unfold themselves, there the fostering hand of its discipline is present to train them. The sublimity of all honorable achievements, the valor of pure-hearted patriots, disinterested sufferings, the patience and fortitude and constancy that come out so grandly in fearful emergencies—they are all as much the Gospel's as they are humanity's. F. D. H. Live happy in the Elysium of a virtuously composed mind, and let intellectual contents exceed the delights wherein mere pleasurists place their paradise. Bear not too slack reins upon pleasure, nor let complexion or contagion betray thee unto the exorbitancy of delight. Make pleasure thy recreation or intermissive relaxation, not thy Diana, life, and profession. Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent pleasure. Our hard entrance into the world, our miserable going out of it, our sicknesses, disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, do clamorously tell us we come not into the world to run a race of delight, but to perform the sober acts and serious purposes of man; which to omit were to play away an uniterable life, and to have lived in vain. Forget not the capital end, and frustrate not the opportunity of once living. Browne. 19. This verse adds to the thought in v. 18 this consideration, that if God gives to a man both riches and the ability to enjoy them, he should accept both these gifts, and especially the latter—the power to enjoy worldly good—as the very gift of God. It so often happens that where God gives riches He gives not the power to enjoy them, that the bestowment of both blessings upon the same man should awaken special gratitude. 20. He will have small occasion to dwell in mournful reminiscence upon the scenes of the past, however trying and laborious they may have been, for God now meets the desires of the heart, giving him both a competence of earthly good, and the ability to enjoy it. H. C.—The man who receives and enjoys his wealth as the gift of God will be a truly happy man. Life to him will not be like the life described in v. 17, one continued scene of darkness, dejection, infirmity, and irritation. J. M. M Careful observers of the times see only too many proofs of the power of the worship of wealth to choke out of the lives of professing Christians the wealth of worship. The perils of mammonism are all the more dangerous because of their insidious character. Some vices so reveal their hideous horror that men are instinctively put on guard, but the love of money eats into character like a canker worm into the root of a tree, secretly, slowly, and surely. Watchfulness over the motives that guide and control human activity will always keep clear the supreme purpose of life, doubtfulness about which is apt to produce a moral mist dangerously suggestive of shipwreck. "Show me," says Fichte, "what thou truly lovest, show me what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart, and thou hast already shown me thy life. This love is the root and central part of thy being. What thou lovest is that thou livest." Every one, consciously or unconsciously, has mapped out for himself some ideal of life to the realization of which he gives the strength of mind and body. The man who makes wealth the object of his pursuit, the goal of his unceasing endeavor, says life is money, and exposes himself to the perils of mammonism. Bad as the aristocracy of the past, with its pomp and pride of social distinction, was, the plutocracy of the present, which threatens to be the aristocracy of the future, is worse. Carlyle had truth and soberness on his side when he denounced the aristocracy of the money-bag as the basest yet known, and when he described mammon as the basest of known gods, even of known devils. Wealth consecrated to noble purposes exalts a nation; wealth which ministers to selfish pleasures and pretentious luxury degrades a people to low levels of thought and action. The millionaires of to-day might with profit learn a lesson from Alexander the Great, who, when asked why he did not gather money and lay it up in a public treasury, replied: "For fear lest, being keeper thereof, I should be infected and corrupted." The keepers of money should live in a mood of salutary fear about the infectious and corrupting qualities of the wealth they possess, ever remembering that while it makes a good servant it makes a bad master, and that the slavery of mammon has power to shrivel manhood into a caricature of what God meant it to be. Covetousness is one great peril of mammonism. The warning of our Lord ought to ring out loud and often from the pulpits of to-day: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Another peril of mammonism is its downward look. God meant men to look up to His sky, shining with the splendor of the sun by day and the glory of the stars by night. In the look upward one begins to worship, great thoughts are wakened, aspirations to be and do kindle, and the education of the soul commences in its being drawn out of the selfish interests of life. But he who yields to the spell of mammonism has his thoughts and looks drawn downward. Other perils of mammonism might be mentioned, but one contains in it at least the germ of all other perils. We refer to the atheism engendered by the life of money-making. The man who thinks and says he is the maker of his own money thinks and speaks blatant atheism. He may be a well-known figure in religious circles and one of the pillars in a prominent church, but all the same he is an atheist, inasmuch as he denies God's share in the prosperity of his life. The man of business who would save himself from the soul-destroying atheism of money-making ought to write in large letters over his desk, read and ponder daily, the words, "Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth." Shut God out of your business life, and you will soon shut Him out of your spiritual life. The perils of mammonism threaten those who make little money as well as those who make much money. The spirit which leads to overvalue and over-love of money is independent of amount. Safety lies in placing one's self in a right moral relation to money. The man who feels himself drifting on to the quicksands of mammonism will find an anchor, sure and steadfast, in cheerful and prompt obedience to the apostolic precept: "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him." Recognize your stewardship; "honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first-fruits of all thine increase;" let the first act of worship on every Sabbath be a setting aside of a portion of the week's proceeds for religious and philanthropic purposes, and you are safe from the perils of mammonism. D. Sutherland. Coheleth is no epicure. Specially is he remote from epicurism, as it concerns the acknowledgment of a God, and gratitude to Him for His blessings. Most earthly pleasures he finds at last to be altogether empty and vain: but the enjoyment of the fruits of one's industry, he repeatedly declares, is a good, and the only good that promises much, while even this is short-lived and transitory. But whatever there is in it of satisfaction, this is God's gift, and not procured by ourselves. A deep and reverential feeling toward God must have prompted such a sentiment, in such a connection. Providence is not taxed with injustice, nor is unbelief in it excited, on account of the apparently indistinguishing distribution of good and evil in the world, or because of the untoward events of life. All good comes from God, and demands thankful acknowledgment. Suffering and sorrow, when they come on all alike, are not things which give us any right to complain. M. S. To show ourselves as we are, making no affectation of reserve or difference from others; to be found at the marriage-feast; to accept the invitation of the rich Pharisee Simon, and the scorned publican Zaccheus; to mix with the crowd of men, using no affected singularity, content to be "creatures not too bright or good for human nature's daily food;" and yet for a man amid it all to remain a consecrated spirit, his trials and his solitariness known only to his Father—a being set apart, not of this world, alone in the heart's deeps with God; to put the cup of this world's gladness to his lips, and yet be unintoxicated; to feel its brightness, and yet defy its thrall—this is the difficult, and rare, and glorious life of God in the soul of man. F. W. R. The Scriptures were not given to solve the problems of social life, or of every-day personal duty, for all time, except by presenting the great principles of duty, of service to God and man, and offering the highest incentives to its performance. The questions which gather about the subject of amusements in our day are settled in the Scriptures only by inculcating the true spirit of the Christian life, and leaving the practical form of that life to the common Christian judgment. James H. Fairchild. This whole question must be taken out of the domain of abstract casuistry. It is not so much a question of absolute right and wrong as of conscience and charity. The spirit of our life is far more important than the letter of our law. The rule of love is higher than the law of liberty. Christianity antagonizes worldliness, it does not conform to it. The Church should deal with it not so much by the axe of discipline as by the sword of the Spirit. Yet, without a doubt, the very law of love may sometimes require a kind, considerate, thoughtful exercise of the disciplinary power of the Church. But our chief appeal must be to the conscience. Our main reliance must be on the spirit and the life demanded by a whole-hearted surrender and commitment to the Lord Jesus. Those who are constrained by the love of Christ can scarcely allow themselves indulgence in any business or recreation, any work or play, into which and through which and out of which they cannot consistently go, with ever-present and affectionate remembrance of Him "who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify us unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." General Assembly, 1869. 1. THERE is an evil which I have seen under 2 the sun, and it is heavy upon men: a man to whom God giveth riches, wealth, and honour, so that he lacketh nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it; this is vanity, and it is an evil 3 disease. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, but his soul be not filled with good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is bet- 4 ter than he: for it cometh in vanity, and departeth in darkness, and the name thereof 5 is covered with darkness; moreover it hath not seen the sun nor known it; this hath rest 6 rather than the other: yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet enjoy no 7 good: do not all go to one place? All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the 8 appetite is not filled. For what advantage hath the wise more than the fool? or what hath the poor man, that knoweth to walk 9 before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this also is vanity and a striving after wind. 10. Whatsoever hath been, the name thereof was given long ago, and it is known what man is: neither can he contend with him that 11 is mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the 12 better? For who knoweth what is good for man in his life, all the days of his vain AFTER describing in the preceding verses the condition of the happiest of mankind, the Preacher in this chapter (again drawing from his own observation of men) contemplates the more common case of such men when their abundant prosperity is impaired or reduced to vanity by certain deficiencies. The instances which he mentions are those of men to whom God gives wealth, honor, success, children, and long life, yet from them He withholds the capacity of enjoyment, rest, permanence, or contentment (vs. 1-9); no labor or effort of man can procure what God thus withholds (v. 10). What, then, is good for man to do, whose lot in life is so thoroughly subject to vanity? (vs. 11, 12.) W. T. B. Throughout this sixth chapter the Preacher is speaking of the lover of riches, not simply of the rich man; not against wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the chief good. The man who trusts in riches is placed before us; and, that we may see him at his best, he has the riches in which he trusts. Yet because he does not accept his abundance as the gift of God, and hold the Giver better than His gift, he cannot enjoy it. "All the labor of this man is for his mouth"—that is to say, his wealth, with all that it commands, appeals to sense and appetite; it feeds the lust of the eye, or the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life, and therefore "his soul cannot be satisfied therewith." That craves a higher nutriment, a more enduring good. God has put eternity into it, and how can that which is immortal be contented with the lucky haps and comfortable conditions of time? Unless some immortal provision be made for the immortal spirit, it will pine and protest and crave till all power of happily enjoying outward good be lost. Cox. 2. It is a blessed thing to be "a man to whom God has not only given riches and wealth," but so large a heart; so beneficent, so brotherly, that his fruition of his fortune is as wide as the thousands who share it, and the reversion as secure as the heaven in which it is treasured. Hamilton. 3-5. Long life and a numerous offspring were accounted by the Orientals the richest of blessings. But Solomon says that even this man so blessed, if his desires are not gratified, and if, moreover, he should fail of burial (in their esteem a very great calamity), has a less desirable lot than the "untimely birth," the still-born life which he spendeth as a shadow * for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun? who live not to see the light of day. This "untimely birth" is further described in vs. 4, 5. H. C.—It cometh in vanity or nothingness; it really has no existence in this world; it is never numbered in the family or in the census of the people; it receives no name, no mention is made of it, and there is no remembrance of it on earth. He had said before that an untimely birth is better than the man who should live a protracted life on the earth and never be satisfied with good; and he is here assigning the reason for a declaration which might sound strangely in the ears of men; that reason is, that this hath rest rather than the other. He spends a long existence in this world, and never finds rest to his soul; but it lies still and is quiet; it sleeps and is at rest. J. M. M.—Rest is regarded in Oriental life as the chief good. 6. The same comparison is still continued, enlarging the supposition as to the great age, the "many days," which the father of a hundred children should live. Suppose his days double the years of the longest-lived antediluvian, yet if he fails of seeing good in his life, what avails it that he has lived so long? Does not he die at last and go to the same place with the still-born infant? A life however long, yet fruitless of enjoyment, and ending in a death that is common to all the race and even to the untimely birth, what is the good of it? 7,8. The demand for food is twofold: for sustenance, strength, and life; and the indulgence and gratification of appetite. Comprising both these demands, it may be said truly that much if not strictly all of human labor is "for the mouth." But the appetite is not so filled that its cravings do not return. More supplies are soon wanted. And in this respect the wise man and the fool are alike. The poor man, who has great discretion as to his demeanor before living men, is here parallel to the wise man, and the same things are said of him. H. C. 9. Coheleth concedes the evil of desiring continually, and says that it is vanity and fruitless effort; but still he maintains that there is some good in present enjoyment. M. S. The sentiment is, it is better to enjoy the sight of present good quietly and gratefully than to let your desires roam abroad for pleasures far to seek and hard to gain. Accept what comes to your hand, and beware that you do not throw a loose rein on your desires for absent good. H. C.—The meaning is, it is better to make a wise use of what lies before us, and to enjoy quietly and contentedly what we have, than to let our desires be continually running out after fresh objects and shifting from point to point, such restless pursuits being not only vain and unprofitable, but creating abundance of needless trouble and perplexity. Balguy.—Solomon's will is that we make use of the present, thank God for it, and not think of anything else—like the dog in Æsop, which snapped at the shadow and let the flesh fall. What he intends, then, is that we should use that which God has given before our eyes, that which is now here, and be content therewith, and not follow our own soul, which is never satisfied, as he said before. Luther. 10. The sequence of thought leads the writer to dwell on the shortness of man's life, rather than on its subjection to a destiny. The following explanation gives that sequence more clearly. What he is, long ago his name was called. The very name of man bore witness to his frailty. This being so, he cannot take his stand in the cause which one "mightier" than himself pleads against him. Death is that mightier one, and will assert his power. So taken, the thought is continuous and harmonious throughout. E. H. P.—I paraphrase it, what man has been and is was long ago (i.e., in Eden) indicated by the name given him there—"Adam," i.e., dust; and it is known (by long and sad experience) that he is only dust—frail and perishing, and therefore entirely unable to contend with Him who is mightier far—viz., the Most High God. H. C. Though it be madness in man to contend with his Maker, it is man's prerogative that his very weakness is a purchase on Omnipotence. Insane when contending with One that is mightier, he is irresistible when in faith and coincidence of holy affection he fights the battles of the Most High, and when by prayer and uplooking affiance he imports into his own imbecility the might of Jehovah. It is hardly known even yet what man can do when his Maker contends for him and fights through him; what moral triumphs and spiritual trophies may be won by man when, through Christ strengthening, man is rendered superhuman. 11. “Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?” What the better is man of that reputation which only makes him more envied? What the better is he of that wealth which only makes him more obnoxious to plots and dangers? What the better is acquirement, when, after all, man’s intellect, man’s conscience, man’s affections must remain a vast and unappeasable vacuity? Here it is that the other Royal Preacher comes forward, and, instead of echoing, answers the demand of Solomon. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” Jesus is God manifest, and, therefore, Jesus known is satisfaction to the famished intellect. He is God reconciled, and, therefore, Jesus trusted is comfort to the aching conscience. He is God communicated, and, therefore, Jesus loved is a continual feast to the hungry affections. Incarnate, atoning, interceding, Immanuel is the bread of life, the only sustenance and satisfaction of the immortal soul. Hamilton. 12. These are questions pressed home by man's fruitless striving to find happiness in the world. "What is the great end of this vain life, which passes away like a shadow; what real good is attainable from it? and who can tell or promise that the future experience of men will be any different from that of those before them?" The author has taken the standpoints successively of the mere man of learning, the gay, frivolous man, the busy man, the monarch, the rich man, the long-lived prosperous man, the sensualist; he has contemplated worldly good by itself, in every conceivable form, and has reached no satisfactory result; the questions still remain unanswered. J. M. M.—All the future from any given point is utterly unknown to man; how, then, can he tell what is good for him in this life, while yet his fleeting days hold out? So entire is this uncertainty, so dark is all the future, why should man vainly labor to carve out his fortune by dint of care and toil, and refuse to cast himself upon God, commit his ways to His guiding providence and trust Him for all? H. C. Although no man can tell the conqueror how it shall be with the dynasty he has founded; nor the poet how it shall be with the epic he has published; nor the capitalist how it shall be with the fortune he has accumulated; it is easy to tell the philanthropist and the Christian how it shall be, not only with himself, but with the cause he is so eagerly promoting. And without quenching curiosity, it may quiet all anxiety to know that when he himself is gone to be forever with the Lord, Christ's kingdom will be spreading in the world. Hamilton. Who can help feeling the deepest interest in the struggles of such an inquiring, sensitive, and anxious man? But, after all, the tenor of his book is far from inculcating gloom and reckless despair. Cheerfulness and sober enjoyment are everywhere commended, when he comes to advise and to give precepts. All impiety, light-mindedness, murmuring, and distrust of God's justice or goodness are discarded by him and condemned, even in the midst of all the temptations to indulge such feelings, while one has only glimpses of the world of future happiness. To any one who reads the book intelligently, who looks at the condition, and sees the design of the writer, such a struggle in regard to the most interesting question man can ask, viz., How can I find true and lasting happiness? to such an one a picture is presented, to be contemplated with the most lively emotions. It is only when we mistake the tenor and object of the book, and look for and demand that which is not in it, that we meet with insoluble difficulties at every turn. But no one who gets an enlightened view of the whole book can feel that a straight-going exegesis will endanger our faith. Quite the contrary. We are led to see, step by step, what the mind can struggle with and overcome, where there is an unshaken confidence in God at the bottom of the heart. If one in ages past, before the Sun of Righteousness arose in His full splendor, could thus struggle and thus triumph, shame and reproach to us, who live under the full blaze of Gospel light, if we doubt and grow cold and murmur, when the ways of Providence are mysterious and afflictive to us! M. S. He now advances, as will be seen in the succeeding chapters, to higher ground, asserts the doctrine of a future life with far greater distinctness, and in describing wisdom as true religion, helps us to see in the very particulars in which the reproach of vanity had engaged his attention and perplexed his mind, how it is removed by the disclosures and hopes of this Divine religion. J. M. M. 1. A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of 2 one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the 3 living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of 4 the countenance the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of 5 mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of 6 fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this 7 also is vanity. Surely extortion maketh a wise man foolish; and a gift destroyeth the 8 understanding. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient 9 in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger 10 resteth in the bosom of fools. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire 11 wisely concerning this. Wisdom is as good as an inheritance: yea, more excellent is it 12 for them that see the sun. For wisdom is a defence, even as money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom 13 preserveth the life of him that hath it. Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God hath even made the one side by side with the other, to the end that man should not find out any thing that shall be after him. 15 All this have I seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his evil-doing. 16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldst thou de 17 stroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldst thou 18 die before thy time? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from that withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. 19 Wisdom is a strength to the wise man more than ten rulers which are in a city. 20 Surely there is not a righteous man upon 21 earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. Also take not heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse 22 thee: for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. 23 All this have I proved in wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me. 24 That which is is far off, and exceeding deep; 25 who can find it out? I turned about, and my heart was set to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the reason of things, and to know that wickedness is folly, and 26 that foolishness is madness: and I find a thing more bitter than death, even the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be THE style of the writer here changes so as to show, especially in chaps. 7 and 10, a striking resemblance to that of the writer of the Book of Proverbs. Hitherto the principal object has been to state the vanity of the conditions of human life; henceforth the principal object will be to direct man how to conduct himself under those conditions. The last six chapters of Ecclesiastes contain a series of maxims, intermingled with statements of the writer's own experience, and with direct addresses to the reader; the object of all which is to show what man should aim at, and what he should do, in order to be as free as his condition allows from the burden of vanity. The general drift of the writer's counsels throughout these six chapters, and particularly in chap. 7:1-22, points to wisdom united with the fear of God as the "good for man in this life" which was stated at the end of the last chapter as the object of inquiry. It is illustrated by frequent reference to and contrast with that evil which consists of folly allied with wickedness. In pursuing it, good repute, seriousness, calmness, patience, trust in God, and forbearance, are set forth as objects to be aimed at (vs. 1-22). In his own pursuit of wisdom he found his greatest obstacle to be his familiarity with women; and its final result was a humbling conviction of the fallen state of man (vs. 23-29). 1. The likeness between reputation and odor supplies a common metaphor; the contrast is between reputation, as an honorable attainment which only wise men win, and fragrant odor, as a gratification of the senses which all men enjoy. The connection of this verse with the preceding verses is this: the man to whom Solomon addresses himself, who is supposed to want to know what is profitable for man and good in this life, is here told to act in such a way as ordinarily secures a good reputation (i.e., to act like a wise man), and not to aim at the gratification of the senses; and to teach himself this hard lesson, to regard the day of death as preferable to the day of birth. While Solomon preferred the day of death, he might still have regarded birth as a good thing, and as having its place in the creation of God. W. T. B. 27 taken by her. Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, laying one thing to another, to find out the account: which my soul still seeketh, but I have not found: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. 29 Behold, this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. The Hebrew, which means strictly a name, is pertinently qualified in the received version by the word "good"—"a good name," as in Prov. 22:1, "A name (i.e., a good name) is rather to be chosen than great riches." Such a name is more fragrant than the sweet odors of the choicest ointments. This figure was familiar to the people of the East, who made great use of ointments and valued them highly. The comparison is at once pertinent and beautiful. We love to think of a truly good man. The mention of his name and even the very thought of him refresh the soul and strengthen every virtuous purpose and effort. The declaration that the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth seems by its connection here to be made concerning the good man especially, the man who both has and deserves to have a good name. As to him it is true; for birth opens to him the era of conflict, trial, temptation, contingency; but death closes the scene with victory—all perils over, all conflicts past, and the great problem of life wrought out with glorious success. These views are surely not too high for the age of Solomon, nor for his personal wisdom; for they appear in the utterances of some of the sages of heathen antiquity. "Judge of my principles and of my life," said one of them, "when you have seen me die." H. C. He is something more or less than a man who has no regard for the name and influence that shall survive him. A good name is not only more precious than perfume, but it is a legitimate object of acquisition. B. B. E.