Ecclesiastes 5

Ecclesiastes 5:1 Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. 2 Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool's voice is known by his many words.

"Solomon seems to have been exhausted in his descriptions as to the things under the sun. He pauseth and turns to something different. He meditates on worship, that man aims to get in touch with the unseen God— above the sun.” (Gaebelein)... moving from “types of fellowship between people," or the absence thereof to “the fellowship with God.” (G. de Koning)

“’Walk prudently’; lit. “keep thy foot” when you go to the “house of God”— a reference to Solomon's Temple, where the lessons of the ancient altars in every place (as well as the tabernacle in the wilderness) were taught. “Of course such a man should guard his heart, but the condition of the heart becomes visible in the path which those steps go.” (G. de Koning) “Put obedience before sacrifice.” (Expositor’s Bible) “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22) “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,” [then, keep thy foot]— “leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

“‘And draw near to hear,’ rather, ‘approach to hear,’ to listen to and to heed the Word of God." (Kretzmann) “The word of the Lord... was explained by the priests and prophets, the ecclesiastical rulers of the people; see Malachi 2:7; so the Targum, ‘draw near thine ear to receive the doctrine of the law, from the priests and wise men' and so the people of God should draw near to hear the word; be swift to hear it, attentive to it, and receive it with all reverence, humility, love, and affection; and should not take up with mere outward forms, which is but ‘the sacrifice of fools’; for they consider not that they do evil; or ‘know not’; they think they are doing well, and doing God good service, when they are doing ill; they know not truly the object of worship, nor the spiritual nature of it, nor the right end and true use of it: or, ‘they know not, [only] to do evil’, so Aben Ezra supplies it.” (John Gill) "They do not realize how deeply they offend the Lord with their irreverent behavior.” (Kretzmann) “This is the reaction against the mere ceremonialism which marks the popular religion.” (Pulpit Commentary)

“Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth.’ (2a) “When we pray to him we should think what we ourselves are, that we are on the earth, the footstool of God; that we are of the earth, earthly; dwell in houses of clay, which have their foundation in the dust; crawling worms on earth, unworthy of his notice; are but dust and ashes, who take upon us to speak unto him; 'therefore let your words be few' (2b); of which prayer consists; such was the prayer of the publican, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’, Luke 18:13.” (John Gill)

In prayer, the Pharisee spoke long, justifying words in Luke 18:11-12 to be heard of men. “‘For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool's voice is known by his many words.’ (3) Like a dream which is a medley from the waking day, which into its own warp of delirium weaves a shred from all the day's engagements, so, could a fool's prayer be exactly reproduced, it would be a tissue of trifles intermingled with vain repetitions.” (Sermon Bible)

Eccl 5:4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed-- 5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. 6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity. But fear God.

“When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed— better not to vow than to vow and not pay.’ (4-5) This direction refers to conduct AFTER worship.” (A. MacLaren) This is “in agreement with the Mosaic legislation regarding such impiety, ‘If thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee.’”(Biblical Illustrator) ”It also agrees with the New Testament: But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” (Matt 5:37) “God has always intended simple truthfulness in speech.” (Thomas B. Constable) It’s better to say, “If the Lord helps, I will do it.” Any vows made should be paid, “and that swiftly. A keen insight into human nature suggests the importance of prompt fulfilment of the vows; for in carrying out resolutions formed under the impulse of the sanctuary, even more than in other departments, delays are dangerous. Many a young heart touched by the truth has resolved to live a Christian life, and has gone out from the house of God and put off and put off till days have thickened into months and years, and the intention has remained unfulfilled for ever. Nothing hardens hearts, stiffens wills, and sears consciences so much as to be brought to the point of melting, and then to cool down into the old shape. All good resolutions and spiritual convictions may be included under the name of vows; and of all it is true that it is better not to have formed them, than to have formed and not performed them. (A MacLaren)

“‘Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?’ (6) Assuming that the worshipper was sincere in the church service, when resolving to do the the Lord’s will, He will be saved. However, his works, if he didn’t also do the revealed Word, are still of the earth and the will be destroyed with this world.

Faith without works is dead being alone. (James 2:17) “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Cor 3:9-15)

“Such a wriggling out of a vow will bring God’s anger; for the ‘voice’ which promised what the hand will not perform, sins.” (A MacLaren) ”For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.’ (7a) The worship and service of the holy and righteous God is no flippant or casual business. It is weighted with eternal meaning and significance.” (Coffman Commentary)—“’But fear God’ (7b) The natural man may fear God, fear Him with a slavish fear, make an attempt to worship Him and do something, yet he does not know God nor can he know Him by himself.” (Arno Gaebelein) Fear Him who can destroy body and soul in hellfire.

Eccl 5:8 If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter; for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them. 9 Moreover the profit of the land is for all; even the king is served from the field.

