25 July

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Ecclesiastes 5-8

Ecclesiastes 5

The observation of the religious life brings no truer satisfaction. In this brief passage contempt for religion is not expressed, but there is absolutely no joy or satisfaction manifest. The life is wholly conditioned under the sun. The recognition of God is always irksome. This is based largely on the conception of God which is the inevitable outcome of such life, that conception which we have already seen manifest in the previous words of the king. A11 the things which he advances here are good so far as they go, but they all need something added to them before they can finally express the qualities of the religious life which give rest to the soul. Nothing is here other than a caution, based on fear. Brief phrases taken from these words will reveal the truth of them. "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God," "Be not rash with thy mouth," "When thou vowest . . . defer not to pay." "Fear God."

Turning again to a general survey of the conditions under which men live, the preacher appealed against surprise at oppression. His reason for the appeal shows how low was his conception of God. He declared that all these things are known to One who is higher than the high, and the deduction he drew is that God does not interfere, that all iniquities are part of the great system. Yet the prosperous are not to be envied, for the man who has possessions does not possess them. Others eat them, and the owner merely beholds them. Indeed, the very care of wealth becomes a reason for restlessness. In view of all these things there is but one attitude, which the preacher advises: Do not hoard anything, but enjoy it. The only answer which God gives a man is the joy he finds in eating and drinking and using for himself the things which he possesses. It is the advice of pure selfishness, but it is always given by those who live wholly "under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 6

The preacher knows prosperity experimentally far better than poverty. Moreover, by observation he is more familiar with men of wealth than with poor men, and, therefore, he returns to a declaration of the sorrows of the wealthy. A man possessing, cannot possess. Lacking nothing of all he desires, yet he cannot eat thereof. That is to say, he has a craving and desire within him which none of these things can appease. If a man be surrounded by children and yet at last have no burial, it would be better if he had never been born. Though he continue for two millenniums and enjoy no good during their passing, what advantage is there in it, for death is the final goal? In a pregnant phrase he expresses the emptiness of wealth. Wandering desire tells the story of the life of restless attempt to possess the best by the use of material things. After all, man is man, and nothing more, and there is no value in his contending with the Mightier One. If the afterward of life be uncertain, who can tell what is good for its experience? Evidently the thought of the preacher is that the mar; a man possesses under the sun, the more profoundly conscious does he become of the vanity and vexation of it all.

Ecclesiastes 7

The preacher now proceeded to the inculcation of indifference toward all the facts of life as the only attitude which is in the least likely to be satisfactory. This he did, first, by a series of maxims. In all of these there is an element of truth, and yet here they express the gravest pessimism, the bitterest disappointment. "A good name is better than precious ointment," and yet "the day of death is better than the day of . . . birth"; and if these two statements are connected, it is easy to see the despair of the preacher, who evidently meant to imply that birth was an opportunity for losing the good name, while death closed such opportunity. He continued by declaring that mourning and sorrow are better than feasting and mirth, because they serve to keep the heart steady or wise, while the latter make it excited and foolish. For the same reason rebuke is better than laughter. The issue of all this is that the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit, which, in this connection, simply means that the man who can be stoical and indifferent is better than he who attempts to rise and rule. Therefore the preacher urged suppression of the passion of anger, and that there should be no wasted lament over former days.

Wisdom, that is, the power of being indifferent and cautious, is good. He finally calls on men to consider the work of God, who has placed prosperity and adversity side by side with the deliberate intention of hiding from man the issues of his own life. Therefore, take things as they come. In prosperity be joyful, and in adversity be thoughtful.

All this general inculcation of indifference is now emphasized by particular illustration. Righteousness does not always pay. Wickedness sometimes does. Therefore morality is to be a thing of calculation. Men are urged to walk the middle way. "Be not righteous overmuch . . . be not overmuch wicked." Overmuch righteousness may end in destruction. Overmuch wickedness cuts short the days. It is the calm, calculating, self-centered morality of the materialist. Moreover, if men are to find any satisfaction they are to remember that there are no righteous men and to turn a deaf ear to tales. A word of personal testimony urges still further the value of this attitude of indifference. The preacher had tried other ways. He had determined to be wise, but had failed. He had turned to find out by personal experience that wickedness is folly, and in one graphic and startling picture revealing the depths to which he had sunk, he gives the issue. He had found something more bitter than death, the evil woman. After all the excesses of material life, therefore, his final conclusion about humanity is that only one man in a thousand can be found, but that not one woman in a thousand can be found. It is a word full of cynicism, but it is the word of a man who has lived the life which according to his own philosophy is the life of the beast.

Ecclesiastes 8

In this division, dealing with the evidences of the vanity of life, the preacher sets forth certain deductions. The highest wisdom is submission to things as they are. Who knows anything? he asks. Therefore it is good to recognize the king's authority and yield to it, to recognize the inevitableness of all things and submit to them, to recognize the absolute certainty of death and to abandon one's self to that certainty. Yet in doing all this there will abide in the heart the recognition of abounding injustice. It is manifest in all the ways of men. In a clause which is intended to be a saving one, the preacher declares its existence but absolutely denies its activity. And what is the ultimate issue in all such convictions? "I commended mirth, because a man hath not better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry." And this because wisdom is elusive. Man cannot know, therefore he need not try and should abandon himself to the sensual pleasures of the moment. It is all true if a man live "under the sun."