—A name truly good is the aroma from virtuous character. It is a spontaneous emanation from genuine excellence. It is a reputation for whatsoever things are honest and lovely and of good report. It is such a name as is not only remembered on earth, but written in heaven. And should the Spirit of God so replenish a man with His gifts and graces, as to render his name thus wholesome, better than the day of his birth will be the day of his death; for at death the box is broken and the sweet savor spreads abroad. Hamilton. When death overtakes the truly good man, it settles the matter in respect to him, that he has not run in vain, neither labored in vain; but at his birth no one could foresee how it would result with him. A birth in a family is considered a joyful event, but the death of a good man may be considered a more joyful one; for then the battle is fought and the victory won, and it is said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant." J. M. M.—Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. The wheel is broken at the cistern; the circle of life completes itself, and returns to the non-existence from which it sprang. But the day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. The grave is an underground avenue to heaven, a triumphal arch through which spiritual heroes return from their fight to their reward, made conquerors, and more than conquerors, through Him that loved them. Macmillan. He who faithfully discharges his duties to God and man, as they arise from time to time, and in the various forms in which they so arise, need give himself no special concern about dying grace. That will come when he needs it. God's promise secures to such a man a happy exit from this world, and an abundant entrance into His own everlasting kingdom. Right living is the direct road to happy dying. Anon. Let us not forget that if honor be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent, there, are the wild love and the keen sorrow to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust. Ruskin. 2-4. Sorrow may make the countenance sad, but it makes the heart better. Sympathy with those who are suffering griefs known to be the common lot of mankind serves to soften hearts otherwise hard, and to bind more closely together those whom the selfish collisions of life are wont to sever and keep asunder. Moreover, the grave gives us our best lessons on the value of time, the duties of life, and the momentous issues of eternity. Hence it is that wise men feel at home in the house of mourning even as fools do in the house of mirth. H. C. 3. Afflictions come not as messengers of displeasure, but as tokens of love; and in dispensing them God acts not as an offended Judge, but as a forgiving Father. They are intended to work "the peaceable fruits of righteousness" in those who are "exercised thereby," so that they can say, "He hath done all things well," and "in very faithfulness He hath afflicted us." Their afflictions have a moral effect on others through their example, and a direct moral end in their own experience. By the sadness He gives them, "their heart is made glad." H. H. 4. House of mourning, . . . of feasting. These phrases acquire a forcible significance from the Eastern custom of prolonging both festive and mournful celebrations through several days. W. T. B. 5,6. There are few men more dangerous in society than those whose wit and laughter foster giddy mirth and repel all serious thought. Solomon had seen such men, and had marked their influence adverse to true wisdom. H. C.—To hear the rebuke of the wise is a sign and means of wisdom, but to be fond of the song of fools is a sign that the mind is vain, and is the way to make it more so. The laughter of a fool may fitly be compared to the burning of thorns under a pot, which makes a great noise and a great blaze for a little while, but is gone presently, scatters its ashes, and contributes scarcely anything to the production of a boiling heat, for that requires a constant fire! The laughter of a fool is noisy and flashy, and is not an instance of true joy. H.—Your merry friend is not so merry as he would have you believe. He is more smiling when met than when overtaken; more full of jest with strangers than at home; loud in company, stupid by himself; in a word, bidding fair for an old age of stupor, gluttony, or drink. You know perfectly well that if youth be left out of the account, the people who run after public amusements are precisely those who cannot enjoy solitude, and who have never learned to endure themselves. J. W. A. 8. Better. Inasmuch as something certain is attained; and the wise and patient man contemplates the end throughout an entire course of action, and does not rest upon the beginning. W. T. B.—The text expresses the general principle or doctrine that by the condition of our existence here, if things go right, a conclusion is better than a beginning. It is in the condition of our existence in this world that this principle is founded. That condition is that everything is passing on toward something else, in order to and for the sake of that something farther on; so that its chief importance or value is in that something to be attained farther on. Thus, what we are, what we have, or effect, or attain, is still relative to something farther on. And if that ulterior object be attained, and be worth all this preceding course of things, then “the end is better than the beginning.” This is the doctrine of the text; “the end,” when it is the accomplishment of the desirable purpose, “is better than the beginning.” The fruit is better than the blossom; the reaping is better than the sowing; the enjoyment than the reaping; the second stage of a journey to the happy home is better than the first; the home itself than all; the victory is better than the march and the battle; the reward is better than the course of service; the ending in the highest improvement of means is better than being put at first in possession of them. In all this we see it is conditionally, and not absolutely, that “the end is better than the beginning.” Foster. The patient in spirit are here opposed to the proud in spirit, for where there is humility, there will be patience; those will be thankful for anything who own they deserve nothing at God's hand; and the patient are said to be better than the proud, they are more easy to themselves, more acceptable to others, and more likely to see a good issue of their troubles. H.—All through the range of philanthropy, patience is power. The influences which do the world's great work are not the proud and potent spirits, but the patient and the persevering. Hamilton. Patience sees things as they are by seeing things as they shall be; patience puts things together and makes sense of things. It is the Divine glory to see the end from the beginning; it is human wisdom to see the beginning from the end. Carpenter.—Patience is the best chemist, for out of coarse earth she can draw pure gold, out of trouble peace, out of sorrow joy, out of persecution profit, out of affliction comfort. She teacheth the bondman in a narrow prison to enjoy all liberty. He hath within those strict limits his galleries, his walks, his orchards; though he be alone he never wants company; though his diet be penury he is content; all his miseries cannot make him sick, because they are digested by patience. He hath so overcome himself that nothing can conquer him. T. Adams. It is commonly not difficult for men to be active, or even bravely so, but when you come to the passive or receiving side of life here they fail. To bear evil and wrong, to forgive, to suffer no resentment under injury, to be gentle when nature burns with a fierce heat, and pride clamors for redress, to restrain envy, to bear defeat with a firm and peaceful mind, not to be vexed or fretted by cares, losses, or petty injuries, to abide in contentment and serenity of spirit, when trouble and disappointment come—these are conquests, alas how difficult to most of us! Accordingly, it will be seen that a true Christian man is distinguished from other men, not so much by his beneficent works, as by his patience. He is another kind of man and not of us, is the feeling of all who are not in Christ with him. By this he will be seen and felt to belong to a distinct order of being and character. He is set off by his patience to be a brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. H. B.—That is a very remarkable phrase of John (Rev. 1:9), “the kingdom and patience.” The kingly virtues are all intertwined with patience and dependent upon it. The kingdom, the Divine kingdom, is inherited through faith and patience, and the kingly man is the patient man. It is a familiar enough fact that the great successes of the world have been won by hard and patient work, and not by inspired flashes. So in the spiritual realm. Spiritual self-mastery, full command of the deepest self, possession of all the soul’s resources of faith and hope and sanctified will—all are born of discipline and struggle working in the atmosphere of patience. They have to be won. Vincent. 9. This reason assigned against indulging hasty anger is very striking, viz.: that such anger finds its resting and abiding-place in the bosom of fools. Therefore, as you would be wise and would have the good of your wisdom, guard against sudden outbursts of anger. Under its impulses you will be very sure to do what you will have occasion to regret most bitterly. H. C.—Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others; for thou hast many faults and imperfections of thy own that require a reciprocation of forbearance. If thou art not able to make thyself that which thou wishest to be, how canst thou expect to mould another in conformity to thy will. If thou desirest to be borne with, thou must bear also with others. Thomas à Kempis. 10. The wise man will rather accept the drift and tendency of his time, and make the best of it. Below the surface there lies perhaps the suggestion of a previous question, Were the times really better? Had not each age its own special evils, its own special gains? Illustrations crowd upon one's memory. E. H. P. In the days of Solomon, when Jerusalem flourished as the metropolis not only of religion, but of the riches of the world; when religion was established, and the ambulatory tabernacle fixed into a standing temple; when they flowed with plenty and were governed with wisdom, yet this text gives intimation that plenty passed into surfeit and loathing, and this into discontent and open complaint of the times. To satisfy or silence this malcontented inquiry is the design of the words. Supposing it to carry its own confutation, he confutes the question, not by argument but by reproof; not as a doubtful problem, but as a foolish question. South.—His meaning is, that the underlying assumption that the present age has degenerated below the standard of past ages, implies a distorted vision—an overestimate of present evils and an underestimate of present good. He would suggest to us that former ages had their evil as well as their good points, and that to compare the past with the present wisely will require a cool judgment and a clear-sighted eye. The mistake to which he refers here comes very often from the heavy pressure of some present evil. Sometimes the aged make it, because the former was the time of their activities, the present of their repose; and they are prone to feel that things were better done in those times when their hand was prominent than now when they are only lookers-on. Solomon does not give such a judgment of things the credit of wisdom. H. C. In truth, as we expect a greater acquaintance with affairs and more mature judgment in an old man than in a youth, by reason of his experience, and his having seen and heard and thought more, it is reasonable that in like manner we should hope from our own age (if it knew its own strength, and would essay and apply it) more than from former times, being a more advanced age of the world, and enriched to fulness with numberless experiments and observations. Bacon—Each age has its own special nobleness, its own special use; but every age has been better than the age which went before it, for the Spirit of God is leading the ages on. When we look back longingly to any past age, we look not at the reality, but at a sentimental and untrue picture of our own imagination. We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present, but, like Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, reach onward to those things that are before us. Kingsley. 11. An inheritance is good for little without wisdom. Though a man have a great estate, if he have not wisdom to use it for the end for which he has it, he had better have been without it. Wisdom is not only good for the poor, to make them content and easy, but it is good with riches to keep a man from getting hurt by them, and to enable a man to do good. Wisdom is as good as an inheritance, yea, better too, it is more our own, more our honor, will make us greater blessings, will remain longer with us, and turn to a better account. H. 12. Wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence. Literally, “in the shadow of wisdom, in the shadow of money,” i.e., he who is defended from adversity by his wisdom is in as good a position as he who is defended by his riches. (For “shadow” in this sense see Psalm 121:5.) W. T. B. The excellency of knowledge. Better, the profit, thus keeping up what we may call the catchword of the book. Wisdom, the writer says, does more than give shelter, as money does. It quickens those who have it to a new and higher life. E. H. P.—Wisdom preserveth the life. “Causes to live,” “makes alive.” Some understand this to mean that wisdom preserves life in safety, or renders life calm and happy; but a deeper meaning is elicited by comparing (with Professor T. Lewis) these words with those of our Lord, “The words that I speak unto you, they are the spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). W. T. B. This is the excellency of knowledge, Divine knowledge, not only above money, but above the wisdom of this world, that it gives life to them that have it. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and that is life—it prolongs life. Men’s wealth exposes their lives, but their wisdom protects them. Nay, whereas wealth will not lengthen out the natural life, true wisdom will give spiritual life, the earnest of eternal life; so much better is it to get wisdom than gold! H. Money is a defence. Money has a real value which the wise man cannot misunderstand. Such is the condition of human society that money is to it the key of all enjoyments and of all advantages. Money is a condensed world. He who is the possessor of money holds the means of diverting as well as of instructing himself, and even the power of securing the favor of his fellow-men. This law is in nature, and we are so much the less able to find fault with it, as it has for its authority the word of God. Monod.—The accumulation of wealth is simply the accumulation of power, which is valuable in the sight of God only so far as it is turned to noble uses. It is subject to the same law with accumulations of learning, discipline, culture, or skill in the arts. These, like wealth, are forms in which power is generated and stored up. The use and application of all these forms of power should be controlled by one common Christian law. If any one of these forms is used for selfish gratification, the possessor becomes an offender, in proportion to the value and quantity of the power which he misuses. Whoever accumulates learning, or discipline, or culture for selfish gratification alone, regardless of what he owes to Christ and humanity, has in him all the essential elements of a miser. We talk of misers as if they were found among the commercial classes only. But the term is applicable to all who hoard up God's gifts in selfish carelessness of the duties which those possessions impose. It is the use of power for blessing which alone can bring happiness to him who has it. Especially is this illustrated by wealth. All experience shows that, when wealth is hoarded to an amount beyond the reasonable requirements of the holder or his dependents, it loses its power to confer well-being. It imposes a constantly increasing amount of labor, thought, and anxiety, for which the owner can by no possibility receive a personal return. It is God's law that true enjoyment can never be attained unless we forget ourselves in the use of our power for the benefit of others. This law cannot by any possibility be evaded or transcended, and its penalties become stringent and emphatic just in the proportion that property selfishly hoarded increases in amount. M. B. Anderson. 13. The work of God. The same phrase occurs in 3:11, and here as there it signifies the scheme of Divine providence, the course of events which God orders and controls, as (in the language of Bishop Butler), "the Monarch of the universe, a dominion unlimited in extent and everlasting in duration, the general system of which must necessarily be quite beyond our comprehension." It comprises both events which are straight, i.e., in accordance with our expectation, and events which are crooked, i.e., which by their seeming inequality baffle our comprehension. W. T. B. Let it be forever settled in our mind that the Great God evermore doeth all things well. Hengstenberg has well said: "Because no one can withstand God, no one therefore should wish to. We ought to humble ourselves with joy beneath the almighty hand of God. For, as the Almighty One, He is the sum and substance of all wisdom, all love, all righteousness. Almighty arbitrariness is inconceivable." Perhaps it were better to say, insupposable, i.e., utterly at variance with every just notion of wisdom and of love. H. C.—No man knows how the heart of God stands toward him by His hand. His hand of mercy may be toward a man when His heart may be against that man, as you see in the case of Saul and others. And the hand of God may be set against a man when the heart of God is dearly set upon him, as you may see in Job. T. Brooks. 14. Literally, In the day of good, be in good, i.e., use it as it should be used. True wisdom, the teacher urges, is found in a man's enjoying whatever good comes to him. And on the other hand he adds, In the day of evil, look well, i.e., consider why it comes, and what may be gained from it. E. H. P. The "work of God," just alluded to, fills human life with various and even contrasted scenes of prosperity and adversity. Hence adjust thyself to them as they occur. In the day of prosperity rejoice, thankful for the good which the Lord bestows in His loving-kindness. In the day of adversity, give thyself much to thoughtful reflection, if so be thou mayest discover in thy heart or life the occasion of the Lord's chastisements. Moreover, God hath set prosperity so over against adversity, arranging them in such uncertain succession that no man can surely anticipate what is next. Let every man, therefore, be prepared for either. With a filial, obedient trust in God he need not fear, for the worst that can come will only bring him nearer to God and be therefore a blessing; but in the attitude of rebellion against God and in the selfish struggle after good that is only of this world, man is prepared for neither. The dark uncertainty expressed in the last clause was designed to bear especially upon the pleasure-loving and seeking class who make earthly good their great end of life. In such a world, so governed of God, how surely they must miss the end they seek and at last bewail their failure and their folly! H. C. The good and prosperous days and times of our life are in God's design given to us as peculiar times of comfort and rejoicing. The evil days, the days and times of our affliction and trouble, are in God's design the proper seasons of recollection and serious consideration. The providence of God hath so contrived it, that our good and evil days, our days of prosperity and adversity, should be intermingled each with the other. This mixture of good and evil days is by the Divine providence so proportioned, that it sufficiently justifies the dealings of God toward the sons of men, and obviates all our discontent and murmurings against Him. Bishop Bull.—We ought to take notice of our comforts to keep us from grieving excessively for our crosses; for our crosses we deserve, but our comforts we have forfeited. If we would keep the balance even, we must look at that which is for us as well as that which is against us, else we are unjust to Providence and unkind to ourselves. God hath set the one over against the other, and so should we. H. The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which is in morals the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Bacon. He affirms that both adversity and prosperity are "made" and sent by God; that the unhappy and afflicted stand within the circle of His providence no less than the fortunate and successful. He means to teach us that we are blind to foresee and helpless to avert approaching changes; and that, because we are helpless and blind, we must put our trust in the God who "makes this as well as that," who has hidden the future from us, that we may commit our way to Him to whom the future is present. Our prosperity is shattered, or our adversity relieved, our joy sinks toward sadness, or our sadness rises into joy, that, feeling our own inability to command our circumstances and emotions, we may remember and confide in Him who "orders all things as He pleases." To win us to a deeper trust in God is what our disasters and our happy fortunes come for, our tempests and our calms, our perils and our deliverances. They come to set us thinking of Him whom, in the quiet, every-day course of our life, we are too apt to forget. They come to teach us that He is always with us, ordering all things according to the good pleasure of His will; and to constrain us to trust in Him instead of in ourselves, by making us feel how utterly we are in His hands. The surprises which befall us teach us how terribly uncertain our life is, and all that we hold dear in life; they teach us how ignorant we are, how impotent, how utterly in larger, wiser hands than our own. And if we are men indeed, and have discourse of reason, we learn at last that our only hope of peace lies in faith—in knowing and trusting Him who rules this world and all worlds, who sets all our times upon the score. Cox. The goodness of God leadeth men to repentance—not actually in every case, alas! but in proper tendency and by God's design. Exactly the same tendency, and the same benevolence of design on His part, are in everything dark and afflictive. Or, if we take the whole life, as holding both these elements in it, it is still true that in and by this whole life-discipline God designeth not the destruction of any man. He Himself is "a consuming fire" only to what is evil; He is a purifying and preserving fire to all that is good. The purifying, like the proving, is accomplished by the whole of the life-lot and discipline, not alone by the darker side of it—by what is felt to be tribulation. Brightest things have their function in the same great work. There are even some so constituted as to get more good of joy than of sorrow; who are more humble and more humane in prosperity than in adversity. Still, the adversity is needed, more or less of it, in almost every case, and in some cases much of it is needed to accomplish the holy, blessed object. If we did but think of that object, of its beauty and excellence, how when attained it will thrill our souls with a sacred joy, and bring us fully into the high fellowship of all holy spirits, we should not sigh because we have so "much tribulation," but rather, sometimes, be in fear because we have so little. Raleigh. 15-18. Throughout this chapter wisdom is inculcated as the antidote to or as capable of mitigating the great evil, vanity; and in these verses Solomon states how the wise man should regard the "crooked work of God" when it bears upon him. After citing two instances of such work, viz., the reward of long life withheld from the righteous and given to the wicked, he says in effect, "Do not think that thou couldest alter this course of events so as to make it straight, that thou art more righteous or more wise than He is who ordained these events; viewing them in that spirit thou wilt only be lost in amazement at the incomprehensible ways of Providence. To set up thy judgment in opposition to His would imply an excess of wickedness and folly, deserving the punishment of premature death. But rather it is good for thee to grasp these seeming anomalies; if thou ponder them they will tend to impress on thee that fear of God which is a part of wisdom, and will guide thee safely through all the perplexities of this life." W. T. B. 15. The doctrine of this verse is that moral retribution is not perfect in this life; that length of days, and by implication other forms of good and ill as well, do not befall men precisely according to their moral character. It cannot therefore be claimed that God's moral administration is finished and perfect in the present life. 16. It is not supposable that this can be a caution against too much genuine righteousness or too much true wisdom. The better construction therefore is, Be not vain of your righteousness; do not make it obtrusive and repulsive. In the clause which speaks of wisdom, the form of the Hebrew verb very often means, to make a vain show, a foolish display. Such a course under the circumstances contemplated would precipitate persecution, and the unwise man might become the occasion of his own destruction. H. C.—“Be not righteous overmuch. In the acts of righteousness, govern thyself by the rules of prudence, and be not transported, no, not by a zeal for God, into any intemperate heats or any practices unbecoming thy character.” There may be over-doing in well-doing. “Make not thyself overwise; be not opinionative, nor pretend to give law to and give judgment upon all about thee, nor busy thyself in other men's matters; as if thou knewest everything and couldest do anything.” H. 17. Fools have their own ways to perish; why shouldest thou hasten the time of thine own death by thine own folly? Although it be true, as is implied in v. 15, that the wicked man sometimes prolongs life in spite of his wickedness, yet take care not to abuse this fact by overdoing your wickedness, and so precipitate your ruin. H. C. 19. Wisdom strengthens the wise, strengthens the spirits, and makes them bold and resolute by keeping them always on sure grounds; it strengthens their interest and gains them friends and reputation; it strengthens them for their services under their sufferings. 20. The best men and they that do most good, yet cannot say that they are perfectly free from sin; even those that are sanctified are not sinless. None that live on this side heaven live without sin; if we say, We have not sinned, we deceive ourselves. We sin even in our doing good; there is something defective in our best performances. That which for the substance of it is good and pleasing to God, is not so well done as it should be, and omissions in duty are sins as well as omissions of duty. It is only just men upon earth that are subject thus to sin and infirmity; the spirits of just men, when they are got clear of the body, are made perfect in holiness. H.—The impression of human incompleteness is made by all the records of human lives which we possess. Go into a library, and take down volume after volume—the biographies and autobiographies of the foremost men, the saints and sages whom we all reverence. Are not the honest autobiographies what one of the noblest of them is called, “Confessions?” Are not the memoirs the stories of flawed excellence, stained purity, limited wisdom? There are no perfect men in them. Or if some enthusiastic admirer has drawn a picture without shadows, we feel that it is without life or likeness; and we look for faults and limitations that we may be sure of brotherhood. A. M. Men sometimes object to the doctrine of the depravity of mankind. But the strongest teachings of the Bible and of the pulpit are more than confirmed by their own actions—by the conduct of the world itself. Every bolt and bar and lock and key, every receipt and check and note of hand, every law book and court of justice, every chain and dungeon and gallows proclaim that the world is a fallen world, and that our race is a depraved and sinful race. Anon.—The question is not whether Christian thoughts about a man's condition are gloomy or not, but whether they are true. The people who complain of our doctrine of human nature, as giving a melancholy view of men, do really take a far more melancholy one. We believe in a fall, and we believe in a possible and actual restoration. Which is the gloomy system—that which paints in undisguised blackness the facts of life, and over against their blackest darkness the radiant light of a great hope shining bright and glorious, or one that paints humanity in a uniform monotone of indistinguishable gray involving the past, the present, and the future—which, believing in no disease, hopes for no cure? A. M. 21,22. Let the consciousness that thou thyself hast sometimes spoken too severely of others admonish thee to expect the same of other men, and even of servants toward thyself, and let it make thee content not to inquire very carefully into all they may say. H. C. 23. He means to say that he had applied practical wisdom in order to search out and investigate the true nature and essence of wisdom; for this seems to be the object now before us. Already has he told what practical wisdom achieves. But now he wishes to go deeper, to inquire into and search out its real nature and essence. Beyond its practical effects, he could not successfully pursue inquiries so as to discover its real nature or essence. The next verse shows how fully he was persuaded of this. M. S. 25. A more close rendering will give the nicer shades of the original, thus: "I turned myself round and round, even my heart did, to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and intelligence, and to know wickedness as folly, and this folly as madness," i.e., to know wickedness in its true character as folly, and this folly to be real madness. H. C. 26. This is truly Oriental in its conception. Women, it seems, are the examples most in point of the folly in question. The low estimate in which females are held throughout the East, even down to the present day, never associating in the company of men, nor even eating with them, being moreover without education or any true dignity of character, and reckoned as mere menial instruments of man's pleasure, leads, of course, to degradation and depravation of character. Here, then, Coheleth seeks his most striking examples of folly, either in its mental or moral sense. M. S.