Bible Commentaries

A Wise Lesson

Ecclesiastes 4:2-3).

Surely we did well to say that we would not commit ourselves to all Coheleth's theories and decisions. Here is a case in point. In the first verse Coheleth shines as a philanthropist; in the second verse he dwindles into a narrow-minded judge. In the first verse he is a statesman, in the second he is only a politician. Because of the shadow, and the wrinkle, and the pain, and the crookedness, he says that the dead are more to be praised than the living, and the unborn than those who are alive. If this world were all, there are some cases of distress which would go far towards supporting Coheleth's view. Undoubtedly there are people to whom life is a burden, and who sigh for relief from their pain and weariness. But who would judge the process without waiting for the result? "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." Christianity gives the right tone to all thinking about human distress and weakness. "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Thus all our little theories are swallowed up in a divine philosophy, and in the midst of our tumult and unbelief we are simply called upon to let patience have her perfect work. The wicked man brings his punishment upon himself; and though there are some whose wickedness is not clearly established who suffer much, they cannot separate themselves from the great social mass of which they are a part, nor can they escape the law which operates impartially alike in its collateral inflictions and blessings. We must not charge God with having made a mistake in creating the world. We do not yet see the whole purpose of his scheme. Nor do we know all the rich compensations by which our life is redeemed from despair. The loneliest heart has its own faint ray of light; the saddest soul knows one flower from which it can extract honey. Even the slave has his broad glad laugh, as if he had thrown away his chain. We know not what angels go to the dungeon, and what sweetness is dropped into cups that seem to be full of wormwood.

"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense."

"Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit" ( Ecclesiastes 4:4).

Here Coheleth comes upon another difficulty. He says that even where a man does that which is right, and turns life into a success, he only excites the envy and rivalry of the people who are around him. If he succeeds in business he will be called pushing, self-seeking, and boastful; if he gets into high office critics will say it was through audacity, scheming, or favouritism; if he gives large sums of money, people will say that it was through pride and to have his name published. This is the continual law of society. Social criticism has been urged into an exaggerated influence: men have become slaves one of another: the bravest wonders what the next bravest will think of him. This may be denied in words, or may be exploded as a theory, but who has not felt the subtle influence of this temptation upon the heart? A man works with almost desperate energy, he submits to all the agony of self-sacrifice, he turns the night into day that he may prolong his labours; and when he has reached the goal of his ambition there are not wanting people who can describe him as a "fortunate Ecclesiastes 4:5-6).

The fool does not aim at success, and so he excites nobody's envy. He lives from hand to mouth; he simply wants to be let alone. A very graphic representation is given of him in the fifth verse:—"The fool... eateth his own flesh," that is to say, he eats his capital, he lives upon the dowry without putting it out to usury. Give him seed for his fields, and he will live upon the seed without sowing it, and in doing so he quotes a proverb, saying, "Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit." This a wise proverb quoted by a foolish person, and therefore robbed of all its deep, rich meaning. So we are quoting proverbs to-day without knowing what we are talking about Ecclesiastes 4:8-12).

The lonely man was a miser also: "Neither is his eye satisfied with riches." He thinks he will live by himself and be happy. "O for a lodge in some vast wilderness!" Surely a man will never differ with himself! But Coheleth soon found that loneliness was not happiness. If a lonely man falls down he has nobody to help him up; if he is cold, he has no one to cheer him; if he is attacked, he has no one to defend him. Loneliness is a failure; solitariness is the midway point between life and death. We need each other's presence for criticism, for discipline, for the culture and strengthening of our best powers. Society is educational by its very constitution. A walk through the crowded thoroughfare is an intellectual tonic. A day on the streets is a lesson with manifold and graphic illustrations. So Coheleth dismisses the fool and the hermit as failures. The protest against solitariness throughout the whole scope of the Bible is an intimation of the great truth of human brotherhood, and of human brotherhood as a special medium through which divine communion is realised. It is perfectly true that a man may have secret fellowship with God; this is livingly and blessedly true; at the same time it is only part of an infinitely larger truth—namely, that humanity is greater than any member of it, in other words, that the whole is greater than the part. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together." A man may suppose that he can read the Bible in solitude and profit by it: to a certain extent that also is a most blessed and comforting truth; but as in the former instance it is a fraction, not an integer. There is a public reading of the Word—a reading under circumstances which excite our broadest sympathy and deepest interest, a great general music that ennobles by its very volume, as well as a quiet and private ministry of divine music. We were made for one another, and to break up society into mere individualities is to commit a species of homicide. Every life waits for some other life. It is impossible to enjoy even Nature so much alone as it may be enjoyed in congenial companionship. Every man has his own point of view; all the points of view are brought together, and the beauty of each is realised; so all nature becomes a glorious appeal to the eye of the body, and to the keener eye of the soul. It is precisely so with all religious influences and ministries. The sanctuary is the public home of the saints, and as when children who love one another are gathered together in the family home and minister to each other's delight, so Christians of every degree and quality gather together into one multitude, and stir one another's faith and purify each other's emotion.