“There are some persons of that reach of soul that they would like to live 250 years hence, to see to what height of empire America will have grown up in that period, or whether the English constitution will last so long. These are points beyond me.

But I confess I should like to live to see the downfall of the Bourbons. That is a vital question with me; and I shall like it the better, the sooner it happens.” —Hazlitt

The oppression of the poor, and the perversion of justice and righteousness— “The translation of mishpat as justice oversimplifies its meaning in the OT, especially in modern Western thinking… Mishpat implies the whole determination and consequence of juxtaposed good and evil. It contains the establishment of law, the interpretation of ordinance, the pronouncement of verdict, and the legal foundation of the authority to execute sentence.— ‘for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them.’The Judeo-Christian tradition accepts this as emanating from God.” (“On Justice and Righteousness” by David Dot)

“The Preacher goes on to show how, when they returned from the House of God to the common round of life, and were once more exposed to its miseries and distractions, there were certain comfortable and sustaining thoughts on which they might stay their spirits.… [‘Marvel not’] Whatever oppressions and perversions of justice and equity there were in the land (Ecclesiastes 5:8), still the judges and satraps who oppressed them were not supreme; there was an official hierarchy in which superior watched over superior, and if justice were not to be had of the one, it might be had of another who was above him.” (Expositor's Bible Commentary) “… God is higher than the highest of the tyrants of the earth and will in the end punish their wrong-doing.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

“‘Marvel not of the matter.’ Meaning, that God will address these things, and therefore we must depend on him.” (Geneva Study Bible) It is not “inconsistent with God’s wisdom, and justice, and truth to suffer such disorders.” (Matthew Poole)— “for high official watches over (regardeth) high official, and higher officials are over them.’ Not like an idle spectator, but like a judge, who diligently observes and records all these miscarriages, and will so effectually punish them, that neither they shall have any cause of triumph in their former successes, nor good men to be grieved at the remembrance of them.” (Matthew Poole)

“‘Moreover the profit of the land is for all.’ Even with corrupt bureaucracy, “everyone depends on what comes from the farmer’s field – even the king.” (Guzik)— especially in the antitype of God’s eternal kingdom. “Without the field he cannot have supplies for his own house; and, unless agriculture flourish, the necessary expenses of the state cannot be defrayed.— "'Even the king is served from the field.’ — Thus, God joins the head and feet together; for while the peasant is protected by the king as executor of the laws, the king himself is dependent on the peasant; as the wealth of the nation is the fruit of the labourer’s toil.” (Adam Clarke)

The duties of "an Israelite indeed." The land was given to Israel for an inheritance. The profit of the earth is for all— king or subject. (Eccl 5:9) Give us this day our daily bread. etc. “The earth, if properly cultivated, is capable of producing food for every living creature; and without cultivation none has a right to expect bread.” (Adam Clarke) In Eccl 5:10-20, he "is not distinguishing between poverty and wealth. The idealistic view in Israel, if not always the reality, was of every man having his own vine and his own fig tree, and his own plot of land (1 Kings 4:25). It was seen as so much a part of essential Israel that it was even the vision presented by the Assyrians when they sought to encourage Jerusalem to surrender (2 Kings 18:31). Thus there would be levels of wealth, which were seen by each as his allotment from God, and with which each would be content.” (Peter Pett)

“Because a man does not believe in the justice of our present system of doing business, it is no reason why he should play ducks and drakes with his employer. Assuming that the principle of competition is a cruelly oppressive one, and that many employers are heartless tyrants, a sensible worker will, nevertheless, while those evil conditions remain— and they may for some time yet— make the best he can of them. To worry employers for concessions that it would be suicidal to grant is, at best, a short-sighted policy. Better to attack the system to which both masters and men are victims.” (T. A. Leonard) It is the curse that resulted from the fall.

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“‘He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver.’ “He that loves silver, and sets his heart upon it, will never think he has enough, but enlarges his desire as hell (Habakkuk 2:5), lays house to house and field to field (Isaiah 5:8), and, like the daughters of the horse-leech, still cries, ‘Give, give.’ Natural desires are at rest when that which is desired is obtained, but corrupt desires are insatiable. Nature is content with little, grace with less, but lust with nothing.” (Matthew Henry)— “‘nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity.’ (Eccl 5:10) “The goal is never reached.” (Jacques B Doukhan)

“When goods increase, they increase who eat (consume) them,’ (Eccl 5:11a) i. e., servants, friends, flatterers, trencher men, pensioners, and other hangerons that will flock to a rich man, as crows do to a dead carcase, not to defend, but to devour it. Caesar perished in the midst of his friends, whose boundless hopes and expectations he was not able to satisfy.” (John Trapp) “Whoso gathers riches, gathers devourers.” (Luther) “Beyond all men he could see behind the scenes and fix his eye attentively upon the worm which was gnawing the root of the stoutest tree.” (Parker’s—The People's Bible)— “‘So what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes?” (Eccl. 5:11b) "The fortune which it brings to him consists finally only in this, that he can look on all he has accumulated with proud self-complacency.” (Keil & Delitzsch)