—He now discovered more than ever of the evil of that great sin which he himself had been guilty of, the loving of many strange women (1 Kings 11 : 1); this is that which he here most feelingly laments. He found the remembrance of the sin very grievous. What an agony was he in upon the thought of it; the wickedness, the foolishness, the madness, that he had been guilty of! I find it more bitter than death. H. 28. As the Scriptures often speak of women illustrious for their virtues, and Solomon himself praises such (Prov. 12 : 4 ; 18 : 22), he could not mean that a virtuous woman was nowhere to be found. There is in this respect no difference between the two sexes. But Solomon's meaning is that having searched out the reason of all the wickedness that passes in the world (v. 25), he had found that there was nothing more dangerous and wicked than a disorderly woman, such as he describes at v. 26, whose malice and artifice are scarcely to be conceived; nor can they who have suffered themselves to be surprised by her without great difficulty escape her snares. Solomon, therefore, does not here speak of women in general, but of such as he had been describing. Ostervald. 29. But whence this overwhelming and universal extension of folly and profligacy? Is this one of the arrangements of Providence, so often spoken of and appealed to by him? This is a question which he meets by strong denial. M. S.—He had found that God created man holy that he might be holy and happy in life, but that by his own perverseness, by sinful indulgences, he had created many sorrows and sufferings for himself. J. M. M.—"Inventions," not in the arts—the handicrafts of life, but in the science of sinning, in devices for the perpetration of iniquity. God made man upright; but man, falling from his primeval purity, had strangely prostituted his powers to sinning, to devising methods of selfish gratification, schemes of fraud, treachery, pollution, the covering up of iniquity; the means of being, in fact, intensely wicked, and yet of retaining the semblance of virtue. Ah, how does it tax the ingenuity of wicked men to sustain an appearance of virtue so unlike the foul reality of their vices! H. C. How different is our state from that for which God made us? He meant us to be simple, and we are unreal; He meant us to think no evil, and a thousand associations, bad, trifling, or unworthy, attend our every thought. He meant us to be drawn on to the glories without us, and we are drawn back and fascinated by the miseries within us. And hence it is that the whole structure of society is so artificial; no one trusts another, if he can help it; safeguards, checks, and securities are ever sought after. Men give good names to what is evil, they sanctify bad principles and feelings; and, knowing that there is vice and error, selfishness, pride, and ambition in the world, they attempt, not to root out these evils, not to withstand these errors—that they think a dream, the dream of theorists who do not know the world—but to cherish and form alliance with them, to use them to make a science of selfishness, to flatter and indulge error, and to bribe vice with the promise of bearing with it so that it does but keep in the shade. Newman. 1. Who is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the hard 2 ness of his face is changed. I counsel thee, Keep the king's command, and that in re 3 gard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his presence; persist not in an evil thing: for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. 4 Because the king's word hath power; and who may say unto him, What doesst thou? 5 Whoso keepeth the commandment shall know no evil thing; and a wise man's heart 6 discerneth time and judgment: for to every purpose there is a time and judgment; because the misery of man is great upon him: 7 for he knoweth not that which shall be; for 8 who can tell him how it shall be? There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power over the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war: neither shall wickedness deliver 9 him that is given to it. All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man hath power over another to his hurt. 10 And I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone away from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where 11 they had so done: this also is vanity. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and prolong his days, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, 13 which fear before him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; be 14 cause he feareth not before God. There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be righteous men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the right 15 cous: I said that this also is vanity. Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him in his labour all the days of his life which God hath given him under the sun. 16. When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes.) 17 then I beheld all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because however much a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea moreover, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. 9:1 For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this; that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: whether it be love or hatred, man 2 knoweth it not; all is before them. All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. 3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they 4 live, and after that they go to the dead. For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a 5 dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for 6 the memory of them is forgotten. As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, is now perished: neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. 8:1. Wisdom is apparent even in a man's face to whom God has given the power of expressing intelligence and emotion. It makes his face glow with the radiance of thought. H.C. 2,3. The oath of God here is the oath of allegiance to the king. Revealed religion enjoins obedience to the civil magistrate. Such obedience it recognizes as a duty of the highest obligation. Civil government has not its origin in a mere social compact entered into by men, but in the will and authority of God. Hence its authority. Consequently religion is the grand conservator of public order. But as the oath in question recognizes the supremacy of God, it does not, and cannot bind subjects to do anything contrary to His laws. Solomon is clearly advocating simply subjection to the magistrate, in the exercise of his lawful authority. 5. These words state the benefits which accrue to the peaceful, obedient citizen. Good rulers are not a terror to the good, but to the evil. The heart of the wise man pays a proper regard to all the duties which grow out of his several relations, and performs them in their season. He has reference not merely to present time, but to future judgment. He remembers his accountability to God, and this makes him a faithful citizen. There will be retribution. The connection, says Dr. Noyes, requires us to understand a time of judgment, which denotes retribution. J. M. M. 6. Sentiment: "There will be a time of judgment, because the evil which man commits is so great that it presses heavily upon him." The scriptural idea of the appropriate time for punishment is that it is the period when iniquity is full, or heavy. M. S. 8. Death is a prevalent, insuperable evil. Hence the proverbial expression, Strong as death that subdues all, cruel as the grave that spares none. It is in vain to struggle with the pangs of death. No simples in nature, no compositions of art, no power of angels can support the dying body or retain the flitting soul. "There is no man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power over the day of death; and there is no discharge in that war." The body sinks in the conflict, and death feeds on its prostrate prey in the grave. Bates. There is a war where all must enlist and bear arms. None are exempt from its conscriptions. Save the two lonely cases of Enoch and Elijah, the world has yet seen no instance of a discharge. There is a great fortress and line of siege confronting and commanding every group of our people, a line whose pointed musketry we are, perforce, sooner or later, all of us to face, and into the very mouth of whose death-dealing batteries we are steadily marching. Sabbath by Sabbath, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, with each heaving of the lungs and with each winking of the eyelash, the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the thoughtless and the gloomy, the ignorant and the scholarly, are walking up, in one inevitable procession, with the intermingled tramp of manhood's heavy foot, and the patter of childhood's footfall, into the flaming range of these terrible bastions. "There is no discharge in this war," no flying—no bribing—no pleading—no reasoning—no treating with "the last enemy!" W.R. Williams. One of the causes of not considering the fact of death is the utter inability to form any defined idea of the manner of existence after death. Another is a general presumption of having long to live. Yet another is that men occupy their whole soul and life with things that preclude the thought of its end. And, to give full force to these causes, there is, in a large proportion of men, a formal, systematic endeavor to keep off the thought of death. But let it be impressed upon us, that to end our life is the mightiest event that awaits us in this world. And it is that which we are living but to come to. It holds out a grand protest against being absorbed and lost in this world. It is the termination of a period confessedly introductory and probationary. Without thinking of it, often and with deep interest, there is no possibility that our scheme and course of life should be directed to the supreme purpose of life. To have been thoughtless of it, then, will ultimately be an immense calamity; it will be to be in a state unprepared for it. Foster.—The usual course is not to think that we shall die. We know it, however, and we every day see it light on some one near us. We know that we must die, but we feel that we are alive. We have the habit of life, but we have not that of death. Life, with its bustle, its various impressions, its joys, its pains, ever fills our whole soul. By dint of forgetting death we cease to believe it, and when it at length arrives its presence astonishes us like the arrival of the least expected as well as least wished for guest. But be this as it may, it must be received. We must not abandon life to death which claims it, but restore life faithfully to God who asks it back. It is necessary to die, and die well. Vinet. Life is that power by which we act and think and love and intend and hope. And suppose that all our energies have been wasted on things that cannot follow us into the grave, then how can we conceive of any life at all beyond this? When we know that we must die, we feel about for something in us that shall not perish, some thread of continuity to knit our present and future life into one; and if we have never lived for God, never realized the difference between treasures of earth and treasures of heaven, we find nothing that shall assure us of that other life. We start back in horror from a grave so dark and so profound. If these two terrors were all, some at least would not fear to die, would even court death as a repose. But there is yet another terror. Death means judgment. To die is to meet God, to stand before a Judge of infinite power, whose wrath no man can resist; before a Judge of infinite wisdom, who shall call back acts out of the distant past and lay bare all secret thoughts. Archbishop Thomson. Death did not strike Adam the first sinful man, nor Cain the first hypocrite, but Abel the innocent and righteous. The first soul that met with death overcame death; the first soul that parted from earth went to heaven. Death argues not displeasure, because he whom God loved best dies first, and the murderer is punished with living. Bishop H.—Dying is one thing and the state of death is another; and this state of death is not formidable to the believer. Death for him is nothing more than the transit into another and a better world. The Christian who dies passes from the realm of shadows into the Kingdom of light—from conflict to rest—from God, seen in type and emblem, to God, seen as He is in the splendor of His own essential beauty. In fact, the Christian's death is a birth into the fulness of life. "He that believeth on Me shall never die." G. Calthrop. The empire of death, which has suffered a slow decay, which it has required so many ages to overthrow, which has seemed to recover from its defeats, will at last sink by one powerful stroke, never to rise again. It will not require more than a moment of time to raise all the dead, to lay open every sepulchre, to restore every particle of dust, that is fit to be restored, to its proper body, and for all the bodies of the saints to be prepared for the mansion of eternal glory. How insipid and tame are the histories of all other conquests—of the rise and fall of all other kingdoms and empires—when compared with the grand and wonderful achievements of the “King Immortal,” and the fall of death beneath His power, and the giving up of all his prey; when every victim from earth and sea, though under monuments of marble, nay, rocks of adamant, shall be restored; when He shall bring forth every particular form to be repossessed by its proper spirit, from which it has been for a season divorced! Thus will He “swallow up death in victory,” and then clothe His redeemed with garments of immortality. R. Hull. 9. He has seen rulers insisting on obedience to evil commands; and this, at last, to their own hurt. It is shown above (v. 5) that obedience to such evil commands is sin, and that it brings evil upon him who executes them. Now he subjoins, that such commands injure those also who give them. M. S. 10. "I saw wicked [rulers] buried, who came and went from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so ruled; this—their being at last overtaken by death and oblivion—shows their lot also to be vanity." The ancient versions apply the whole of this verse to the wicked, which seems the preferable interpretation. W. T. B.—Not only did they depart, but even from the holy city where they had lived, they went away, i.e., their departure was made from the city by their being carried out of it in order to be buried; as indeed all the dead were. And then they were forgotten in the city; in other words, no monument was erected to them, no lamentation made over them, and therefore they were forgotten. M. S.—The clear vision of faith sees them passing forevermore away from the society and communion of the holy, to be quickly forgotten. It is noticeable that our Lord in like manner (Luke 16: 19-24) represents the rich man's burial as a notable event, yet his soul went away forever from the abodes of the holy. H. C. Two suggestive facts are fairly intimated by this tenth verse, as thus interpreted: First, That one may go from association with the godly to the burial of the ungodly. From the very midst of intercourse the most constant, close, prolonged, pleasant, from relations the most tender and intimacies the most endearing with the holy, from a lifetime of such association in all that pertains to the social state, it is possible to pass from life, from all these associations, with mind unrenewed, with heart unchanged, with all these ties forever sundered, to receive all unconsciously the following of kindred and friends to the grave of the ungodly. This impressive fact confronts and contradicts the secret thought and hope of many who are unprepared for death. Many do secretly cherish the contrary thought and hope. Surrounded on every side by Christian friends, whose lives are knit with theirs in the tenderest sympathies, counting themselves safe in such companionship, many live on themselves unheeding the personal call of God, unthoughtful of and unprepared for an issue which depends alone upon their own treatment of that call—an issue whose sole condition and determination is found in their own penitence, prayer, obedience, or their own continued impenitence, prayerlessness, and disobedience. Many are living thus, with an issue so momentous impending day by day—living on undisturbed by thought or fear of its eternal consequences—living thus in the face of God's solemn protest and denial in His entire Word. And alas! how many the actual signs which seem to show that the holy, those upon whose association such a baseless confidence and hope rest, that Christian believers share in and contribute to the perpetuation of such confidence and hope! A second fact intimated by the verse is that the proof of actual character, ensuring a sinner's burial, is simply no good left behind, no works of a living faith in Christ, no fruits of an active, vital love to Christ. The wicked referred to in the text, who had lived among the holy, acted with and apparently like them all their lives, were forgotten in the city where they had so done. Unlike the righteous, who in their deeds of faith and love are held in everlasting remembrance, they left behind them no memories of Christ-like acting in the life, no fragrance of beneficent deeds like His, dictated by obedient, grateful love to Him. In the allegory of the Judgment, it was not that those on the left hand had sinned grossly, that they had left abundant, positive proofs of flagrant transgressions, but that they had not wrought works of faith and love, that they had left behind them no actual fruits, no blessed effects of deeds done for Christ, through love to Christ, the spring of all holy acting. Inasmuch as ye did it not to Me, this is the charge, the terrible charge undenied, which makes sure the burial and the final, irrevocable condemnation of the unbelieving, unloving soul as unholy, wicked. The Christian's burial! How full of rejoicing hope are the thoughts it brings, how stripped of all that is truly sorrowful. The Christian's grave! How holy, how blessed, how inspiring, how radiant with bright memories and brighter prospects! Gratefully, hopefully standing there our hearts may triumphantly sing: " 'Tis a blessing to live, but a greater to die, And the best of the world, is its path to the sky.— Be it gloomy or bright, for the life that He gave, Let us thank Him—but blessed be God for the grave! 'Tis the end of our toil, 'tis the crown of our bliss, 'Tis the portal of happiness—aye, but for this, How hopeless were sorrow, how narrow were love, If they looked not from earth to the rapture above! But the portals of death open out on the skies, And the mortal who enters in ecstasy flies, An angel of light, to the throne of the King; While the echoes of Heaven in harmony ring With the song of the seraphs, "Oh! blessed are they Who die in the Lord, and from earth come away— They rest from their labors—the works of their love Have followed, and crown them with glory above." But oh! the sinner's burial! how unutterably awful! The Christless shroud, the Christless sleep, the Christless grave or tomb! How heartbreakingly sad, how vividly terrible the thoughts which follow the spirit gone to the judgment and the doom! B. 11. Because sentence is not executed speedily, therefore the heart is set to do evil. The delay in God's retributive judgments for sin emboldens sinners; they madly say, "Where is the promise of His coming?" and set their heart fully to the doing of evil. The very mercy that spares the sinner to give him space for repentance, he abuses and perverts to bolder sin, to deeper guilt, and to a swift and more terrible doom. Scarcely any words in this book evince a more just appreciation of the spirit of wicked men than these. The author had noted closely but truthfully how wicked men abuse God's mercy and provoke His wrath. H. C. A sentence is passed and stands in force against every evil work; and the words of Solomon represent to us, on the one hand, the marvellous patience of God in suspending the execution of this righteous sentence; and, on the other hand, men's vile abuse of his unmerited goodness. Instead of being led to repentance, they grow bolder in sin; and "because sentence against their evil works is not speedily executed, therefore their heart is fully set in them to do evil." There is an awful emphasis in the last of these expressions; it denotes the extreme wickedness that sinners may arrive at; not only to commit sin when assaulted with violent temptations, but to make an habitual trade of it; nay, to employ themselves in it with delight. Their heart is so fully set in them to do evil, that all their faculties bend that way. Thus we read of some "who drink iniquity like water;" "who devise mischief upon their beds," and set themselves in a way that is not good; nay, who put themselves to incredible pains and hard labor, who "weary themselves to commit iniquity." R. Walker. Man must strike soon, if he would strike at all; for opportunities pass away from him, and his victim may escape his vengeance by death. There is no passing of opportunity with God, and it is this which makes His long-suffering a solemn thing. God can wait. F. W. R.—There is a sublime, silent delay about the Divine Justice which leaves rash sinners under the delusion that against a Lawgiver so long-suffering they may offend with impunity. If every Cain were marked the very instant he shed blood, and every Ananias struck dead upon the utterance of his lie, scoffing at judgments would be impossible. But the awful tread of justice is slow, and so the depraved soul grows bold. Conscience sleeps, and therefore the sinner thinks the sin is not on record. “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten; He hideth His face; He will never see it” (Psalm 10:11). J. W. A.—Nothing will better that man or move that man who is given up to spiritual judgments. Let God smile or frown, stroke or strike, cut or kill, he minds it not, regards it not. Such a man’s preservation is but a reservation unto a greater condemnation. He has guilt in his bosom and vengeance at his back wherever he goes; neither ministry nor misery, neither miracle nor mercy can mollify his heart; and if this soul be not in hell on this side hell, who is? T. Brooks. To sin because God is long-suffering, is to be evil because He is good, and to provoke Him because He spares us; it is to strive with God and to contend with His goodness, as if we were resolved to try the utmost length of His patience; and because God is loath to punish, therefore to urge and importune Him to that which is so contrary to His inclination. This abuse of the long-suffering of God is a provocation of the highest nature, because it is to trample upon His dearest attributes, those which He most delights and glories in, His goodness and mercy; for the long-suffering of God is His goodness to the guilty and His mercy to those who deserve to be miserable. This day of God's patience is the great opportunity of our salvation; and if we let it slip it is never to be recovered. If we misimprove this time of our life, we shall not be permitted to live it over again to improve it better. Archbishop Tillotson.—The long-suffering of God declares His power. What He does not punish now, He can punish by and by; what He does not punish here, He can punish there; what not in this world, in the next. He is patient because He is strong, because all power belongeth unto Him. The long-suffering of God is a declaration of His love, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. This tardiness of vengeance argues no listlessness, no moral indifference to the eternal distinctions between good and evil, on the part of Him who is the Judge of the whole earth, and by whom actions are weighed. It means that Christ has died for sinners, and that God can afford to wait. Flee from Him thou canst not. To flee to Him is thy only way of deliverance. Trench. 12. Whatever advantage oppressors may gain, and however great the evils which they occasion, it remains true after all, and it is a consolation for the oppressed, that those who fear God shall sooner or later obtain their reward. In this world? The tenor of the Book is plainly against this. That it is in another world seems to be the necessary implication. M. S. It is the happiness of all that fear God that in the worst of times it shall be well with them; their happiness in God's favor cannot be prejudiced nor their communion with God interrupted by their troubles; they are in a good case, for they are kept in a good frame under their troubles, and in the end they shall have a blessed deliverance from and an abundant recompense for their troubles. And therefore surely I know, I know it by the promise of God and the experience of all the saints, that however it goes with others it shall go well with them. All is well that ends well. H. 12,13. Here seems to be a very full and firm conviction of the doctrine of a retribution, both for the good and for the evil. M. S.—Disembodied spirits do not at once pass into the state or the place which they are finally to hold. Yet they are in measure receiving the things done in the body, whether good or bad, one class rejoicing, the other suffering. This intermediate existence is in no sense remedial or purgatorial, there being not even a hint to that effect anywhere. Retribution follows death at once. All questions as to locality are vain and fruitless. It is not at all needful to know where either heaven or hell is, for such knowledge would add nothing to our comfort or our inducements to a holy life. Nor do we require to be able to answer every question about Hades or Paradise. It is enough to know, as we do beyond a peradventure, that in the future life it shall be well with the righteous at once and forever; but woe, woe unto the wicked, for it shall be ill with them at once and forever. Chambers. 14. We may mistake God's thought entirely. The pains which He sends upon the good for discipline we may mistake for retribution and assume to be only tokens of His wrath. The good things He grants to the wicked may be for their moral trial, and in no sense a proof of His approbation. These points, brief compared with the magnitude of the subject, bear upon the just explanation of those apparent anomalies in the present administration of God's moral government over the race, to which our passage alludes. H. C. It is worth noting that the instance of vanity, to which these words are specifically applied, is the seeming inequality of God's justice. For if they are considered, as they may fairly be considered, in connection with the profession in v. 12 of personal faith in God's absolute justice, the conclusion is irresistible, that, whatever reason the Preacher had for reserve in declaring his belief, he certainly looked forward to a final judgment in a future state of existence. W. T. B.—The things of this world are not the best things, nor were ever designed to make a portion and happiness for us, for if they had, God would not have allotted so much of this world's wealth to His worst enemies, and so much of its troubles to His best friends; there must, therefore, be another life after this, the joys and griefs of which must be real and substantial, and able to make men truly happy or truly miserable, for this world does neither. H. 15. Mirth is not the best word here. Enjoyment, rejoicing, give the sense of the Hebrew much better. This Hebrew word is used more than any other for "rejoicing before the Lord," and "rejoicing in the Lord," especially in sacred worship and in grateful praise and trust. Solomon commends the free-hearted and cheerful enjoyment of our daily bread and of all the good which God provides for in our physical constitution, for this remains with us as the good of our labor while we live. Yet he carefully suggests that it is God who gives us this life and all its enjoyments. They should therefore be accepted and enjoyed as His gifts in the spirit of filial obedience and true gratitude. The same sentiment has appeared before (2:24; 3:12, 13, 22), guarded there, moreover, against abuse by the same beautiful and pertinent suggestion that this is "the gift of God," and that we have even these most common blessings of life from His gracious hand and parental heart. H. C.