Now Coheleth begins to moralise:—

"Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished" ( Ecclesiastes 4:13).

What of the label if the bottle be empty? Sad indeed is it when the man's name is the greater part of him! A king without kingliness—is there any irony so mocking and tormenting? Better be a good hearer than a bad preacher. Whatever we are let us be that well. A jackdaw has some respectability as such, but not a whit when he steals the peacock's feathers. "A live dog is better than a dead lion." What disastrous possibilities there are in life! Imagine the possibility of a man being described as "an old and foolish king"! The word "king" represents eternal youthfulness, energy, and influence; the possibility described in the text is that the term "king" may remain when all its kingliness has departed. We are manifestly called to progress in life, so that in old age we should be wiser, purer, and gentler than ever; but there stares us in the face the ghastly possibility that the years may but increase our weakness, and the multitude of days may but make our folly the more apparent. Christianity calls upon us to make our old age into an aspect of youth. There is to be no old age in the sense of spiritual exhaustion, or moral decrepitude, or misanthropic isolation; old age is to be equivalent to increase of kingliness and bounty and holy influence. When Coheleth distinguishes between the poor and wise child and the old and foolish king, the poor and wise child should remember that even he may become old and foolish in the long run. When we lose our childhood we may lose our wisdom. The only guarantee of continual elevation of character and moral progress is in the daily discipline which neglects no detail, however small, and which considers that nothing has been done whilst anything remains unattempted. The most pitiful aspect of the old and foolish king is in the words, "who will no more be admonished"—that is to say, who will receive no more lessons, accept no more expostulations, pay no further attention to human counsel: a man whose obstinacy is complete, and whose self-conceit prevents his feeling self-reproach. A most pitiable wisdom this! Here is a man who excludes himself from all the public influences of his time—in other words, from all the remedial and helpful ministries brought into action by an expanding civilisation; he considers himself complete, he will receive no further instruction,—in very deed he assumes the prerogative of God. All this kind of conduct is persistently rebuked in the Bible. We are called upon to make continual progress, to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and never to consider that we have attained or apprehended in fulness. On the last day of our study our watchword is to be "Light, more light!" In the very hour of supposed completeness of character we are to return the congratulations of friends with the assurance, "I count not myself to have apprehended.... I press toward the mark."

All this survey on the part of Coheleth is the best possible preparation for the inquiry—Is there anything better than Coheleth has yet found? Regard Coheleth as one who goes out to find the Holy Grail, and who comes back with his note-book full of instruction and full of disappointment. He has mounted the high hills, and thrown his line into the deep pools; he has watched until his eyes failed through weariness, and tarried until his limbs were numb with cold, and sleep laid hold of his eyelids; but the Holy Grail he has never seen! Enough we have had of the negative side of life; now we want the positive, and for that we must go to a greater than Solomon. Who, then, are blessed, and on whom does the spirit of a sweet content rest like a dove from heaven? Where is the joyful heart, and where the spirit that sings its tender hymn in the cloud and the night and beside the grim grave? Is there any man who is like a tree planted by the rivers of water? Is there any soul that suns itself in the calm of heaven? Yea, surely. Yea, the Lord's children, whose faces are Zionward, know how to sing the Lord's song. They have found that joy is not a tinted bubble sailing on the fickle breeze, but is the fruit of the tree of righteousness. If the tree is not good, the fruit cannot be good. "Ye must be born again." The outward cannot be right until the inward is right. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Life is not a study of attitudes and colours and momentary impressions; it is a deep reality, it is a secret hidden with God; and not until we are right at the very fount and core of life and motive, can we be right in our external relations to nature and society. We must distinguish between a trick and a philosophy; between a calculated morality and a spiritual righteousness. The children of God have learned that dying things cannot give undying pleasure. That, one would suppose, would be an obvious commonplace; yet we find all men more or less exposed to the temptation of imagining that the things which are perishing around can minister to imperishable delight, or can indeed supply that ineffable and eternal gladness. Some men have to go a long way round to Jesus Christ. They have to suffer daily disappointment in finding their wells filled up, their orchards stripped, their fields blighted, and all their fortune laid in a heap of ruin; and when they have tasted the vanity and the folly of all life which appeals to the eye and charms the mere imagination, they begin to ask solemn questions, and whilst they are asking such questions, answers may be given to them from heaven.