“The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much.’ (Eccl 5: 12a) — Sleep is the nurse of nature, the wages that she pays the poor man for his incessant pains. His fare is not so high, his care is not so great, but that without distemper or distraction he can hug his rest most sweetly, and feel no disturbance, until the due time of rising awakeneth him.” (John Trapp) — “’But the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep.” (Eccl 5:12b) God terrifies the rich man “with dreams, throws handfuls of hell fire in his face... interrupts him while he is thinking, awakeneth him while he is sleeping, rings that doleful peal in his ears, that makes him start and stare, ‘Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be taken from thee.’ Veni miser in iudicium, Come, thou wretch, receive thy judgment.” (John Trapp)

“‘There is a severe evil which I have seen under the sun: Riches kept for their owner to his hurt.’ (Eccl 5:13) “‘But those riches perish through misfortune’ lit. “evil travail”— adverse accident, or unsuccessful employment.” (Albert Barnes)—

“‘When he begets a son, there is nothing in his hand.’ (Eccl 5:14) To acquire interest on money, and to acquire interest in life are not the same thing.” (Edward Carpenter)

“‘As he came from his mother's womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came.’ “Thus in the end he gains nothing, and may indeed have lost what he could have gained by righteous living.” (Peter Pett)— “‘and he shall take nothing from his labor which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a severe evil— just exactly as he came, so shall he go. And what profit has he who has labored for the wind?’ (Eccl 5:15-16) "i.e., 'for just nothing.'” (John Trapp) This is none other than the hand of God, as even Ephraim- the remnant— “feeds on wind” making a “covenant with the Assyrians and oil is carried into Egypt.” (Hosea 12:1)

“’All his days he also eats in darkness.’ He eateth in darkness, even though he may be seated in a well lighted hall. For he has no light in his heart: there all is gloom and sadness. In 1 Timothy 6:10, it is said of those who seek to become rich, ἑ?αυτοὺ?ς περιέπειραν ὀ?δύναις πολλαῖ?ς , “they pierce themselves through with many sorrows.” Whoso is visited by such pains, for him external lights are kindled in vain.” (Hengstenberg)— and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger.’ (Eccl 5:17) He is no less troubled than Laban was for his teraphim, or Micah for his idol. Jdg 17:3 He is mad almost, and ready to hang himself for woe, having much fretting, foaming, fuming, anger, languor, ready to flee at God and men.” (John Trapp)

“Note the proliferation of the mention of God (four times in the remaining verses), a direct contrast with what has gone before when the concentration has been on man.”(Peter Pett)—>

“It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage.’ (Eccl 5:18) "The rich man indeed may have bread stored up for a long time; but whether he has the health and opportunity to eat it, or to profit by it if he does eat it, is altogether a gift of God, granted one day at a time!” (Coffman Commentary) But he must seek for immortialty- the eternal heritage of all true Israelites. "There is a way (a feast in the holy place of the tabernacle) by which you can transfer your treasures into eternal treasures. And Jesus encourages us towards that. You can exchange your currency for that which is current in heaven.” (Smith's Bible Commentary) The rich man can become a Levite. They served God in the tabernacle and had no land for the LORD was their heritage. They laid you treasures in heaven "where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matt 6:20)

“‘As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor--this is the gift of God.’ (Eccl 5:19) Such thankful enjoyment is inculcated by the Law Deuteronomy 12:7; 12:18.” (Albert Barnes ) for a spiritual feast in Israel that gave a foretaste of the feast in heavenly Zion — “‘There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.’ For none might appear empty handed before Jehovah.” (John Trapp) “This very much has in mind man’s covenant relationship with God which lay at the root of Israel’s beliefs. The godly man looks to God, is faithful to God and receives with thanksgiving what God has given him. He trusts, obeys and enjoys, recognising that even his life has been given to him by God.” (Peter Pett)

“’For he shall not much remember the days of his life,’ for the memory of any earthly enjoyment is brief; ‘because God answereth him in the joy of his heart,’ (Eccl 5:20) vouchsafing to him such happiness in this life as will enable him to sojourn amidst the disappointments of this earth with a heart resting in trust in the heavenly Father, that being the ideal which the believer should keep before his eyes always.” (Paul E Kretzmann) “As a result he is not always looking back with regret, he is not worried about the future, he is not searching for what is meaningful. He will always have the joy of his continual walk with God, with the sense of everlastingness (ever undefined) in his heart.” (Peter Pett) "Do thou, my soul, the same. God's promise in Christ is the same now as it was then: or rather, it is now confirmed beyond the possibility of failure in that all the promised undertaking of Christ hath been accomplished. Look forward, look upward then, my soul, and contemplate the glories which shortly shall be revealed." (Hawker’s Poor Mans Commentary)