—Then I commended joy, a holy security and serenity of mind arising from a confidence in God, and His power, providence, and promise, because a man has no better thing under the sun (though a good man has much better things above the sun) than to eat and drink—that is, soberly and thankfully to make use of the things of this life, and to be cheerful whatever happens. H. 16,17. To see the business. The word for "business" is the same which is rendered "travail" in 2:26; 3:10, having obviously here the same sense as there, viz., selfish, pleasure-seeking toil for earthly good—thought of, moreover, as altogether unavailing, futile, and vain. In the light of God's providence, often baffling and frustrating the best human calculations and endeavors, he found himself unable to fathom these depths. H. C. In other words, this matter of the righteous and the wicked, as having their respective lots reversed, and the insufficiency of an attempt to enjoy the fruits of labor—all this is a matter too deep for us to fathom. God has kept the grounds of this mysterious dispensation to Himself. "Who can by searching find out God?" M. S.—There is no fuller statement in Ecclesiastes of the incapacity of every man with his finite understanding to comprehend the plans and operations of the Infinite and Eternal God. W. T. B. 9:1-6. The ninth chapter should not have been dissevered from the preceding one, with the close of which it is most intimately connected. He had said that God's work is inscrutable, and to him must be attributed the arrangement of all events. He now says, that the righteous and the wise, and all their doings, are at the Divine disposal, and subjected to the will of God (v. 1). He goes on to develop more fully the objection raised in 8:14 against the declarations preceding that passage, respecting an adequate retribution to the righteous and the wicked. It is now suggested again that all have one common lot, whatever their character may be. All men have more or less of folly, and all die alike (vs. 2, 3), and when dead all enjoyment ceases, and they know not anything more (vs. 4, 5). All sensation ceases, and they have no more a part to act in life (v. 6). M. S. 1. This testimony respecting the righteous is peculiarly grateful in such a connection as this. It is refreshing to see that the author in the depth of his perplexities in reference to both God's providential and moral government over men, when facing events and complications which tasked his mind to the utmost, could yet fall back upon this precious truth—that the righteous, the wise, and their works, are all in the hand of God, the object of His unceasing love and care. H. C.—Love and hatred are here understood by almost all interpreters to mean the ordinary outward tokens of God's favor or displeasure, i.e., prosperity and adversity. "Man knows not whether to expect prosperity or adversity from God; all his earthly future is in obscurity." He represents man as looking forward into the future and contemplating various contingencies without knowing which of them shall be his lot. W. T. B.— He lays this down for a rule, That the love and hatred of God are not to be measured and judged of by men's outward condition. If prosperity were a certain sign of God's love, and affliction of His hatred, then it might justly be an offence to us to see the wicked and godly fare alike. But the matter is not so; No man knows either love, or hatred, by all that is before them in this world. H. 2. No man knows either love or hatred by outward mercy or misery; for all things come alike to all. The sun of prosperity shines as well upon the brambles of the wilderness as upon the fruit-trees of the orchard; the snow and hail of adversity light upon the best garden as well as upon the wildest waste Health, wealth, honors, crosses, sicknesses, and losses are cast upon good and bad men indifferently. T. Brooks.—The course of nature is without respect of persons; we see no laws suspended to favor the good or to punish the bad. Yet the inspired writer does not lose sight of the great distinction between the two classes of men, and he recognizes the eternal distinction between moral good and evil, by the terms which he applies to them—the righteous and the wicked, the clean and the unclean, the worshipper and the despiser of God's worship. And "there is a vast difference," Henry well remarks, "between the original, the design, and the nature of the same event to the one and to the other; the moral effects and issues of them are likewise vastly different; the same Providence to the one is a savor of life unto life, to the other of death unto death, though, to outward appearance, it is the same." J. M. M. 3. Full of evil. How manifestly hideous the process going on in human souls under the power of sin. It is a process of real and fixed deformity. The most beautiful natural character, in man or woman, changes, how certainly, its type, when growing old in worldliness and the neglect of religion. The deforming process murders the angel in us, and saves the drudge or the worm. The man that is left is but a partial being, a worker, a schemer, a creature of passion, thought, will, hunger, remorse, but no Divine principle, no kinsman of Christ, or of God. On the other hand, it will be seen that a thoroughly religious old person holds the proportions of life, and even grows more mellow and attractive as life advances. Indeed, the most beautiful sight on earth is an aged saint of God, growing cheerful in his faith as life advances, becoming mellowed in his love, and more and more visibly pervaded and brightened by the clear light of religion. H. B. We see no retribution for sin in this life; who then will believe that there is any to be feared hereafter—if, indeed, there be any hereafter? This madness, he says, abides in them long as they live. After that—what? The omission of the verb go in the original is peculiarly expressive: “After that—to the dead!” H. C. In attaching the word madness to the moral conduct of unrenewed men, revelation lends us an apt illustration of that conduct. Ever heeding and keenly sensitive to bodily pain or to wounded affection, they have no feeling or thought concerning the more terrible anguish of the spirit, the more fearful wounds to its high immortal affections, to which their own deeds are daily tending and which they are directly inflicting. Sensitive to the loss of perishable wealth, they are insensible to the incomputable loss of the imperishable soul. Every passing event in human life, all the shifting scenes of national, social, and personal history, stir the fountains of emotion in their souls, while the grander events and awful verities of spiritual being, the vaster scenes of eternal history which throng the pathway of the past and present, move hardly a pulse within them. Upon a thoughtful, feeling, God-fearing mind, gazing upon this strange course of immortal men, surely the conviction of human folly and madness cannot but press with saddening, irresistible force. B. If men were persuaded that sin is attended with eternal death, would "they drink in iniquity like water?" The devils themselves are not able to conquer the fear of judgment to come, they "believe and tremble;" therefore when it is not active upon the conscience, it is either because men do not believe it, or they fancy that retaining their beloved lusts they may obtain an easy absolution. Astonishing perverseness! How many will not discern or censure that folly in themselves which they will condemn in others for extreme madness? If one riotously lavishes away his estate, and, for the short pleasure of a few years, be reduced with the prodigal to extreme poverty, would he not be esteemed to have been beside himself? Yet this is a very tolerable case, in comparison of exposing the soul to eternal vengeance for the pleasures of sin that are but for a season. Bates.—When we look on the madness of life, and are marvelling at the terrible career of dissipation, let there be no contempt felt. It is an immortal spirit marring itself. It is an infinite soul, which nothing short of the Infinite can satisfy, plunging down to ruin and disappointment. Men of pleasure, whose hearts are as capable of an eternal blessedness as a Christian's, that is the terrible meaning and moral of your dissipation. God in Christ is your only Eden, and out of Christ you can have nothing but the restlessness of Cain; you are blindly pursuing your destiny. F. W. R. 4. "Whoever is still attached to the living, as to him there is hope." The meaning seems to be—He is something; has some power of accomplishment, for even a dog, contemptible as he was in the East, could do more and was more an object of hope or of fear, than a dead lion. This is doubtless a proverb. The author meant to say strongly that so far as this world is concerned, there is no power in the dead, and therefore no ground of confidence or trust in them. This he proceeds to show more in detail. H. C. The lesson of the Preacher is an old one. While there is life there is hope, and only while there is life. Let us be up and doing, for the night cometh in which no man can work. Our actual opportunities, small and trifling though they may seem, are, simply because they are still in our power, infinitely more valuable than even the greatest and noblest when once these have slipped from our grasp forever. Consider the truth that in all things admitting of the distinction, things that can be said to be living and to be dead, it is life which gives the value, it is the earnestness and truth which underlie all real vital power that alone give significance and redeem from worthlessness; and that unless the angel be there to stir the waters, even the pool of Bethesda is but a stagnant pool, powerless and disappointing. It is thus both in nature and also in man, in the outer world which attracts and engages the senses, and in the inner world of soul and spirit. It is the fresh life in both that we value, and justly. T. H. Steel. 5,6. I give below a paraphrase of these two verses which in my view is sustained by the following considerations: It is in harmony with the course of thought with which the passage is introduced in v. 4 and with which it closes in v. 6. It coincides with the logic of the passage itself, especially in the last half of v. 5. It relieves the passage of its doctrinal difficulties, viz., its supposed denial of a future conscious existence, and its contradiction of the great doctrine of a future retribution—a doctrine which Solomon in this very book affirms with most solemn emphasis. "For the living know as to death that they shall die; but the dead know nothing as to the living, nor as to any of the scenes and events of this earthly life, neither have they any more reward in the line of fame and honor, for the memory of them is forgotten. They may have labored hard for an immortal name among the living of earth, but this reward fails them, for no remembrance of them long survives their disappearance from among men. Also their love and their hatred and their envy have long ago perished; all died with them, and are no longer of the least concern to the living, whom their love cannot help nor their hatred harm; neither have they any longer a portion forever in all that is done under the sun. They may have a portion elsewhere—of that there is no occasion now to speak; but they have no portion in the way of active agency or proper reward in anything done on the earth." This paraphrase assumes that the author is not speaking at all of the departed dead with reference to their consciousness, their happiness, or their misery in that other world, but only with reference to their relations to this world and to its events and interests. According to this construction the passage bears forcibly upon the vanity of laying up immense stores for future enjoyment, whether of wealth or of posthumous remembrance and fame. Thousands in every age toil to accumulate indefinitely more than they could ever use in a century—to whom Solomon would say here: "What will all that wealth avail you after you are dead? Other thousands, especially in the ancient Oriental world, exhausted the great labors of a lifetime to build mausoleums and tombs for themselves that should immortalize their names among the living. Was there not occasion enough to say to such men: "The dead know not anything of what transpires among the living;" nor have they any more a reward on earth, however much they may have sought it, for the very remembrance of them is perished, however stubbornly they may have fought against this result and labored to make their earthly name immortal. H. C. 6. The three passions, love, hatred, and envy, are named as strongest and most vehement in their action. Even these are hushed in the calm of the grave. E. H. P. The surest thing in life is death. We can be absolutely sure of nothing else. There will come an unexpected night, of which "no man knoweth, not even the angels of God," upon which no sunrise will dawn. A thousand ills may be avoided, a thousand perils escaped, but death cannot be. But the most unsure event in life is the time of death. The moment may come within the next hour; it may be postponed fifty years. No averages, no tables of mortality, no study of contingencies, can assure any mortal of one day's life. Death is an enemy; to some, alas, not to all—"the last enemy!" Yet over this dread foe there may be victories; there have been millions who have exultingly triumphed. Such triumph is never attained by our own courage, or resolution, or strength; never by recollection of our own obedience, faithfulness, or good works. It comes only from faith in Christ Jesus. It is this that assures of resurrection—not "of flesh and blood"—but of the "spiritual body." J. L. Burrows. God has never promised dying grace when one's duty is to live. Grace for duty, for toil, for love, for honesty, for earnest service in every good cause, for brave struggle, for unselfish ministry, for holy influence; grace for noble and beautiful living, and for loyal devotion to Christ while the heart's pulses are full, and while God wants us still in this world. Then grace for dying when the life's work is done. J. R. M.—Ask for living grace and glorify Christ thereby, and then you shall have dying grace when dying time comes. Your enemy is going to be destroyed, but not to-day. There is a great host of enemies to be fought to-day, and you may be content to let this one alone for awhile. This enemy will be destroyed, but of the times and the seasons we are in ignorance; our wisdom is to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ as the duty of every day requires. Take your trials as they come! As the enemies march up slay them, rank upon rank. Leave the final shock of arms till the last adversary advances, and meanwhile hold you your place in the conflict. God will in due time help you to overcome your last enemy, but meanwhile see to it that you overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. If you live well you will die well. That same covenant in which the Lord Jesus gave you life contains also the grant of death, for "All things are yours, whether things present or things to come, or life or death, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Spurgeon. 7. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God 8 hath already accepted thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let not thy 9 head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in life, and in thy labour 10 wherein thou labourest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. 11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance 12 happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. 13. I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise, and it seemed great unto me: 14 there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks 15 against it: now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that 16 same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. 17. The words of the wise spoken in quiet are heard more than the cry of him that ruleth 18 among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good. 7-9. Here is a turn in the course of thought. The author would say to his readers: Instead of toiling hopelessly and vainly for huge masses of wealth which you can never enjoy, or for posthumous fame and glory that you can never know of, and that will surely be sunk under the waves of oblivion, I counsel you to enjoy with quiet satisfaction your daily bread, thankful that God accepts your work. Let your garments betoken inward purity and true joy; living happily with one wife (not miserably with many), even with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy transient life, for this is thy portion of good for thy labor in this earthly life. We have met substantially the same counsel in 2 : 24 ; 3 : 12, 13, 22 ; 5 : 18, 19 and 8 : 15. H. C. Let there be "joy and a merry heart within ;" a good heart, so the word is, which distinguishes this from carnal mirth and sensual pleasure, which are the evil of the heart, both a symptom and a cause of much evil there. We must enjoy ourselves, enjoy our friends, enjoy our God, and be careful to keep a good conscience that nothing may disturb us in these enjoyments. We must serve God with gladness in the use of what He gives us, and be liberal in communicating it to others, and not suffer ourselves to be oppressed with inordinate care and grief about the world. H.—Amusement must never become an end in life ; it must always be a means, a help on the way, just as sleep is, just as rest is. An hour's amusement should be to you just what a night's sleeping is, or what a day's resting is ; it should make you stronger, clearer-headed, calmer-souled, braver, more hopeful, more earnest, more enthusiastic, inspiring you for better life. Anything that leaves a taint of impurity upon the life, or starts a thought of impurity in the mind, anything that degrades or debases the soul, is unfit and unworthy amusement for a Christian. Christian amusements must be such as do not harm spiritual life ; they must be means of grace. J. R. M. Solomon is no ascetic himself ; he does not believe in decrying the moderate pleasures which God provides for us in our daily food and nightly rest ; and he knows that if he were to push the doctrine of the vanity of this world to this extreme, his words would only recoil upon himself and would utterly frustrate his great purpose. Therefore he sees the necessity of discriminating sharply between loving the world supremely and loving its legitimate comforts very moderately ; between grasping it in a spirit that is reckless of God, and accepting certain forms of its pleasure as kindly provided and given of God, to be accepted with gratitude ; between devoting one's utmost powers to unlimited acquisition, and being satisfied with the moderate enjoyments which man's physical constitution provides for, and God's love bestows. He knew that men of the world hold the constitutional enjoyments of life to be admissible and right, and that their good sense persistently repels any effort to make them think otherwise. He therefore took special pains not to offend and repel them from his doctrine. It was not the moderate enjoyment of one's daily bread, or of the well-ordered family state, that he set forth as vanity and exhorted men to renounce. It was not the legitimate use but the gross abuse of the world that he condemned. The thing he decried and deplored was that in this matter men should be reckless of the ordinations of Divine Providence and of their responsibility to their Great Lawgiver and Judge, and that then, in this spirit, not satisfied with the moderate, legitimate enjoyments of life, they should stride on with all-grasping desire and unmeasured toil to accumulate wealth, honor, and sensual pleasure till they make the whole of life one intense and utter vanity, and bring upon themselves the righteous retributions of their Maker. . . . Let him speak ; his experience may save thousands from the folly of a selfishly pleasure-loving and pleasure seeking life, and from the ruin which such a life so certainly involves. Let him speak, and let the earth hear, for his voice is the testimony of God, warning all pleasure-loving men of the rocks on which myriads have made shipwreck, not for time only, but for eternity. H. C. As Ewald has long since shown, it is impossible to bring an understanding, studious heart to this book without discovering that its true and ruling intention is to encourage men, perplexed by change and dejected by the disillusionizing processes of experience, to a patient endurance of inevitable disappointments, and a prompt, hearty enjoyment of the remaining and sufficient goods of life. The constant and recurring moral of the book is, that "everything is beautiful in its season," and in its season should be thankfully enjoyed, without too curious an inquest into its probable genesis and duration ; that there is nothing better, that it is the last result of wisdom, for a man to "enjoy all the good of his labor ;" and that this capacity of wise enjoyment is God's best gift to man. The cheerful heart that medicines our pain is, then, the gift of God ; and because it is the gift of God, it is open to us all, however delicate or saturnine, our natural temperament may be. And like all other the gifts of God, we come upon it while we are walking in the path of obedience. To "fear God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man," even as to take the good of God's gifts and his own labors is the best happiness of man ; and only by doing the duty do we reach the happiness. Cox. 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. The Scripture does not say, what thy head finds to do; that may find a thousand things; nor what thy heart finds to do, for that may find ten thousand things; but what thy hand findeth to do; that is, look what work God cuts out to thy hand to do; that do with all thy might, for there is no working in the grave. We are to do much good in a little time. Our time is short, our task is great. T. Brooks. Produce! produce! were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee; out with it then. Up, up! whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Thy life, oh mortal! wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own. It is all thou hast to confront eternity with. Work then like a star, unhasting yet unresting. Carlyle.—Straightway do what thy hand findeth to do! It may be less or more. It may be in public or private. It may be a thing or a course that will be commented on or passed over in silence by others. No matter! when the light comes it is to be followed. Straightway do it and the enemies of souls—of the Gospel of Christ—are taken at advantage, are discomfited, are driven back, while timorous friends, the discouraged, the weak, the halting, receive as it were a new inspiration. A soul in prompt action necessarily charges other souls with the celestial fire—until they, too, glow and burn with love to Christ. Straightway do, say, give, suffer, at the word of Christ, and in living consecration to Him, and the greatest and most beneficent force that can issue from one human soul to another will go out from you to other souls around. A. R. No man ever shapes his own destiny or the destinies of others, wisely and well, who deals much in presentlies. Nature never postpones. When the time arrives for the buds to open, they open—for the leaves to fall, they fall. Look upward. The shining worlds never put off their risings or their settings. The comets even, erratic as they are, keep their appointments; and eclipses are always punctual to the minute. There are no delays in any of the movements of the universe which have been predetermined by the absolute will of the Creator. Procrastination among the stars might involve the destruction of innumerable systems; procrastination in the operations of nature on this earth might result in famine, pestilence, and the blotting out of the human race. Man, however, being a free agent, can postpone the performance of his duty; and he does so, too, frequently to his own destruction. The drafts drawn by indolence upon the future are pretty sure to be dishonored. Make now your banker. Do not say you will economize presently, for presently you may be bankrupt; nor that you will repent and make atonement presently, for presently you may be judged. Bear in mind the important fact, taught alike by the history of nations, rulers, and private individuals, that in at least three cases out of five, presently is too late. Anon. What do the Scriptures show us, but that God has a particular care for every man, a personal interest in him, and a sympathy with him and his trials, watching for the uses of his one talent as attentively and kindly, and approving him as heartily, in the right employment of it, as if he had given him ten; and, what is the giving out of the talent itself, but an exhibition of the fact that God has a definite purpose, charge, and work, be it this or that, for every man? H. B.—Every man has given him of God much more than he has any idea of, and that he can help on the world's work more than he knows of. What we want is the single eye that will see what our work is, the humility to accept it however lowly, the faith to do it for God, the perseverance to go on till death. N. Macleod. There is to be no curbing of our energies, no surrender of our natural talents. Far from it: use them all; heartily, bravely, lovingly, use them all; only let us beware that we use them, first, in entire dependence upon God; secondly, in entire submission to His will; thirdly, without using, or allowing others to use, any unlawful means; and, once more, remembering always the true end which, in exercising them, should be always in our view. The necessaries of life must, indeed, be sought through them, as the very condition of our continuing to employ them; but beyond this we may not go; this end gained, the true end of all talents, health, wealth, intellectual ability, influence, from whatever source derived, comes into view—namely, the glory of God and the good of our fellow men, not our own abundance and the luxurious enjoyment (as we are apt to speak) of life. Karslake. To do as well as ever you can what happens to be the only thing within your power to do, is the best and surest preparation for higher service. Should things go against you, never give way to debilitating depression, but be hopeful, brave, courageous, careful not to waste in vain and unavailing regret the power you will need for endurance and endeavor. Binney.—Every position, great or small, may be made almost as great or as little as we desire to make it, according as we make the most of it or the least of it. To do the necessary duties of any station, that is easy enough; but to gather up all its outlying opportunities; to be ready to lend a helping hand here, to give a kind word there, and a wise counsel there; "to fill," as we say, "our place in life," instead of leaving it half empty; to be entirely in our work for the time being, this is what makes all the difference between a useful and a useless man. Stanley.—True work is to be done by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are, is God's providential arrangement, God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made out of them. F. W. R. For most of us, our service has to be unnoticed and unknown, and the memory of our work will live perhaps for a year or two in the hearts of some few who loved us, but will fade wholly when they follow us into the silent land. Well, be it so; we shall sleep none the less sweetly though none be talking about us over our heads. All that matters very little. The notoriety of our work is of no consequence. The earnestness and accuracy with which we strike our blow is all important; but it matters nothing how far it echoes. It is not the heaven of heavens to be talked about, nor does a man's life consist in the abundance of newspaper or other paragraphs about him. We shall do our work best, and be saved from much festering anxiety, which corrupts our purest service and fevers our serenest thoughts, if we once fairly make up our minds to working unnoticed and unknown, and determine that whether our post be a conspicuous or an obscure one we shall fill it to the utmost of our power; careless of praise or censure because our judgment is with our God; careless whether we are unknown or well known, because we are known altogether to Him. "Small service is true service while it lasts," and the unnoticed, insignificant servants may do work every whit as good and noble as the most widely known, to whom have been entrusted by Christ tasks that mould the ages. A. M.—In an employment however commonplace, and in a corner however inconspicuous, if you take up the task which your hand finds to do, and throw into it the might which God gives, the result will be genuine, solid, enduring. Let each do his own work in his own way, and as all good work is God's, you will soon see a more beautiful Church and a better world. Hamilton. A heart warmed with the love of God, sensible of its obligations to redeeming mercy, emptied of self, its enmity or repugnance toward the holy and the pure expelled or overcome, taught to hate not only the presence but "the appearance of evil," "filled with unfeigned love of the brethren," in charity with all men, and with its "affections fixed on those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God"—a heart in this condition is fitted to supply impulse and energy for "whatever the hand findeth to do." It is a central heat, whose glow and fervor animate and inspire the active faculties of the soul, prompting them to aim at the accomplishment, and instrumentally imparting the competency to accomplish, those things which come in the form of Christian obligation. Binney. Christian life is action; not a speculating, not a debating, but a doing. One thing, and only one, in this world has eternity stamped upon it. Feelings pass; resolves and thoughts pass; opinions change. What you have done lasts—lasts in you. Through ages, through eternity, what you have done for Christ, that, and only that, you are. "They rest from their labors," saith the Spirit, "and their works do follow them." J. W. R.—Look at the energy around us. Life goes swiftly in all regions. Men seem to be burning away faster than ever before, in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Do we work as hard for God as the world does for itself? Look at the energy beneath us; how evil in every form is active; how lies and half-truths propagate themselves quick as the blight on a rose-tree; how profligacy and crime and all the devil's angels are busy on his errands. If we are sitting drowsy by our camp-fires, the enemy is on the alert. You can hear the tramp of their legions and the rumble of their artillery through the night, as they march to their posts on the field. Do we work as hard for God as the emissaries of evil do for their master? Look at the energy above us. On the throne of the universe is the immortal Power who slumbereth not nor sleepeth. Before the altar of the heavens is the Priest of the world, the Lord of His Church, "who ever liveth to make intercession for us." Round Him stand perfected spirits, the watchmen on the walls of the New Jerusalem, who "rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." From His presence come, filling the air with the rustle of their swift wings and the light of their flame-faces, the ministering spirits who evermore do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His Word. And we, where are we in all this magnificent concurrence of activity, for purposes which ought to be dear to our hearts as they are to the heart of God? Do we work for Him as He and all that are with Him do? Is His will done by us on earth, as it is in heaven? A. M. We perceive in the world around a connection in which none can work for himself without working for all others; or work for others without at the same time working for himself; since the happy progress of one member is the happy progress of all; a view which cheers the heart and powerfully excites the spirit, by the harmony which we perceive in the midst of the greatest variety. How one's sense of interest rises when he views himself as a member of this great and close connection! How the feeling of dignity and of power rises when one says to himself, as each justly may: "All that was ever great and wise and noble among men—those benefactors of the human race, whose names I find noted in the history of the world, and the larger number whose merits abide without their names—they have all wrought for me; I have come into their harvest, on the earth which they inhabited. I follow their footsteps spreading blessing. I can lay upon myself the sublime task which they had imposed upon themselves, of making our brotherly race always wiser and happier; I can build on where they must cease; I can bring nearer to its completion the magnificent temple which they must leave unfinished." Here one may say, "As they cease, so must I." But it is the sublimest thought of all; if I undertake the great task that I can never finish, I shall yet never cease to act and to live in my work. What we call death shall not break off my undertaking; it shall be finished. Fichte. Let it be our ambition in life to make ourselves unnecessary, to anticipate our departure hence by reduplicating in others such energies of holy purpose and such graces of heavenly tenderness, as by the renewing Spirit of God we may have had wrought within us, so that when our single life is done, our multiplied life may survive; and then, when the last tear shed for us has been dried, and the last memory of us has been erased by time, the energies that issued from us, at any rate, shall leap along the years, and our unconscious selves go scattering multiplying blessings along the broadening furrows of the generations. C. H. P. Stay in this world, into which Christ came, in which He stayed, as long as God wills. Pray not to go, pray to stay, pray to be a faithful son, pray to be kept from the evil, pray not to be kept from the world. Into the world go, as Christ went. Stand so close to the world that the buffets and blows of the world shall not hurt you. Under the world go, as Christ went, to lift it. Above the world go, as Christ went, to draw it up. C. F. Thwing. After all, there is a weariness that cannot be prevented. It will come on. The work brings it on. The cross brings it on. Sometimes the very walk with God brings it on, for the flesh is weak; and at such moments we hear, soft and sweet, the sound of that immortal requiem: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors." Or, as Dr. Preston, a man much given to holy meditation, said when dying: "I change my place, but not my company. While here I have sometimes walked with God, and now I go to rest with Him." Hamilton. Let us, then, not desecrate that wondrous faculty of looking before as well as after, which God has given to us. Let one solemn, blessed thought more and more fill with its substance and its light the else dim and questionable and insufficient future, and walk evermore as seeing him who is invisible, and as hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord. The harvest is great, the toil is heavy, the sun is drawing to the west, the evening shadows are very long with some of us, the reckoning is at hand, and the Master waits to count your sheaves. There is no time to lose, brother; set about it as you have never done before, and say, "This one thing I do." And so let us not fill our minds with vain hopes which, whether they be fulfilled or not, will not satisfy us; but lift our eyes to and stay our anticipations on those glories beyond, as real as God is real, and as certain as His Word is true. Let these hopes concentrate and define for us the aims of our life; and let the aims, clearly accepted and recognized, be pursued with earnestness, with "diligence," with haste, with the enthusiasm with which they, and they only, are worthy. A. M. 11,12. Taking still another and a new view of human labor ("I turned and saw"), I observed that even the most assiduous and well-directed efforts of men sometimes fail. The swiftest do not always win the race; the strongest lose the battle; the wisest miss their bread; "time and chance" seem more potent over human destiny than man's own best endeavors. Casualties will happen; no man knows his hour of death; the snare sometimes falls suddenly on men, as fishes are caught in a net; so that we must admit there is an overruling power higher than human that shapes the destiny of men. H. C.—Chance. This word means properly “incident,” that which comes to us from without, one of those external events of God’s ordering, which Solomon describes in chap. 3. W. T. B. A sovereign providence breaks men’s measures and blasts their hopes, and teaches them that the way of man is not in himself, but subject to the Divine will. We must use means, but not trust to them; if we succeed, we must give God the praise; if we be crossed, we must acquiesce in His will, and take our lot. H.—The future is ever in the hand of God. No man can say with confidence that any one scheme he is pursuing shall be attended with success—any one hope or fear which he entertains be realized. Every period of our life is opening some fresh page, the contents of which no human sagacity can determine; nor is there a single event that may take place under the sun which can be known with certainty until it is actually accomplished. R. Hall. 16. Wisdom is better than strength, and the more that wisdom spreads, the more human strength is saved, and the more is comfort enhanced. Even should there be no invader at the gates, when a beneficent ingenuity is exerted to enhance the pleasures of peace; when discovery chemical or dynamical floods our streets with midnight radiance, and bids clear water spring up in the poorest attic; when it mitigates disease or multiplies the loaves of bread; when by making them nearer neighbors, it forces nations to be better friends, and by diminishing life’s interruptions lengthens our span of probation and our power of usefulness—surely the “poor man,” whose “wisdom” thus enriches the species, deserves to sit among the princes of the people; and while religion should render praise to that Wonderful Counsellor who teacheth man such knowledge, patriotism and philanthropy must enroll the discoverers among the benefactors of mankind. Hamilton. 17. It has been supposed that there is a contradiction between this verse and the preceding. But the inconsistency is not in the writer, but in mankind, who sometimes follow wise advice to their profit, and at other times neglect it. Vs. 16 and 17 are merely comments on the two facts—the deliverance of the city and its forgetfulness of him who delivered it—stated in v. 15. W. T. B. How forcible are right words! What is spoken wisely should be spoken calmly, and then it will be heard in quiet, and calmly considered. But passion will lessen the force even of reason, instead of adding any force to it. H. 18. Lord Bacon said: “Knowledge is power,” and during the last hundred years no aphorism has been so often quoted. But six-and-twenty centuries before the days of Lord Verulam, King Solomon had said: “A wise man is strong.” “Wisdom is better than strength.” “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” Hamilton.—It is so in every department of life. The man of tact, the man who sees at once what is to be done and promptly does it, in passing through life escapes perils and masters difficulties which involve men of larger capacities and attainments in ruin. Hence it turns out that to every influential post—in the market, the Church, and the government—the men of tact for the most part, not the men of intellect and genius, occupy the most prominent and remunerative positions. Anon. One sinner destroyeth much good. The wider signification given by Solomon to the terms wise and unwise is our warrant to apply this expression, in the broadest sense, to the moral and spiritual conduct of men. Beyond all question it is true, in reference both to things temporal and spiritual. One unwise man, every one acting unwisely, wrongly, does actual damage to every interest, his own or that of others, temporal or spiritual; inflicts damage upon every interest affected by his acting, damage tending to the destruction of that interest. As every wise, right act produces good, so every unwise, evil act prevents the doing of good, or destroys good that is proposed or sought to be done. And manifestly, if every act has its effect of good done, or of good prevented or destroyed, every actor, by hourly multiplying acts, as he must in merely living, either accumulates or prevents and destroys much good. And the evil effect, the good prevented or destroyed, is the same, whether the unwise and hurtful act proceeds from criminal heedlessness or from more criminal purpose and intent. B. 1. DEAD flies cause the ointment of the perfumer to send forth an evil odor: so doth a little folly outweigh wisdom and honour. 2 A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but 3 a fool's heart at his left. Yea also, when the fool walketh by the way, his understanding faileth him, and he saith to every one 4 that he is a fool. If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding allayeth great offences [or, gentle- 5 ness leaveth great sins undone]. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as it were an error which proceedeth from the 6 ruler: folly is set in great dignity, and the 7 rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants 8 upon the earth. He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh through a 9 fence, a serpent shall bite him. Whoso heweth out stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood is endangered 10 thereby. If the iron be blunt, and one do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct. 11 If the serpent bite before it be charmed, then 12 is there no advantage in the charmer. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up him- 13 self. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his 14 talk is mischievous madness. A fool also multiplieth words: yet man knoweth not what shall be; and that which shall be after 15 him, who can tell him? The labour of fools wearieth every one of them, for he 16 knoweth not how to go to the city. Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, 17 and thy princes eat in the morning! Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, 18 for strength, and not for drunkenness! By slothfulness the roof sinketh in; and through 19 idleness of the hands the house leaketh. A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh glad the life: and money answereth all 20 things. Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. THE tenth chapter has been described as apparently the most disconnected part of the whole book. The retrospective character of the former part of the book now ceases; and this chapter resembles a portion of the Book of Proverbs, consisting entirely of rhythmical sentences giving advice, more or less direct, as to conduct. It is part of the writer's answer to the question proposed in chaps. 2:3;6:12, "What is good for men to do!" The thought which underlies the whole chapter is the advantage of that wisdom which includes piety and patience, as practical guidance through all the perplexities of life; various traits of wisdom are set forth in a favorable light, heightened by contrast with folly. Consistency (v. 1) and readiness (vs. 2, 3) are attributes of the wise man, also obedience, and submission to authority, even though its exercise be accompanied by great abuses (vs. 4-7); also caution, preparation to meet with obstacles (vs. 8-10); conciliatory speech, in contrast to the loquacity and self-confidence of a fool (vs. 11-15); temperance, industry, and government of the tongue, specially in speaking of superiors. Throughout a great part of this chapter the advice seems, in addition to its general application, to have a special reference to servants of a king. W. T. B. 1. The swarms of flies in the East very soon corrupt and destroy any moist unguent or mixture which is not carefully covered from them, and pollute a dish of food in a few minutes. Tristram. In the opening verse of chap. 7 Solomon had emphatically said that a good name is better than precious ointment. It may have been this very comparison which afterward suggested this striking thought. The very sweetness of a precious ointment—the very exquisiteness and delicacy of its odor—exposes it to be the more easily injured. It may be so tainted by the corruption of even a dead fly, as to have its perfume spoiled. And how true a picture does this illustration exhibit, of the fatal injury which a little folly is sure to inflict upon the good name of the man who is held in reputation for wisdom and honor. Buchanan.—A little folly in a wise man, a small sin in an honest man, and a slight indecency of manners in a man of courtly behavior, often greatly derogate from their fame and reputation. Bacon. 2. A wise man's heart is at his right hand—that is, ready to be employed with dexterity and effect. Parkhurst.—Herein a truly wise man's worth is discovered that his judgment never fails him in the greatest difficulties; in which he not only resolves right, but takes things by the right handle; whereas a fool mistakes in his aim, and stumbles so much in the easiest business that he commonly miscarries. Bishop Patrick. The words right hand and left are used figuratively. The meaning is, that the wise man knows how to adapt means to their proper end; and as goodness is involved in the wisdom here referred to, he is ready to do good—his heart directs to the performance of deeds which are graceful and beautiful, morally considered; but the fool does not employ his faculties wisely; and, as this is but another name for sinner, neither does his heart lead him to perform benevolent actions, but rather those which are sinister and corrupt. J. M. M. 3. We need not press the word "say" to its strictest literal sense—that of using these very words; but may take it to mean, He seems to say; he shows very plainly—that he is a fool. Then the verse will mean that in the common affairs of life the fool's wisdom fails him and he shows himself to all men to be a fool. H. C.—Everywhere, and at all times, the folly of a fool and the wickedness of a sinner are apparent—by the way as well as in the house. Wickedness, like folly, is conspicuous in him who is given to it. It is displayed on all occasions, in public as well as private; he proclaims himself a sinner, a fool in the most melancholy sense. 4. The dignity and gentleness of the man who fears God will prove the best shield against that wrath of a king, which is said to be as messengers of death, and which only the wise man can pacify (Prov. 16:14). J. M. M. 5-7. The idea is that the foolish ruler commits a great mistake and does a great evil by thrusting out of office worthy men and promoting the unworthy. H. C.—6. The sudden elevation of persons in a low condition to office under an Eastern despot, is a transaction that occurs almost every day; and, on the other hand, the degradation of those in office, for the sake of confiscating their property, is equally frequent in the Eastern world.—7. This is only another method of illustrating what he had just said. Servants are promoted to office and ride forth in state, for horses are used in the East principally by the rich and nobles. On the other hand, they who once were princes take the place of servants. 8-11. In all these verses, the most prominent of all the apothegmatic passages in Cohe- leth, there is not a single instance in which the proverb is quoted for its own sake, but merely because it can be made to illustrate the mischief that a want of wisdom or discretion will occasion. What the writer would show is, that, even in the most common concerns and transactions of life, discretion and foresight are needed, in order to avoid danger and to make undertakings successful. In all he is illustrating the final clause of v. 10. M. S. 8. The proverb is double-edged, and may have a twofold meaning: First, if you injure your neighbor's property and act as an oppressor, there may come an instrument of retribution out of the circumstances of the act itself. Second, if you are too daring a reformer, removing the tottering wall of a decayed and corrupt institution, you may expect that the serpents in the crannies, those who have "vested interests" in the abuse, will bite the hand that disturbs them. You need beforehand to "count the cost" of the work of reformation. E. H. P. 9. The cases made in v. 9 are simply difficult but useful occupations which require skill to prevent personal harm. Wisdom is profitable to direct here, as well as in the case next mentioned. H. C.—If we meet with knotty pieces of timber, men of perverse and ungovernable spirits, and we think to master them by force and violence, and hew them to pieces, they may not only prove too hard for us, but the attempt may turn to our damage. Rather let wisdom direct to gentle methods and forbear violent ones. H. 10. It is, of course, a case of wisdom whether it will pay best to sharpen the dull tool, or to put in the requisite additional strength. The case is adduced simply to illustrate the practical value of wisdom. H. C.—Wisdom is profitable to direct. Wisdom will still find out how to make it execute its office. Hodgson.—Wisdom does, as it were, whet the edge of the axe, and direct men to do that with ease which otherwise cannot be achieved without much labor. Bishop H. A blunt axe implies heavy blows and an aching arm, coarse work with a blistered hand. But “wisdom is profitable to direct.” Intelligence is as good as strength, and a little skill will save both time and materials, money and temper. The day for stone hatchets and blunt axes is past, and from the humblest craft to the most intellectual profession, in order to succeed, it is requisite to be clever and active and well-informed. Those who are trying to benefit others should possess the wisdom which is profitable to direct. Much good has been defeated by the want of skill or practical wisdom in Christian professors. For all exigencies there is provided a great and precious promise: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." But, like all the gifts of God, this talent grows by trading; and he who prayerfully exerts his understanding in order to maintain the right-forward path of duty, will soon be fit to guide and counsel others Hamilton. 11. When a man had not wisdom to use his tongue so as to render harmless the serpent, then no advantage accrued to him from being the possessor of a tongue. In other words, even the most distinguished members of the body are comparatively useless, without wisdom to direct their use. This verse, therefore, is of the same tenor as the preceding verses. That the tongue was specially employed in enchantment, is evident from the fact that this mostly consists of cantillating certain forms of exorcism. M. S. 12. The antithesis here lies between the words of wise men and the words of fools in the point of value and of results to themselves. The wise man's words are gracious, i.e., pleasant, agreeable, conciliatory, winning the goodwill of others and fraught with good to himself. On the contrary, the lips of a fool (by means of his foolish words) will frustrate his efforts and sink his cause. H. C.—The wise man here is the good man; his words are true, honest, and are therefore kind; even when they convey rebuke they are calculated to do good to those to whom they are addressed. The fool is the wicked fool, the babbler, the slanderer; his words are not only injurious to others, but they injure himself; the deception at length becomes too transparent to be tolerated, and his hypocrisy and malignity react upon himself. J. M. M. 13. This gives a reason for what was affirmed in the preceding verse. From beginning to end he plays the fool in all that he says. What he utters is folly, and oftentimes even a madness which is mischievous to himself. Not until this mischief overtakes him will he cease prating; it will be well if he does then. 14. Although much speaking leads to the utterance of many foolish things, yet the fool indulges in it; and this, even when neither he nor any one else can tell what mischievous consequences will follow. The reasoning stands thus: He must be a fool, who utters things that may have mischievous consequences which none can foretell. M. S. 15. So far from saying, "I will go to such a city, and buy, and sell, and get gain," the fool ought to be humble; for he knoweth not how even to go to the city, much less to make himself prosperous there. Y. 18. Slack and sluggish hands neglect repairs and leave the timbers of the house to rot and its roof to leak. H. C.—The roof leaks from inattention and idleness. And the longer it is neglected, the more difficult will it be to repair it. Y.—The only cure for indolence is work; the only cure for selfishness is sacrifice; the only cure for unbelief is to shake off the ague of doubt by doing Christ's bidding; the only cure for timidity is to plunge into some dreaded duty before the chill comes on. Rutherford. 19. Money answereth all things. It answers not only our comfort, but also our imperious wants, our sacred obligations. To desire it is a thing as innocent as the act of breathing; but, from a legitimate attachment for it, to an extreme attachment, the passage is short and slippery. A. Monod.—Riches in themselves are no evil. Nor is the bare possession of them wrong. Nor is the desire to possess them sinful, provided that desire exist under certain restrictions. For in almost every stage of civilization money is requisite to procure the conveniences, and even the necessaries of life; to desire it therefore as the means of life, is as innocent as to live. In its higher application it may be made the instrument of great relative usefulness; to seek it, then, as the means of doing good, is not a vice, but a virtue. But, perceiving that money is so important an agent in society, that it not only fences off the wants and woes of poverty, but that, like a centre of attraction, it can draw to itself every object of worldly desire from the farthest circumference, the temptation arises of desiring it inordinately, of even desiring it for its own sake, of supposing that the instrument of procuring so much good must itself possess intrinsic excellence. Harris. Wealth is the implement or result of industry—an instrument of influence that has in itself no moral character, and can have none apart from the use to which it is applied. It is simply an instrument which the good or evil passions of men can employ to produce any desired result. And as thus apprehended, its power is vast—can scarcely be overrated. It furnishes the capital of enterprise. It is the talent which industry can put out to usury and multiply manifold. In conjunction with human energy, its natural ally, it can accomplish wonders. It carries forward all the processes of our complicated civilization. It rears the manufactory, feeds its spindles, and turns its wheels. It provides and sustains the laboratory of art. It builds the school-house, the college, the church. It covers the land with railroads and canals, developing new wealth along their track. It tunnels the mountain, tames the wilderness, and opens the forest. It launches the vessel it has built, unfurls the sail of commerce, and explores the coasts of distant lands. It turns the world into a great workhouse of industry, rich with the products of every soil and the treasures of every clime. Some few rills of its great river, overflowing its banks, run into the channels of benevolence, and cheer the arid waste of human misery, sprinkling the broad desert with green oases or turning the wheels of hallowed enterprise. Gillett. There are two very simple tests for determining the right use of riches—the one is, that we shall so use them as to extract from them the real and rational enjoyment they are intended to minister to their possessor; the other is, that they shall be so used as to be made the vehicles of blessing to mankind. It unquestionably is legitimate to use wealth in the gratification of refined tastes, and in whatever Christian ways will best fit us for the service of God and for usefulness to mankind. There is no way of enjoying one's possessions like that of using them for the glory of the Giver of them and for the good of our fellow-beings. That it is "more blessed to give than to receive," every one finds to be true who tries the experiment. But there is here an open secret. He who would know the real and abiding blessedness of giving, must begin early, and practise often. We are all creatures of habit. Emotions, like principles of action which they always accompany, once coming to be habitual, also become necessities of life. If men would know the sacred pleasure of giving when they become rich, they must practise it while their riches are accumulating. Men who are penurious when comparatively poor, are almost certain to be penurious when rich. E. G. Robinson. The voice of duty, while it requires us to recognize the source of our wealth and all our titles to it in God, bids us, in the right use of our faculties, and with true views as to the value of wealth and the way in which it is to be employed, make all we can—not, however, overtasking our powers, or interfering with the just claims of body and soul upon our time and attention. Industry is a Christian duty, and vigor is a Divine gift, a talent God has given to be employed. The faithful use of our powers in their appropriate sphere, multiplying the conveniences and comforts of life to ourselves and others, giving us the means of influence and doing good, has the highest sanction of the Word of God. With right views and aims, we can be as truly serving God and working out the end of our probation in the field or in the workshop, as when we are found in the closet or prayer-meeting, giving each, however, its appropriate place. Except as the love of selfish gain interferes, we may work for God in seeking to increase the profits of our business and multiplying our means to bless the world. Let no man say that religion will spoil a businessman, even if it does forbid by solemn ordinance all unjust gain, the lie, or cheat. It bids us be industrious. "Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," is the Christian's motto. Make all the money you can, consistent with honesty and the higher interests of yourself and your fellow-man. It is only the right use of your talent which enables you to become more extensively and widely useful. Gillett. God keeps an exact account of every penny that is laid out upon Him and His, and that is laid out against Him and His; and this in the last day men shall know and feel, though now they may or will not understand. T. Brooks. 20. Too much license is often taken, especially in free governments, in uttering words disrespectful of those in authority. Disloyal words come from disloyal thoughts. Disobedience begins in the "thought." To speak evil of dignities is both dangerous and wicked. "Thou shalt not revile the gods (magistrates), nor curse the ruler of thy people" (Ex. 22: 28). Y.—The institution of magistracy cannot attain the ends for which it was designed, unless the persons of rulers be clothed with a degree of sanctity that shall shield them from popular reproach. One reason undoubtedly why the name of "god" was applied to magistrates was, that the office might be sanctified in general estimation, and that the conscience of him who held the office might be duly influenced by the consideration that he was in a sense acting as God's vicegerent and representing His person, authority, and attributes among men. Accordingly we find the Apostle Paul distinctly recognizing the obligation of this law even in respect to one who was in fact a most unrighteous persecutor (Acts 23: 2-5). Bush. 1. CAST thy bread upon the waters: for thou 2 shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, yea, even unto eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the 3 earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, 4 there shall it be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth 5 the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the 6 work of God who doeth all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not 1. THE figure used here is found by some in the sowing of grain upon the fields while yet under water in the process of irrigation, or from the inundation of swollen streams; and by others in the freighting of grain over the waters to distant markets—the returns from which might be only “after many days.” In either case “bread” would mean the grain of which bread is made. Whichever is the figure used, the sense is ultimately the same. Dispense thy charities liberally and look for returns in the distant future. H. C.—As the husbandmen sow beside all waters, or in moist and fruitful places, and after many days reap a bountiful harvest, so good and charitable deeds will in due time bring a harvest of blessedness to those who perform them. Do good; seek to make others better and happier, is the purport of this exhortation. J. M. M. Do we not see, no less than in the parable of the sower, the common work of man as a tiller of the ground turned into the symbol and token of his life as an heir of God’s kingdom? The words of the Preacher say to each man in the common daily tasks in which his life is spent, to each in his vocation and ministry, Do that which is right and true always; let acts of kindness be scattered freely. The seed never fails of fruit somewhere or at some time. The harvest may be a long way off, yet after many days thou shalt find. E. H. P.—Our reward for well-doing is very certain. “Though thou cast it upon the waters, and it seem lost, yet thou shalt find it after many days, as the husbandman finds his seed again in a plentiful harvest, which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. 7 Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing 8 it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Yea, if a man live many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. 9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring 10 thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. and the merchant his venture in a rich return. It is not lost, but well laid out and well laid up; it brings in full interest, in the present gifts of God’s providence and graces and comforts of His Spirit, and the principal is sure, laid up in heaven, for it is lent to the Lord.” “Thou shalt find it, perhaps not quickly, but after many days; the return may be slow, but it is sure, and will be so much the more plentiful.” Wheat, the most valuable grain, lies longest in the ground. Long voyages make the best returns. H. Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe; it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one) it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove after a thousand years. • Carlyle.—Such is God’s husbandry. Do the right deed. Do it in faith, and in prayer commend it to the care of God. And though the waves of circumstance may soon waft it beyond your ken, they only carry it to the place prepared by Him. And whether on an earthly or a heavenly shore, the result will be found, and the reaper will rejoice that he once was a sower. Hamilton. The forgotten and unrecorded work lives in the blessed results to the doers. Whatever of recognition and honor we may miss here, we cannot be robbed of the blessing to ourselves, in the perpetual influence on our own character, of every piece of faithful even if imperfect service. Habits are formed, emotions deepened, principles confirmed, capacities enlarged by every deed done for Christ, which make an over-measure of reward here, and in their perfect form hereafter are heaven. Nothing done for Him is ever wasted. Then let us do our work for Christ, not much careful whether it be greater or smaller, obscure or conspicuous, assured that whoever forgets us and it He will remember, and however our names may be unrecorded on earth they will be written in heaven, and confessed by Him before His Father and the holy angels. A. M. 2. This verse gives in part the interpretation of the parable, in part presents a new one. "Give a portion to seven;" yes, and if an eighth appear at thy gate, send him not away empty; let him be a welcome guest to thee. Do good not according to the measure which thou appointest to thyself, but to the opportunities that God gives thee. E. H. P.—In your charities be not confined to a single object, but have an interest in many; scatter abroad; the investments are safe; an evil day may come when you will need that mercy which you show to others. J. M. M. "Give much, if thou hast much to give, not a pittance, but a portion, give good measure, be generous in giving, as they were, when, on festival days, they sent portions to them for whom nothing was prepared (Neh. 8:10) worthy portions." God is rich in mercy to all, to us, though unworthy, He gives liberally, and upbraids not with former gifts, and we must be merciful, as our heavenly Father is. H.—Every man should give as he has received. He cannot give more; he wrongs his Master and his brethren if he gives less. And be it little or much, God has a place for it, and a blessing for it. Large and conspicuous service is not to be undervalued; nor is the more quiet and restricted service to be despised. We may not say which is most vital or which God shall most bless. R. Cordley. The Spirit of God is bound down to no man's method, and conforms His operations to no man's ideas of fitness. The Church is the product of the Divine Spirit, infinitely free and wise, using all sorts of agencies, and bringing men into the kingdom by just such methods as He sees best. Thus it is enforced upon us that we must sow our seed by all waters; with strong hands and feeble hands; in the Church and the Sabbath school, in the family and out by the waysides of life. Only we must sow in prayer; sow in tearful love; sow in humble confidence in Jesus; not knowing whether this or that shall prosper, but confident that in the end we shall return with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us. S. W. Fisher. All life is unearned increase. We are so accustomed to think of our planting and our watering, our reaping and our storing, that many of us forget altogether, or remember it only slightly and occasionally, that God gives the increase. The seed is cast into the ground, and the farmer guards it and cultivates it, but neither blade nor ear nor full corn in the ear are made by these processes, nor do these processes give any equivalent for the rich gains of summer and autumn. The springing blade is the direct gift of God—an unearned increase which comes to the husbandman. H. C. T. 3. Calamities will come by a common law of human life, even as great storms come in the course of nature, and, coming, hurl down the trees of the forest to lie where they fall—that is, the effects of these calamities are more than transient, and are not easily remedied. Provide, therefore, wisely and abundantly against these seasons of disaster. H. C. In regard to the “evil coming on the earth” (v. 2), the sweeping calamities that lie beyond man’s control, he is as powerless as he is when the black clouds gather and the winds rush wildly. He knows only that the clouds will pour down their rain, that the tree will lie as the tempest has blown it down. Is he, therefore, to pause and hesitate and stand still? This question is answered in 4. Our ignorance of the future is not to put a stop to action. The very watching for opportunities may end in missing them. There are times when it is our wisdom to be “instant out of season.” . . . All the great thinkers of the world tell us, as with one voice, that the future which God appoints will come, for good or evil, joy or sorrow; that it is unwise in any man to anticipate the worst. Let him do the right thing at the present hour, and then he has done all that in him lies to make his path clear, and he may leave the rest to God. No temper is more fatal to energy, manliness, usefulness, than that of anxiety and fear. E. H. P. Unforeseen events come from God; and the man who is always gazing on the uncertain future will neither begin nor complete any useful work; but do thou bear in mind that times and circumstances, the powers of nature and the results to which they minister, are in the hand of God; and be both diligent and trustful. Anon.—What God has arranged we cannot alter, nor can we foretell what He will do. The husbandman, if he wait for the wind to come into what he deems a favorable quarter before he ventures to sow, may not sow in good time. If he depends on the appearance of the clouds, and regards them as ominous of bad weather, then by delaying to sow in due time he will not reap a harvest. One must go straightforward in his duty, and not make this dependent on slight circumstances and uncertain omens. M. S.—If in sowing or reaping the husbandman is deterred by every sign of unfavorable weather, he may lose the fruits of his labor. So in the exercise of charity and in the discharge of duty generally, if we wait until every real or imaginary obstacle is put out of the way we shall lose the opportunity. We must attempt to do good in the face of obstacles and discouragements. J. M. M. 5. There are and will be things in God's providential administration of human affairs which thou canst not fathom to the bottom, just as in the processes of nature referred to we are compelled to confess our ignorance. Where animal life comes from, what it is in its essential nature, and many of its laws are matters too deep for our philosophy. H. C.—“Thou knowest not the work of God, nor is it fit thou shouldest; thou mayest be sure He will make good His word of promise, though He does not tell thee how, and though He works in a way by Himself, He will work, and none shall hinder; but then He will work, and the blessing shall work insensibly but irresistibly; God's work shall certainly agree with His Word, whether we see it or no.” H. 6. Ignorance as to the results of labor, still more, apparent or actual failure in earlier efforts, often tempt men to despondency or indolence. This maxim bids them take comfort, since the seed sown in the morning of life may bear its harvest at once, or not till the evening of age. The man may reap at one and the same time the fruits of his earlier and later sowing, and may find that “both alike are good.” E. H. P. Therefore use wisdom and all due diligence. Let no hopeful means of good be omitted, sowing thy seed morning by morning, and at evening still let thy hand be active and thy heart earnest; for thou canst not tell which of the many things shall be successful. Do your whole duty and then calmly leave the issues with God. H. C.—To each of us our heavenly Father has given the germ of a life that can never die. The law of that life is, that nothing will be, nor can be lost. Its unconsidered fragments are like grains of seed-corn, full of infinite after-promise. Even as the field of the dead is God's acre, so is the field of living duty His harvest field. Jackson. (Bampton Lectures.) God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right by anything that we do or neglect to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the more because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labor of men that, in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the further off we place our aim and the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss in such respect for futurity. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that above all other attributes separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Ruskin. All the materials essential to our well-being in both worlds, for the body, the mind, and the soul, for time and for eternity, God has provided, by His own unassisted and unmodified power, in that region of His working which is far above the reach of our own will and effort. But the well-being of man is never attained except he brings himself into harmony with all the conditions of the Divine bestowal. Sowing and reaping, toiling and gathering, are conditions with man, if not with birds and lilies. Withhold these, and man never reaches that state of physical well-being which was designed for him. He does not comply with those terms which are inseparable from the blessing. The sun may shine and the rain may fall, spring and summer through, and all the wealth of air and soil be bestowed munificently, but if man will not hold the plough, nor sow the seed, nor work at all, he will reap small advantage from the willing liberality of God. Precisely so is it in regard to God's spiritual munificence. W. Adams. In the moral, as well as in the natural world, there is an appearance of waste and failure. Yet the impulse of benevolence must not from hence be discouraged, nor wait for the time of action till it has the fullest assurance of success. We must learn to venture much, for we have often to cast our seeds of kindness "upon the waters," not knowing whither they will be carried; often, too, with as little prospect of reaping any ultimate good as if we scattered them upon the barren foam of the sea. The prospect of immediate success must not be our motive. We have to act upon higher and nobler principles. We must learn to do good for its own sake. We must have faith in the imperishableness of good deeds. We must consider that the issues and rewards of our life are with God. He knows all the issues of the good man's life, and all the riches of His sure recompense in eternity. These are greatly hidden from us here; therefore, in the mean time, we must learn the uses of that faith which ventures all. Venture is the very soul of the religious life, the attitude of the righteous toward the great things of God yet to be revealed; and the spirit of it penetrates all the forms of duty. Homilist.—If God scorns not apparent waste, ought we to scorn it, if the gain of it at last be only the winning or the edification of a single soul? O wearied toilers in the heat and dust of the day, the seed that ye have sown beside all waters, your unavailing sacrifices for others, your thankless labors by day and your fruitless tears by night, are not all wasted! The waste of faith and hope and love, lavished apparently in vain upon insensible hearts, will some day be seen to be no waste at all; and he who has shared in the sufferings of Christ shall, like his Divine Master, see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And then we shall fully understand the gain of waste. S. S. T. Thou knowest not whether shall prosper. If it is the morning seed that is to have the blessing, the preceding work of all thine evening may be necessary for it; and if it is the seed sown at evening which Divine grace shall choose, the toil of all the foregoing mornings of prayer and of effort may be just as necessary as the seed. This combined uncertainty and responsibility illustrate in an eminent degree the situation of parents in regard to their children. Cheever.—How little we know when we are doing our most effective work! How little we can tell whether shall prosper, this or that. A single word spoken in season; a helping hand in time of need; a tear of Christian sympathy; a prayer, winged heavenward by faith and love; a widow's mite cast into God's treasury, may be forgotten by the Christian toiler, but not by Him who is enthroned on high. He sees and hears and blesses; and so where the toiler hath trodden, flowers bloom, and fountains spring, and harvests wave, and souls redeemed sing songs of joy. S. S. T. 7-10. Solomon now prepares to draw to a close. The dejection and sadness which pervade some of his utterances near the beginning are now gone. He has solved the problem which perplexed his mind, and we no more hear him say, as in chap. 2:17, "I hated life;" but he speaks, with the cheerfulness and animation becoming a true friend of God. J. M. M.—The remaining verses of the chapter are in another strain. Life is precious, and God has filled this world with many sources of pleasure; yet in the midst of your joy, forget not that days of darkness will come (vs. 7, 8). Let the young man enjoy the vigor of youth and its legitimate pleasures, yet evermore bearing in mind that God holds him responsible for all his moral life and will bring him into judgment (v. 9). Let him therefore banish discontent from his heart, and, observing the laws of health, prolong his youthful vigor to the utmost, for childhood and youth are subject to vanity—the failure and loss of earthly good (v. 10). H. C. 7. It cannot be denied that life is sweet; it is sweet to bad men because they have their portion in this life; it is sweet to good men, because they have this life as the time of their preparation for a better life; it is sweet to all men; nature says it is so, and there is no disputing against it; nor can death be desired for its own sake, but dreaded, unless as a period to present evils or a passage to future good. Life is sweet, and therefore we have need to double a guard upon ourselves lest we love it too well. H. 8. In the midst of the unbroken joys of youth and of prosperous life, let no man forget that far other scenes may be before him; that days of darkness will follow these days of light, for they surely will, and they may be many. H. C.—The whole system of worldly amusement is adapted to make us forget the real condition of human life, to disguise every object, and to invest the present state with a sort of theatrical glow. It is contrived, in every part of it, to banish reflection, to hide the future from the view, and to make us overlook the evils of life and the realities of eternity. But still, as the nature of things remains the same, the lot of mankind is, sooner or later, a state of suffering, from which no past successes, no seeming stability in our station, can possibly secure. It is wisdom, then, to form a just estimate of human life; to correct the illusions of our passions, and to regulate our expectations respecting the good and evil of the present, by the result of universal observation and experience. R. Hall. 9. Rejoice, cheer, walk. Here, as in chap. 9:7, the imperative mood is used, not exactly to express a coi manl, but rather to encourage one who possesses certain gifts from God to remember that they come from God and are to be used in accordance with His will. W.T.B.—The Preacher frankly commends to youth a joyful, cheerful life as its natural and proper heritage. He does not invite to a feast, and then set up the skeleton of judgment at the table, to fill the feaster with fear and trembling. There is no covert irony in the call to rejoice. The judgment is brought in, but in a way which ministers to the rejoicing instead of clouding it... Why may not the young man lawfully rejoice in his youth, provided he remembers his Creator? The mistake is in divorcing the Creator and Judge from the joy of life; whereas, God is the true joy of life. Vincent. When he exhorts the young to make the best of life, and cheerfully to enjoy it, he throws in the salutary and soul-stirring caution, “But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment.” In other words, “Do all this, with the constant recognition and remembrance of the truth, that you are to give an account to God, for the manner in which you demean yourself amid all your enjoyments.” M. S.—The precept expands itself to a wonderful richness and fulness of meaning by being understood affirmatively. It still forbids, indeed, by implication, unholy joy. For if we are to rejoice, and our rejoicing be limited and chastised by the thought of judgment, then surely unholy joy is altogether excluded. But besides this negative precept, which is only the indirect and secondary meaning of the verse, it also enforces holy joy, Christian rejoicing, such as that of which Paul writes, and that not only under the limitation implied by the prospect of judgment, but on the very ground of judgment to come. We are to rejoice, not now and then, when we forget judgment, death, and sin, but evermore; in youth no less than in manhood and old age; and for our life of Christian joy—for our omission to rejoice, if we omit it, for our ill-rejoicing, if we rejoice amiss, as for true and holy rejoicing, if, by the blessed Spirit of Christ duly cherished, we rejoice as we ought to do—we shall be judged, and in that judgment either saved by God’s unspeakable mercy in Christ or condemned. G. Moberly. It is not in itself sinful that a young man should rejoice in his youth, enjoying his youthful vigor and health; nor that his heart should be cheerful; nor that he should walk in ways pleasant and agreeable to himself, in harmony with the laws of his being, provided, however, always that he regulate his pursuit of pleasure by a sense of his moral responsibilities to God. It is vital here to draw the line between admissible cheerfulness, legitimate physical and social enjoyments on the one hand, and on the other, sinful indulgences, injurious, if not even ruinous to one's self or to others. The context forbids the construction which makes these verses ironical. The numerous parallel passages in the book suffice to settle this point definitely. (See chaps. 2:24; 3:12, 13, 22; 5:18-20; 8:15.) We must then include the passage before us in this class, and explain it as referring to the legitimate enjoyments of youth, bearing in mind, however, that the author wisely guards against excess and abuse by solemnly assuring the young man that in reference to this whole period of his life and to all its special and abundant sources of enjoyment God will bring him into judgment, not to condemn him for the wholesome enjoyment of youthful vigor, but for its sinful abuse; not for any pleasures that are legitimate, but for all that are illegitimate, pernicious, morally wrong. H. C. In these words the writer falls back on the fact that, after all, this life is worth living, that it is wise to cultivate the faculty of enjoyment in the season when that faculty is, in most cases, capable of being fashioned into a habit. In good faith he tells the young man to “rejoice in his youth,” to study the bent of his character, what we should call his aesthetic tastes, but all this is not to be the reckless indulgence of each sensuous impulse, but to be subject to the thought “God will bring thee into judgment.” What the judgment may be the writer does not define. But the facts on which he dwells, the life of ignoble pleasure or tyranny or fraud carried on successfully to the very last, the unequal distribution of the pleasures and the pains of life, the obvious retort of the evil-doer that if this life were all men could take their fill of pleasure and evade the judgment of man, or the misery of self-made reproach and failure by suicide—all this leads to the conclusion that the “judgment” which the young man is to remember is “exceeding broad,” stretching far into the unseen future of the eternal years. Faith at last comes in where reason fails, and the man is bidden to remember, in all the flush of life and joy, that “judgment" comes at last, if not in man's present stage of being, yet in the great hereafter. E. H. P. Looking before the text and after it, thinking of the general scope and tendency of the whole Book of Ecclesiastes, one would say that all the text conveys is this great truth, which we all find out as we grow older, that the reckoning always comes. There is no harm in rejoicing in hopeful youth; God made youth for that. Only remember for steadying and sobering, not for saddening, that the reckoning will come; that through all these things you are sowing, and that you will reap by and by. Remember, then, that for all enjoyment, ay, for hard work and privation and trial too, the reckoning comes, the painful reckoning; for all these things God will bring you into judgment as for the enjoyments of your early days, and the reckoning may be a very heavy one. Even where the present frost is not the direct outcome of the past sunshine, no more sorrowful experience can be known by any human heart than the awful blankness which is expressed by the one word "gone." To have had and to have lost, that is the judgment in the text. A. K. H. B. The light is acknowledged to be good and life pleasant. The young man is acknowledged in his natural freedom. His heart is allowed to cheer him in the days of his youth, and he may walk in the ways of his heart and the sight of his eyes. Life is good and to be enjoyed; yet it is always grave, and the account is always running up against it. The true view is at once earnest and genial, bright yet always thoughtful, looking to the end from the beginning and forecasting the future, yet without anxiety, in the experience of the present. Tulloch. 10. The sense seems to be, Put away discontent from your heart and physical evils from your body. Cultivate the spirit of a cheerful contentment, and by carefully observing the laws of health, put from you, far as possible, the ills that flesh is heir to. God made your mind and body for much enjoyment; be careful, therefore, to study and obey the laws of life and happiness pertaining to both mind and body; for at the best childhood and youth are transient, and full of vanity. H. C.—The exhortation is founded on the solemn declaration which goes before, that God will bring him who walks in the ways of His heart and in the sight of His eyes into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart—put away that which is the chief cause of grief, sin, and those evil passions which lead to sin, and thus be at peace with thy judge. J. M. M. Lives are worth living, if they answer the purpose for which they were given. And such lives, how ineffably sweet and fruitful they are! God's smile beams upon them, and all humanity is conscious of the fact. Some of them, perhaps most of them, are quiet lives—no ostentation, no bustle and stir, only earnest, faithful, and conscientious doing of whatever their hands find to do. Hallock. darkness, and beyond the light of sun or star? What wings of human thought or fancy can soar into a region so high, so pure, so fair? And shall the wings be folded? Shall the fire be covered? Shall the force be latent? Shall the life be held in sleep, or swoon, or trance? Shall we not be ourselves? Shall we not be, and seem, our best? Are we ashamed to acknowledge our celestial friends? Are we afraid of being home too soon? Child of the light and of the day, look upward, homeward, to the land of lights, and God give thee ever clearer sight and stronger helps until the day of thine arrival! A. Raleigh. 1. REMEMBER also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, 2 I have no pleasure in them; while the sun is not darkened, nor the light, nor the moon, nor the stars, and the clouds return not after 3 the rain: in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look 4 out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; 5 yea, they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6 while the silver cord is not loosed, nor the golden bowl broken, nor the pitcher broken at the fountain, nor the wheel broken at the 7 cistern; and the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it. THE advice to lead an active life in the fear of God is here further enforced on the young by the consideration (vs. 1-7) of the circumstances which accompany old age, when activity gradually becomes less and less possible, and finally ceases altogether so far as this world is concerned. W. T. B. 1. This verse stands in close relation with chap. 11 : 7-10, and especially vs. 9, 10, and should not have been separated in the arrangement of chapters. The young man, rejoicing in his youth, and passing cheerfully along through those days of health, hope, and high anticipation and of superabundant physical life, is exhorted to remember his Creator even then, in the morning of his youthful years. To "remember one's Creator" is more than simply to remember God. It is to think of God as your personal Creator, the Author of your very being and of all that wealth of blessings which He provides so profusely for the morning period of life. To be thus seriously mindful of our Creator is to feel our obligation to filial obedience and to grateful love and trust. H. C.—Gratitude to God as Creator (compare 11 : 5) is here inculcated as was previously (11 : 9) fear of God as Judge. In one word, godliness, acquired as a habit in youth, is recommended as the proper compensation for that natural cessation of youthful happiness which makes the days of old age more or less evil; more evil in proportion as there is less of godliness in the heart, and less evil where there is more godliness. W. T. B. Remember thy Creator while your days are in their bud and blossom; while your hearts have not learned all the "deceitfulness of sin;" while your natures have not been corrupted by much knowledge of evil; while the world all about you is beautiful with the mysterious light of early days; while heart, and will, and habit are all fit to be moulded, and moulded aright; while you have not given pledges to the world by years of unbelief; while you have not a burden of transgressions, stretching through years to repent of; while you have life before you, that may be made sacred and beautiful, wise and righteous, full of Christ and a temple to God. A. M. The days of evil here mentioned are the days of declining life, the infirmities and sorrows of which are most vividly painted in the sequel. Accumulated infirmities, with a certain prospect of their increase, are sufficient to account for the exclamation of the sufferer: I have no pleasure in them! M. S. There comes again nothing like the first free burst of thought in youth; the intellect in later life, if its tone was not rightly taken earlier, becomes narrowed in proportion to its greater vigor; one thing it sees clearly, but it is blind to all beside. It is in youth that the after tone of the mind is happily formed, when that natural burst of thought is sanctified and quickened by God's Spirit, and we set up within us to love and adore, all our days, the one image of the truth of God, our Saviour Jesus. Then, whatever else may befall us afterward, it rarely happens that our faith will fail; His image, implanted in us, preserves us amid every change. . . . To see one standing at the opening of life, with that large treasure of time and strength laid up as it were for many years, and knowing and feeling its value; with those light and sanguine spirits which will not be weighed down by the burden of life, yet burning to attempt its hardest duties—to see, in short, one fully loaded with God's gifts, and offering them all to God's service; one full of enjoyment, yet looking on every pleasure as God's free mercy, undeserved by himself, and not to be caught at, for his appointed portion here is to work and not to enjoy; to see one so rich for earth and heaven, might half tempt an older man to envy. But speaking more truly, it is not a sight for envy, but for the deepest joy and thankfulness, joy both of men and angels. We feel the charm of youth naturally, it cannot but awaken our interest even in itself; but when this natural interest is sanctioned by our soberest reason, when natural youth assumes, so to speak, the beauty of the spring of an eternal and a heavenly year, then it does fill us with the deepest joy; and this work of God's Spirit, far more than all those natural works, the creation of which was described in the lesson of this morning, is indeed very good. There is no more beautiful, no more blessed sight upon this earth, than a youth that is rich toward God. T. Arnold. Observe that the ground or argument of the appeal is the true happiness of those to whom it is addressed. The whole story of Solomon lies behind and impresses this argument. Who are the blessed? and How is true blessedness to be attained? are the questions answered by Psalmists and Prophets. Their answers are expanded and pressed upon men's hearts by Christ and His apostles. Remember God in youth! When life is full of stir, and the energies pulsing with activity; when innumerable pleasures attract; when the days fly away unheeded; and when God, hidden behind His works and gifts, is disregarded and forgotten. In thy youth! When the heart is sensitive to impressions of spiritual goodness, purity, and truth; before it becomes blinded and hardened in the practice of evil, and so shuts out thought of God and good. Remember Him! Fix in thy heart just conceptions of His pure, wise, loving nature! Associate Him with all that is beautiful and beneficent in His visible working! Above all, rest your soul in hourly recollection upon the endearing characters and tender relations He avowedly sustains to you! So remember Him for thy truer happiness now. And so remember Him for thy peace in the coming days of decline and decay; that thine age may be serene and cheerful with hope of a deathless life. Before the evil days come, which will come if He be forgotten and neglected. Evil days, when social and sensual pleasures lose all zest and force of appeal; when there is left no resource for cheer, support, or hope. That such evil days may never come, therefore remember God, to thank and trust, to love and serve Him, now in the days of thy youth! 2. The second verse is a figurative expansion of the "evil days," and a general introduction to the verses that follow. B.—The figures are drawn from the natural world. The darkening of the great lights of heaven is one of the most common figures with the Hebrew writers for great and sad calamity. (See Ezek. 32:7, 8; Isa. 13:10; Joel 2:31 and 3:15; Amos 8:9; Rev. 6:12, 13, and Matt. 24:29.) The clouds returning after the great rain, when "storm after storm rises dark o'er the way," describe the rainy season of Palestine, when one storm passes away only to make room for another to follow, and a whole fair day is scarcely known. This represents forcibly the gloom and grief that hang over the old age of the ungodly. H. C. 3-6. The touching appeal enforced by the sure, sad experiences of decline and decay. This decay is in part prefigured by the ruin of a lordly castle, with its "keepers" and "strong men," its lofty windows and doorways. The details, given in all these figures, are singular but simple. The keepers and strong men refer to the arms and hands which act for and protect, and the limbs which support and carry, the body. All of these become feeble and tremulous, and fail of their appropriate offices. The reference to the grinders, though also a figure, is obviously to the loss of the teeth. Dimness of sight is intimated by the "darkening of those that look out of the windows." The shutting of the doors seems to refer to the closing of the ears, or perhaps, of all the senses, to outward impressions. The remainder of the verse (4) denotes the inability to enjoy the song of the worker or the bird; to take part in, or even appreciate, the music of voices or instruments. V. 5. Self-reliance is lost when strength is gone. Uneven footways and the narrow, unsafe streets make the old man timid and fearful. Feebleness increases until he can walk no longer, nor even endure the least weight: The flowering almond tree, whose mass of snowy blossoms come forth in midwinter upon leafless stems, is a natural symbol of the white hair and beard of age. And (as the closing particular) desire, the very susceptibility to physical gratification, is gone. These experiences all foretell the time of departure from the temporary to the long eternal home; the day of death and burial. Then (v. 6) as the frail golden lamp, suspended by silk and silver cord, is broken and emptied by the fall when the cord is severed, so the body is emptied of its indwelling spirit when the thread of its animate life is sundered. Or, as the pitcher and wheel, by which water is gathered from fountain and well, are useless when broken, so the bodily organs, which collect and distribute vital nourishment, are finally shattered and disabled by death. B. 5. The almond-tree shall blossom. The point of the figure is doubtless the fact that the white blossoms completely cover the whole tree without any mixture of green leaves, for these do not appear until some time after. It is the expressive type of old age, whose hair is white as wool, unrelieved with any other color. W. M. Thomson. Desire. Literally, the caper-berry. This berry, which was eaten before meals as a provocative to appetite, shall fail to take effect on a man whose powers are exhausted. Long home. Literally, "eternal house." Considering that the word "eternal" may be used here in a restricted sense, the expression long home (which has become a household word among ourselves) appears to represent the Hebrew fairly. Man's "eternal house" is his place in the next world. Without attributing to the author of Ecclesiastes that deep insight into the future life which is shown by the writer of the Epistles to the Corinthians, we may observe that He by whom both writers were inspired sanctions in both books (see 2 Cor. 5:1-6) the use of the same expression "eternal house." In 2 Cor. it means that spiritual body which shall be hereafter; and it is placed, as it is here (see v. 3), in contrast with that earthly dissolving house which clothes the spirit of man in this world. W. T. B. It is not at his death only that it may be said of any man, "He goeth to his long home." It is a continual present tense. Every moment, every step he takes, he is always on the road, getting nearer and nearer. Eternity is an abyss in which the mind loses itself in a moment; and the more we try to realize, the more impossible it grows. And because we have never seen it or conceived it, we call some earthly thing, some work, some waiting-time, some sorrow, some suffering, "long." But we shall never call it long again when we have looked out into the immensities which lie on the other side the horizon of this little world. But that life the Infinite Himself calls "long." "Man goeth to his long home." If that is home, we are travellers here. And every day should be a step homeward. We must not pitch our tents as if they were houses, for they will soon be taken down. We must not stop by the way to pick many flowers, and we must not care for little discomforts and disagreeable things as we go, seeing that our halting-places are only inns. If that is home, this is school. Hence the discipline. Life is all training. We have much to unlearn and much to learn, many habits to lose and many habits to form, before the minority of our existence here shall have fitted us for the maturity of our glorified manhood. J. Vaughan. 6. Death is here represented under two beautiful and striking emblems, the destruction of the lamp of life and of the machinery at the fountain of life. It connects as v. 2 and the last clause of v. 1 with the injunction with which v. 1 begins. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the silver cord is not loosed, nor the golden bowl broken. W. H. G. —The termination of life is signified generally by the breaking of a lamp, a pitcher, and a wheel; it seems unnecessary to assign to those images respectively different parts or functions of the body, all which end at death. The silver cord by which the lamp hangs from the ceiling snaps, and the cup or reservoir of oil is dashed in pieces by the fall, and the pitcher long used to bring water from the spring is shattered; and the wheel by which a bucket is let down into the well is broken. W. T. B. The metaphor by which loss of life is denoted is borrowed from a lamp suspended from a ceiling by a silver cord. The golden bowl is the bowl or reservoir of oil, from which it is distributed into the branches, in which the wicks are placed, from which the lights proceed. (See Zech. 4 : 2; Job 29 : 3.) The cord by which this golden bowl or reservoir of oil is suspended, being decayed with age, giving away, and so suffering the bowl of oil to fall upon the floor and be broken, and thus extinguish the lamps, affords a striking image of the breaking up of the human machine and the extinction of its life, which by a very common metaphor is said to be suspended on a brittle thread. We need not inquire what internal part of the body is denoted by the silver cord or the golden bowl; whether by the former is denoted the spinal marrow, the nerves, the veins, or arteries; or whether by the golden bowl is denoted the heart, the brain, etc., since it is extremely doubtful whether the preacher refers to either. By the images of the broken bucket and wheel, in consequence of which no water could be procured, is set forth the decay and dissolution of the human body through age, in consequence of which life cannot be retained in it. Some have undertaken to point out what internal part of the body was denoted by the bucket, the fountain, the wheel and the cistern; I do not think that the preacher intended such a particular application of the terms. Noyes. 7. What becomes of man's two natures at death? Each goes to its original source. The body is resolved to dust again; the spirit returns unto God who gave it. One ceases from existence until it is raised again at the fiat of God. The other has no cessation or pause of existence; its life continues on in the vision of God. Here is an absolute affirmation of the immortality of the human spirit! B. Man is something more than vitalized clay. The breath of God imparted to the human form something more than animal life. The inspiration of the Almighty gave him understanding. He was made in the likeness of his Maker. He received a rational and intelligent nature. The soul is not the product of matter, nor any accident or modification of matter. It is a distinct existence, distinct in its origin, distinct in its nature. Though united, the body and the soul each preserves its own separate quality. The one is dust, the other is spirit. The one was fashioned by God's fingers, the other came from God's own life. This distinction is recognized throughout the whole of Scripture. What we call death is the dissolution of this fellowship and conjunction between the body and the soul. So saith the Scripture: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." W. Adams. Then shall the dust return. The creation of man, as described in Gen. 2 : 7 (compare 3 : 19), is evidently referred to. W. T. B. —Although it is true that these bodies themselves are constantly dissolving into air, that the material atoms which compose them will in a few short weeks all be gone, and that there is nothing but the shadow of our forms which we can call our own, we must also remember that there is a mysterious principle within, constantly renewing and repairing our wasting frames—a cunning architect superintending a thousand builders who are constantly reconstructing, with materials prepared by vegetation, the bones, the muscles, and the nerves, as fast as they are wasted and consumed; making, in a most mysterious way, beyond all human comprehension, here the fibre of a muscle, there the filament of a nerve, here building up a bone, there uniting a tendon, fashioning each with scrupulous nicety, and fitting each to its place with never-failing skill. But no sooner is the work of the architect done, than another great power comes in to destroy it. The oxygen gas which the blood absorbs in the lungs and carries to the different parts of the body burns up these carefully elaborated tissues, converting them into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, which pass into the atmosphere, from which they originally came. Life is, in fact, a constant struggle between the builders and the destroying element of the air; and when its short term is ended, and the builders cease because they are wearied and few, then “the dust returns to the earth as it was.” Cooke. The spirit shall return. The fact here stated by the inspired writer is simply that the spirit, being separated at death from the body, returns to God. No more is said here of its future destiny. To return to God, who is the Fountain of Life, certainly means to continue to live. The doctrine of life after death is implied here as in Exod. 3 : 6, and in many other passages of Scripture earlier than the age of Solomon. W. T. B.—There is in each one of us a “spirit.” It is the higher part, the nobler, the more godlike. It contains the “willing,” of which the body does the “running.” It contains the grand, capacious intellect; the beautiful, generous feeling; the pure, unselfish affection; the power of believing, hoping, loving; the faculty of praying; the capacity of knowing, of communing, and holding converse with God. The “spirit” may be dragged down; may be secularized, carnalized, brutalized. If we will sow to the flesh, we can reap corruption; and that corruption shall spread itself till there is nothing left of mind but its cunning, and nothing left of spirit but its indestructibility. It is there; it cannot be extinguished; the spark once put to it, the fire must burn on. There is, at the moment of death, a “returning of the spirit to God who gave it.” The profitable thing for us is to anticipate, in its certainty and in its simplicity, that “return.” “The spirit shall return to God who gave it.” C. J. V. The world is nothing more than one great, continuous grave. As it swings around the sun in its accustomed orbit, like a true mother, it carries the dust of her children in her bosom! Ye heavenly hosts, ye look down upon it from above, and we are almost among you. Thither flies the spirit, at the moment when it parts from its earthly shell. There shall we be ever united with all who have gone before us; and often shall we direct our glances of sympathy and sorrow toward our early home. Finally comes the hour; the seed is ripe for the harvest; the human race is ripe for judgment. The Lord descends with His angels; the graves open upon the heaving earth; and the glorified dust is united with the soul’s spiritual body. This we see in the spirit; herein are we absorbed; for this conviction we thank the Saviour whose grave quaked in the hour of His resurrection; and more mighty, more powerful grows in us the life of that faith which does not doubt of what it has not yet seen. Theremin. The dust of the human frame returns to its kindred dust; but the spirit, of far higher nature, the very breath of God (Gen. 2 : 7), returns to God who gave it; not to be absorbed again into the essence of the Divine Being; not to lose its personality, its individual consciousness, or its moral responsibility; but to receive from God its reward according to its moral life in the body. This doctrine of future retribution forever precludes the pantheistic notion of the absorption of the human soul at death into the being of God Himself. The doctrine that all human souls have their existence directly from God, so that He is strictly and properly “the Father of all spirits,” appears in both the Old Testament and the New. See Num. 16 : 22, where it occurs in the prayer of Moses and Aaron; also again in the words of Moses (Num. 27 : 16); so the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (12 : 9). That the soul, thus related to God as its Father, should return to Him at death, is due also and especially to its moral nature and moral relations and responsibilities. That this was the doctrine of the ancient Jewish teachers appears even in the Chaldee paraphrast who translates our verse: “The living spirit will return to stand in judgment before God who gave it to thee.” The same doctrine underlies this Book of Ecclesiastes, cropping out not unfrequently throughout the course of its discussions, and brought forth most distinctly and emphatically at the close. (See 3 : 17, 21; 5 : 8; 8 : 8, 12, 13; 11 : 9; 12 : 14.) And what can be more reasonable? For the gift of intellectual faculties devolves the obligation to know God. The gift of a moral power to obey and love God creates the obligation to obedience and love. God therefore has an account to settle with all those beings to whom He has committed such exalted powers, and hence their spirits must return to Him at death to meet this responsibility and to render this account. H. C. The bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption, but their souls (which neither die nor sleep), having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies; and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none. West. Confession. If any one thing is made clear by the whole drift and structure of revelation, it is this, that probation begins and ends with this life. Our Lord's teachings suggest neither doubt of this fact nor exceptions to it. Apostolic instruction suggests neither. This is not a subject on which it is reasonable to believe that a revelation from heaven has taught nothing. The when and the where of probation enter into the very fact of probation. The Scriptures furnish as much evidence that our probation began in a former world as that it will be continued or supplemented in a world to come. Regenerate character, started into being here, may be improved, developed, finished in a future life, which is not the perfected heavenly life. But this is education, and education is not probation. It is probation which determines the great moral distinction of character as right or wrong; and this the Bible assumes to be the work of one life, and one only. On the deeds done in the body the retributive experience depends. The validity of these views is not affected unfavorably by the fact that the Scriptures nowhere expressly affirm the non-existence of probation in the life to come. It is not the usage of inspiration to affirm negatives. Phelps. With all that is said and assumed and argued for, and stiffly asserted, as regards the fact of a second trial hereafter, the whole world tacitly concedes, nevertheless, that no such new condition is, in fact, expected. For no unbeliever, no practically godless and really apostate believer, no bad man groaning under his vices, no drunkard writhing under his chains, no scoffing Altamont overtaken by remorse, no human creature, whether uninstructed Pagan or best instructed philosopher, and (what is most significant of all) no loosest, largest freethinker, who asserts most confidently the faith of a second trial hereafter, goes out of life talking of the new chance now to be given him, and the high, free time he is going to have, in the more propitious trial that will suffer him to mend his defects and the consciously bad ways that have corrupted him. All such advocates of a basement gospel, under the world and after the grave, convince themselves, by what they consider most indisputable and profoundly wise arguments, that their ultimation gospel, their posthumous salvation, will have power to mend all damage and smooth away all woes of character begun; but when we look to see those deep, natural instincts, which are always the spontaneous interpreters of our humanity, giving out their indications, we find our believers in the underworld opportunity clinging fast to life, as if they had no such faith at all in them, recoiling with instinctive shudder from death, and hailing never in glad welcome the better day now come to help their recovery; in which they may discover, as plainly as need be, themselves, that their arguments are one thing, and the verdict of their immortal, deep-discerning judgments another. They contrive how it is to be, they reason, they promise, they encourage; but their always demonstrative nature nowhere runs up a flag of hope or gives any slightest indication. If the question be whether we are immortal, all the flags of natural hope are out streaming on every hill; but here expectation is dumb and shows no sign! Bushnell. Waste your youth; in it you shall have but one chance. Waste your middle life; in it you shall have but one chance. Waste your old age; in it you shall have but one chance. It is an irreversible natural law that character attains final permanence, and in the nature of things final permanence can come but once. This world is fearfully and wonderfully made, and so are we, and we shall escape neither ourselves nor these stupendous laws. It is not a pleasant thing to exhibit these truths from the side of terror; but on the other side these are truths of bliss, for by this very law through which all character tends to become unchanging, a soul that attains a final permanence of good character runs but one risk, and is delivered once for all from its torture and unrest. It has passed the bourne from behind which no man is caught out of the fold. He who is the force behind all natural law is keeper of His sheep, and no one is able to pluck them out of His hand. Himself without variableness or shadow of turning He maintains the irreversibleness of all natural forces, one of which is the ineffably majestic law by which character tends to assume final permanence, good as well as bad. Joseph Cook. Nothing is more difficult than to realize that every man has a distinct soul, that every one of all the millions who live or have lived is as whole and independent a being in himself as if there were no one else in the whole world but he. Survey some populous town; crowds are pouring through the streets; every part of it is full of life. Hence we gain a general idea of splendor, magnificence, opulence, and energy. But what is the truth? Why, that every being in that great concourse is his own centre, and all things about him are but shades, but a "vain shadow," in which he walketh and disquieteth himself in vain. He has his own hopes and fears, desires, judgments, and aim; he is everything to himself, and no one else is really anything. He has a depth within him unfathomable, an infinite abyss of existence; and the scene in which he bears part for the moment is but like a gleam of sunshine upon its surface. All those millions upon millions of human beings who ever trod the earth and saw the sun successively are at this very moment in existence all together. If we have once seen any child of Adam, we have seen an immortal soul. It has not passed away as a breeze or sunshine, but it lives; it lives at this moment in one of those many places, whether of bliss or misery, in which all souls are reserved unto the end. Every one of all the souls which have ever been on earth is in one of two spiritual states, so distinct from one another that the one is the subject of God's favor and the other under His wrath, the one on the way to eternal happiness, the other to eternal misery. This is true of the dead, and it is true of the living also. Endeavor then to realize that you have souls, and pray God to enable you to do so. Endeavor to disengage your thoughts and opinions from the things that are seen; look at things as God looks at them, and judge of them as He judges. There will be no need of shutting your eyes to this world when this world has vanished from you, and you have nothing before you but the throne of God and the slow but continual movements about it in preparation of the judgment. In that interval, when you are in that vast receptacle of disembodied souls, what will be your thoughts about the world which you have left? How poor will then seem to you its highest aims, how faint its keenest pleasures, compared with the eternal aims, the infinite pleasures, of which you will at length feel your souls to be capable. Newman. The man of the world is reconciled to his sins, and not to his state. The man of piety is in hostility to his sins, and reconciled to his state. The men of the world are always changing their state, and imagining a happiness which continually flies from them. It is the same in every period of life. In youth, the objects of the world not being tried, they think themselves at liberty to take excursions after happiness, and place it in the gratification of their passions. Weary of these, they become men, and then pursue riches and aspire after grandeur and consequence, but soon find that these have their cares and anxieties. When they become old, they look with equal contempt upon both periods; for both appear to them like a confused dream, that leaves nothing but a succession of images, which have lost their charms. But piety will produce satisfaction with our condition, and prevent the indulgence of the passions. In fact, in every way and at all periods it will preserve them; in youth, in manhood, and in advanced age. It will teach men that they have one solid good to obtain, and that time is short for attaining it. Dejection and gloom can have no place in that man who, having spent his life in serving God, looks forward to glory, honor, and immortality. R. Hall. A young man, when won over to habits of sober-minded piety, has it in his power to cultivate a rounded, harmonious, beautiful life, which grows serener and calmer to its end. And if such a young man reaches the boundaries of old age, what a blessed sight is he. The fire of anger, which he has controlled his lifelong, plays only in a genial flame of indignation against sin. Those baser appetites, which cost him perhaps many a struggle to overcome, have died out of his character. Covetousness, as it never filled him with evil cravings in his manhood, so has no torment of miserly fears for his old age. His brow of peace tells of numberless triumphs over sin, followed by undisturbed repose. Such an old age of dignity and peace, when we see it among us, is a purifying power in society—it is a protest against exaggerated feelings and excited desires, it is a forerunner of heavenly rest. Compare it, in its tranquillity and noiseless movement, with the disappointment, the self-reproach, the weariness and emptiness of a worldling who feels the bitter penal sobering of life in its dregs, and see in it the beauty of the Gospel. Woolsey. God will remember those in age who remember Him in youth or manhood. This compensating, sustaining fact is mercifully set over against the coming experiences of natural weakness and decay. To all who have acknowledged God in earlier life; to all who have consecrated their powers of body and mind to the Redeemer's service while yet those powers were active and unimpaired, the Divine Jesus will manifest a tender, affectionate remembrance in the days of darkness and weariness. He will put forth His efficient sympathy and aid to light and cheer the closing experiences of the aged believer's heavenward pilgrimage. When the bodily energies yield, and the mortal fabric crumbles, when the strong arm and the stout heart are alike palsied by the hand of time, when the pleasure-giving senses lose their susceptibility, when the eye is filmed, the ear is closed, the taste is dull, and the voice is inaudible, then will the indwelling Comforter afresh recall and impress with deepening power the promise of a new and glorified body, associated with whose incorruptible structure a renewed youth and vigor shall commence and be perennially enjoyed. So, too, when in the painful retrospect of life's fruitless toil and its parted friendships and vanished earthy hopes, the aged believer is burdened with an unutterable loneliness and sadness, and his heart is filled with longing for lasting repose and an abiding fellowship, then will this gracious Comforter whisper peace to his spirit in the anticipation of a rest where weariness and sighing and sorrow are forever banished. He will breathe a sweet, calming assurance of speedy welcome to that celestial sphere where not only former friendships shall be revived, but where the purer, closer, more blessed fellowship with redeemed and angelic spirits and with God Himself shall impart perfect, enduring delight. With such blessed assurances and such bright prospects will the present Jesus sustain and cheer the closing days of the soul that has trusted itself to His keeping, and sought to walk with Him through life. And thus sustained and cheered, he can patiently, peacefully wait all the days of his appointed time until his change come. B. Faith in the far or future life is necessary to wise walking through this life. The far life blotted out, or severed from the present, the present becomes insignificant, and almost utterly unmeaning. This life darkens and degenerates, becomes weariness, mockery, despair, as soon as it is separated from another. The sky seems to fall down; the horizon closes in; the far lights are swallowed up of the deepening darkness, and nothing is left us to do but to die. "Life and immortality" are abolished, and death is "brought to light," or throned in darkness rather, by this gospel. And this is the best that can be said, is it, in justification of a life the full scope and last end of which are found among visible things? It is a poor life on its own showing. It can give no account of its origin, no explanation of its mysteries, no motive for its virtues, no consolation for its inevitable sorrows, no satisfaction for its own yearnings, no hope for its close. It is contradicted and denied by the living soul of man, by the instinct of immortality in the breast, by the sense of God which in one way or other all great minds and true hearts attain unto, by all our expansive powers and upward longings, by imagination, by faith, by hope, by love, by the word of God, by Jesus Christ in all His teachings, and by His resurrection and ascension into heaven. No man who only takes the near look can live, or act, or suffer, or die as a man should. Still further. Against such a life there lies this consideration, which it is really not easy to state in all its force, but which would be felt as having tremendous power, if it were duly understood and apprehended—this, that there is no natural probability that the latter part of life will be different in spiritual character from the former; that there is a strong probability that it will be the same; in circumstance and sensation very different, but in substance and principle the same. Enough. This life of scope so limited is no life for any of us to lead. It is too narrow for our greatness, too hollow for our satisfactions, too impure for our affections. It exhausts our energies, mocks our expectations, and will soon fade forever from our sight. But the life with the upward aspect and the far look is a life of peculiar dignity. On what, on whom, is this far-reaching gaze fixed? On the most perfect things, on the most glorious persons in the universe. On a world which is the harvest-home of other worlds. On "a city which hath foundations," and which is the only city of which God professes Himself the sole builder. On a grand celestial commonwealth, in which men and angels meet as brothers. On a vast cosmical harmony, or "gathering together in one all things in Christ." On "spirits of just men made perfect." On "innumerable companies of angels." On "Jesus the Mediator." On "God, the Judge of all." Where shall we find elevation and grandeur, if not in such a scene, in such society, as this? How poor in the comparison are the thrones and dignities of the present life, the scenes of enjoyment and the notable assemblies! Yonder are the true fountains of honor! the true seats of power! the true aristocracy of the universe! Higher no man can look than up to God's chief dwelling-place. Nobler no man need wish to be than to be meet for association with His nobles and sons. And observe, such meetness is greatly promoted simply by the looking. A man becomes great in the loving contemplation of such greatness. So we are said, in some Scriptures of deep meaning, not only to look, but to see: not only to seek, but to find. "We are come," already, now, "unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God." In our faith and fellowship, and love and longing, "we are come." In the strongest laws of our being we belong even now to this celestial state. "Our conversation, or citizenship, is in heaven." The angels make mystical encampings about the steps of faithful men everywhere. The spirits made perfect are drawing us by all the sainted memories they have left behind, and by the irrepressible yearnings of our souls to follow until we overtake and grasp inseparable hands. And a far-looking soul becomes great as it gazes upward to home, and rest, and glory. A heaven-bound pilgrim has a shining face and a lordly air to those who can see. Since the "high calling" came, he can but look to "the mark" of it. Since he was gifted with spiritual sonship he can but hasten home to the house of many mansions. Since he was made a peer of the upper realms he can but gather up his garments in passing through the lower, and keep himself in reserve for eternal friendships and honors. Thus a wonderful dignity is thrown around a human life as soon as invisible things decisively become its scope and end. The far look brings purity into the mind. Directly and powerfully as though it drew it down from the skies. If there be one desire more essentially characteristic than another of a Christian state, and of progress in that state, it is the approbation and love of purity, or the perfect moral goodness of Jesus Christ. This is "the spirit of Christ," which "if any man have not he is none of His." This is the "hunger and thirst after righteousness" which whoso hath is blessed, for "he shall be filled." The far look has in it a wonderful power of composure. It holds the looking mind as in an element of Divine tranquillity amid the stir and tumult, amid the daily changes and troubles of this world. One fretted with cares and strifes and the many ups and downs of life looks away to the victor throngs gathering on the shores and mountain-sides of the "better country," and then he chides his discouragement by thinking. "Haply, I shall soon be among them!" Many a calm hour does heaven thus drop down about the steps of her home-going sons and daughters, which, otherwise, they never would find. Many a touch of coolness she sheds on hot hand and fevered brow. And as day after day come and go, one and another who have learned to take the long look, find a straight path for their feet, through some of the busiest and most perplexing scenes of the cities here below, by holding firmly in hand the roll of citizenship above, and by sometimes thinking, if but a moment at a time, of the day of joyful entrance. Finally, The far look brings a peculiar assuagement of suffering, and sorrow, and affliction of every kind. Listen to the apostle's wonderful words: He counts his affliction "light," although it is thus actually sinking him to the grave. He says it is "but for a moment," although it had lasted from his conversion to that time, and, he knew, would last on to the day of his martyrdom! How, then, is this? What is the explanation of such a mystery? Here is the blessed explanation. The master power, the transmuting, transforming element in this great process, is nothing else than his soul's "far look," at "things not seen," at "things eternal." That look changes all. It makes affliction, which is very heavy in itself, "light," by bringing it into contrast with immortal joy; which is long in itself, but momentary, by measuring it with eternal duration. The same look will do for us what it did for him, what it has done for so many of God's children since. It will fill our souls, and even our bodies in a measure, with a sense of heavenly assuagement. It will impart "a strong consolation." "In all these things" it will make us "more than conquerors." And what shall we more say? This life of the far look has been commended by the celestial dignity which it gathers as it grows; by the purity and goodness which it wins from the skies; by its power to generate tranquillity amid the hurry of this world's affairs, and by its mastery of all trouble and affliction—we might even say, of death. What other kind of life could do as much, or almost anything at all, in the like ways? What force can match with this tremendous energy, which lifts immortal souls from one world up to another? What fire of mortal kindling will burn as doth the flame of Christian hope, up through the deepest earthly 8. VANITY of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity. 9 And further, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he pondered, and sought out, and set in 10 order many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written uprightly, even words of truth. 11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails well fastened are the words of the masters of assemblies [or, collectors of sentences], which are given from one shepherd. 12 And furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh 13 This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of 14 man [or, this is the duty of all men]. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. 8-14. THIS passage is properly regarded as the epilogue of the whole book. Here, as in the beginning of the book, the Preacher speaks of himself in the third person. He first repeats (v. 8) the mournful, perplexing theme with which his musings began (1:2); and then states the encouraging practical conclusion (13, 14) to which they have led him. Between these he interposes four verses (9-12), asserting his claim to come forward as a teacher, his intention to teach with no unnecessary obscurity, the usefulness and authority of such teaching, and the folly of protracted, unpractical meditation (compare 11:4); this brings him to the practical end (vs. 13, 14) of the epilogue and of the whole book. These verses have the same authority with the Christian reader as the rest of this book; for they were received as an integral part of the book by the Jewish Church long before the time of our Lord. The whole passage serves to make the book more intelligible and more acceptable. W. T. B. 8-12. General summing up of the book or sermon. V. 8 repeats the text for the last time. Transitoriness and dissatisfaction are the main ideas denoted by the word vanity. V. 9 declares the object of the Preacher, to teach the people knowledge; and his fitness to teach by reason of his wisdom and earnest endeavor. V. 10 refers to his effort to make his teaching acceptable; and it affirms that he has taught the truth. V. 11 discloses the purpose and effect of truth as taught by all wise and faithful teachers. The words of such are as goads to stir the heedless to thought, to excite the sluggish to active obedience and duty. They are as nails to fasten truth in the memory and to make obedience habitual. This truth, it is intimated, is to be taught by those who are themselves instructed by one Shepherd, even Christ. And v. 12 is designed to impress the supreme value of Divine wisdom and revealed truth as compared with all that is human and uninspired. This one book of God, unlike the multitude of human productions, conveys truth without error. It absorbs, enriches, and delights mind and heart without weariness in study or exhaustion of its sublime and satisfying themes. B. The aim of Coheleth, in all that he has said, has been to speak "acceptable words," full of the honey-sweetness of Divine truth—"upright sayings," words of righteousness, with power to pierce the soul. This is characteristic of all wise teaching. It has a sweetness that glides into the heart, and at the same time a sharpness that penetrates the conscience, as a nail fastened in a sure place. Now, at the end, speaking to a son, after the manner of Solomon in the Proverbs, the Preacher exhorts him not to seek his welfare in many books, for literature no more than mirth can constitute man's welfare, or supply his chief good. "Fear God and keep His commandments." A conclusion quite similar to that of Job in his quest after wisdom. He sought for it in the mines and deep places of the earth; and the conclusion of the matter he found to be this, "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." This was the height of the Hebrew "Chokmah," or philosophy of wisdom and life. As David is the great poet, so is Solomon the great philosopher. And as David's Psalms, read in the light of Christ and the Gospel, are still at the height of sacred poetry; so Solomon's teachings and reflections, read in the same light, are at the summit of wisdom still. A child-like reverence for God, including the fear of displeasing Him, and the desire to obey Him from the heart—this is right, and to love Him with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind is the great commandment. D. F. 8. All is vanity. Obviously this introduces the closing section of the book, the concluding remarks. Hence he repeats the sentiment which more than any other has been his leading theme, the utter vanity of all things that are merely of the earth—sensual and worldly enjoyments. H. C.—The writer has gone through the whole round of human employment and enjoyment; and he comes out at last fully with the sentiment which he announced at the beginning. Solid, lasting, and unchanging happiness is not to be found in any worldly occupation, or in any worldly circumstances. God has impressed this truth on everything and made it visible everywhere. M. S.—Solomon has proved in this book that if there be no hereafter, no future day of righteous adjudication, then vanity must be predicated of the "all," the universe. J. M. M. 10. The writer does not mean merely that he first sought for proper words and then proceeded to write the same down, but he means to convey the additional idea that he wrote words of truth, as well as acceptable words. M. S.—If the preacher be wise, he will search out and set in order words that shall be acceptable, yet words of truth and life; he will press into his service all his powers of wit, humor, argument, tenderness; he will seek to dip the arrows of conviction in healing balms, to carry guiding and comfortable rays into the darkness of doubt or grief, to rebuke successful wrong with an indignation that shall burn like a fire, and to lift up patient, unsuccessful merit by force of sympathy and love. He will consecrate all his faculties and energies to the service of his Master, to the endeavor to carry the very truth to the hearts of his brethren. But the defence and exposition of the truth will be his supreme aim. He will care more for what he teaches than for how he teaches it. Cor. Acceptable words. Reflect on your own thoughts, actions, circumstances, and—which will be of special aid to you in forming the habit of reflection—accustom yourselves to reflect on the words you use, hear, or read, their birth, derivation, and history. For if words are not things, they are living powers by which the things of most importance to mankind are actuated, combined, and humanized. Coleridge.—If we could obtain the opinions of such authors as Horace, in Latin, or Bacon and Addison, in English, and, in the sacred tongue, that most wise "Preacher who sought to find out acceptable words," we should think more highly of the study of words. What careful writer has not remarked how the entire character of a statement has been changed—has passed from ambiguity to clearness, from feebleness to strength, from awkwardness to grace—by the substitution of one epithet for another, or by the insertion, or even simply by the omission of an epithet? He surely is a stranger to the elements of power in speech who does not endeavor to be skilful in the use of words. Skinner. 11. From speaking of his own work, he passes to speak in a more general way of all the words of the wise, with special reference, it would seem, to the other inspired books of the Old Testament, then extant. These words of wise men are as goads; they have a piercing, penetrating power. They commend themselves to the good sense of mankind and to their conscience no less, and therefore take fast hold of the human soul. So the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (4: 12). H. C.—As goads, and as nails well fastened. No figures could more aptly typify the two offices of sacred teaching: the one immediate in its effect, pricking the conscience, stimulating the soul; the other, permanent and durable, depending upon the concurrent action of the hearer, in so admitting and retaining the impression, that it shall pass from the region of impulse and excitement into the domain of principle, of conduct, of life. C. J. V. The word translated "assemblies," it is now conceded by the best critics, refers not to assembled persons, but to collected manuscripts, constituting the recorded wisdom of the wise (the "words of the wise" in the first clause), with probable reference to the inspired books then extant. H. C.—Collected or put together, as they are in the Book of Proverbs, they are as nails fastened or well driven in. Each is like a fresh nail supporting and strengthening the rest; and all combined together hold too firmly ever to be extracted. Which are given from one shepherd. All these words of wisdom, collected in the Book of Proverbs, whatever may have been their human origin, have nevertheless proceeded from one Divine source—from the great Shepherd, who guards, guides, and feeds His people. W. H. G.—That these collected writings are “given by one shepherd,” looks to their common origin in the one revealing Spirit of God. It was as a great and good shepherd, leading His people like a flock into the green pastures of truth, that the Divine Spirit taught holy men of old to speak and write these words of pre-eminent and superhuman wisdom. H. C. 12. No end of making books. The expression is perfectly natural in the mouth of the writer (1 Kings 4:32, 33) of three thousand proverbs and a thousand and five songs. Grätz points out that this epilogue assumes the identity of the Preacher with the writer of the Book of Proverbs. W. T. B.—“Many books” were in existence in Solomon’s day. Recent investigations have put beyond doubt that in earlier times Egyptian literature was both comprehensive and unfruitful. According to Diodorus, over the sacred library of Thebes was the inscription, “Pharmacy of the Soul.” We read of wise men in the days of Solomon, with whom he is compared. They lived in the “east country” and in Egypt. Y. The form of expression in Hebrew is, To make books, many, without end. A second subject follows, and much eagerness of study. Both of these subjects are now followed by the predicate—viz., is a weariness of the flesh or body. Much study would be requisite to make very many books, at least if they were worth reading. And such books as are worth it Coheleth has in view, for they are such as are goads and nails. M. S.—It is in harmony with the entire strain of this book that Solomon should speak in this verse of his own personal experience as an author. If we may suppose him to have been at this writing far advanced in age, the pertinence of these words to his case becomes the more apparent. If he had in view also the multitude of books other than his, it was quite in place to exhort the reader to spare himself the labor, and not less, the loss, of reading many poor ones, and be content to read, digest, and put in practice the wisdom here laid so briefly before him. H. C. I know not whether the sight of a great library doth more dismay or comfort me; it dismays me to think that here is so much that I cannot know; it comforts me to think that this variety yields so good helps to know what I should. There is no truer word than that of Solomon—there is no end of making many books, this sight verifies it—there is no end; indeed, it were a pity there should. God hath given to man a busy soul, the agitation whereof cannot but through time and experience work out many hidden truths; to suppress these would be no other than injurious to mankind, whose mind, like unto so many candles, should be kindled by each other. Bishop H. Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you. Anon.—Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions by night, in travelling, in the country. Cicero. I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable to me; they are of all ages and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them; for they are always at my service; I admit them to my company and dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits, while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my desires and depend wholly on myself. In return for all these services they only ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner of my humble habitation, where they may repose in peace; for these friends are more delighted by the tranquillity of retirement than with the tumults of society. Plutarch. God be thanked for books! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. If the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. Channing. With regard to books, we ought not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most. Plutarch. You can create for yourself, if you will, by a process of selection, the choicest and most inspiring society. You can summon to your side the world's great teachers—philosophers and poets and prophets; you can commune with those who stimulate thought, with those who stir imagination and feeling, with those who unveil the future and lift the soul to heaven. With your Bible only in your hands, what a goodly company of seers and apostles of God you can call up from the past; and there are other books through which may come to you a similar, though not so great a blessing. J. Anderson. With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions, and in both instances all that we can learn from bad ones is, that so much time has been worse than thrown away. That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time. That short period of a short existence which is rationally employed is that which alone deserves the name of life; and that portion of our life is most rationally employed which is occupied in enlarging our stock of truth and of wisdom. Colton.—Readers are not aware of the fact that their first grand necessity in reading is to be vigilantly, conscientiously select; and to know everywhere that books, like human souls, are actually divided into what we may call “sheep and goats”—the latter put inexorably on the left hand of the Judge; and tending, every goat of them, at all moments, whither we know, and much to be avoided and if possible ignored by all sane creatures! Carlyle. Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand on those who wrote them. Those works therefore are the most valuable that set our thinking faculties in the fullest operation. For as the solar light in its effect upon vegetation, so with the light that is intellectual; it calls forth and awakens into energy those latent principles of thought in the minds of others, which without this stimulus, reflection would not have matured, nor examination improved, nor action embodied. Colton.—As your time for reading will be limited, do not waste it on any reading but such as will go toward informing your mind and improving your taste. Do not read for mere amusement. Do not seek to feed the imagination; that will always extract food for itself out of the sternest studies. Do not read, for the purpose of mere conversation, the popular works of the day, reviews, magazines. The literature of the day is always considered most piquant, the most immediately interesting, but is generally transient; it soon passes away, and leaves no general knowledge, no permanent topic in the mind. And then it is so copious; if one yield his attention to contemporary literature, he is overwhelmed with it. Make yourself, on the other hand, well acquainted with the valuable standard authors, which have stood the test of time; they will always be in fashion; and in becoming intimately acquainted with them, you become intimately acquainted with the principles of knowledge and good taste. W. Irving. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested—that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. Bacon. Books suggest thoughts, thoughts become motives, motives prompt to action. Man is a complicated piece of machinery; hundreds of nerves and muscles must act and react for the slightest turn of the body; yet the very wind of a word, a casual hint or association, can set the whole in motion, and produce an action—actions repeated form habits, and determine the character, fixed, firm and unalterable, for good or for evil. Pyecroft.—Every book, every paper, has a soul, breathing a spirit good or bad. It is the soul of its author, and when spread over the pages of the book, that soul acts upon its reader, as truly as when acting directly. The person who touches the book comes in contact with that soul, and is affected by it. And no contact with it is more influential. In reading an author's book you are conversing with him under circumstances very favorable to your becoming like him; for in the book everything is generally deeply thought out, in shape to convince, or carefully dressed up in a manner to bewitch. And all this only indicates the necessity of reading with care and caution. Anon. Books make life, and books make death. Every book which is read as a good book ought to be read enters into the reader's heart-blood for weal or for woe. Read an evil book, and the stain may remain with you always. Many a man would give all his gold to rid his mind of the false or impure thoughts which his early reading has made abiding guests in his brain. Refuse to soil your mind with a book which is essentially evil, however skilled an artist of words its author may be. There are enough good, pure, strong books in the world to supply all the demands of your intellectual life. Read these! . . . Unless it is directed and controlled by religious principle, the intellectual faculty contributes no more to man's chief good than does the digestive faculty. The thing which gives meaning and value to life is the soul's recognition of its relationship to God, and its glad performance of the duties involved in that relationship. Where that relationship is denied, no wealth of intellectual gifts will save the life from being an utter and disastrous failure. In the sublime view of life which Christianity opens up, in the centre which it gives to all thought, provision is made for the deepest and purest intellectual life. Hold fast to this great privilege of so shaping your intellectual life that it may also be a Christian life. Let go no legitimate opportunity to read the best books and to think the best thoughts. Guard for your children, and for those whom God has placed in your care, the same high privilege which you would preserve for yourself. S. S. T. Many works of fiction may be read with safety, some even with profit; but the constant familiarity, even with such as are not exceptionable in themselves, relaxes the mind, which needs hardening; dissolves the heart, which wants fortifying; stirs the imagination, which wants quieting; irritates the passions, which want calming; and, above all, disinclines and disqualifies for active virtues and for spiritual exercises. Though all these books may not be hurtful, yet the habitual indulgence in such reading is a silent mining mischief. Though there is no act and no moment in which any open assault on the mind is made, yet the constant habit performs the work of a mental atrophy—it produces all the symptoms of decay; and the danger is not less for being more gradual, and therefore less suspected. Hannah More. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/