1 And again I saw all the cruel things which are done under the sun; there was the weeping of those who have evil done to them, and they had no comforter: and from the hands of the evil-doers there went out power, but they had no comforter.
And again, I saw under the sun, in the place of the judges, that evil was there; and in the place of righteousness, that evil was there.
It is good generally for a country where the land is worked to have a king.
She is sorrowing bitterly in the night, and her face is wet with weeping; among all her lovers she has no comforter: all her friends have been false to her, they have become her haters.
For the vine-garden of the Lord of armies is the people of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of his delight: and he was looking for upright judging, and there was blood; for righteousness, and there was a cry for help.
You have given them the bread of weeping for food; for their drink you have given them sorrow in great measure.
Looking to my right side, I saw no man who was my friend: I had no safe place; no one had any care for my soul.
A man of wealth who is cruel to the poor is like a violent rain causing destruction of food.
Like a loud-voiced lion and a wandering bear, is an evil ruler over a poor people. The prince who has no sense is a cruel ruler; but he who has no desire to get profit for himself will have long life.
And I will put it into the hand of your cruel masters, and of those whose yoke has been hard on you; who have said to your soul, Down on your face! so that we may go over you: and you have given your backs like the earth, even like the street, for them to go over.
Their feet go quickly to evil, and they take delight in the death of the upright; their thoughts are thoughts of sin; wasting and destruction are in their ways.
We have gone against the Lord, and been false to him, turning away from our God, our words have been uncontrolled, and in our hearts are thoughts of deceit. And the right is turned back, and righteousness is far away: for good faith is not to be seen in the public places, and upright behaviour may not come into the town. Yes, faith is gone; and he whose heart is turned from evil comes into the power of the cruel: and the Lord saw it, and he was angry that there was no one to take up their cause.
And this again you do: covering the altar of the Lord with weeping and with grief, so that he gives no more thought to the offering, and does not take it with pleasure from your hand.
And I will come near to you for judging; I will quickly be a witness against the wonder-workers, against those who have been untrue in married life, against those who take false oaths; against those who keep back from the servant his payment, and who are hard on the widow and the child without a father, who do not give his rights to the man from a strange country, and have no fear of me, says the Lord of armies.
But all this has taken place so that the writings of the prophets might come true. Then all his disciples went from him in flight.
At my first meeting with my judges, no one took my part, but all went away from me. May it not be put to their account. But the Lord was by my side and gave me strength; so that through me the news might be given out in full measure, and all the Gentiles might give ear: and I was taken out of the mouth of the lion.
Let your minds be changed, and do not have an evil opinion of me; yes, be changed, for my righteousness is still in me.
When you are looking after the Hebrew women in childbirth, if it is a son you are to put him to death; but if it is a daughter, she may go on living.
Now after a long time the king of Egypt came to his end: and the children of Israel were crying in their grief under the weight of their work, and their cry for help came to the ears of God. And at the sound of their weeping the agreement which God had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob came to his mind.
They give us no dry stems and they say to us, Make bricks: and they give your servants blows; but it is your people who are in the wrong. But he said, You have no love for work: that is why you say, Let us go and make an offering to the Lord. Go now, get back to your work; no dry stems will be given to you, but you are to make the full number of bricks. Then the responsible men of the children of Israel saw that they were purposing evil when they said, The number of bricks which you have to make every day will be no less than before.
For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you.
Then the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron war-carriages, and for twenty years he was very cruel to the children of Israel.
And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the children of Ammon. And that year the children of Israel were crushed under their yoke; for eighteen years all the children of Israel on the other side of Jordan, in the land of the Amorites which is in Gilead, were cruelly crushed down.
Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their countrymen the Jews. For there were some who said, We, our sons and our daughters, are a great number: let us get grain, so that we may have food for our needs. And there were some who said, We are giving our fields and our vine-gardens and our houses for debt: let us get grain because we are in need. And there were others who said, We have given up our fields and our vine-gardens to get money for the king's taxes. But our flesh is the same as the flesh of our countrymen, and our children as their children: and now we are giving our sons and daughters into the hands of others, to be their servants, and some of our daughters are servants even now: and we have no power to put a stop to it; for other men have our fields and our vine-gardens.
And they gave the children of Israel even harder work to do: And made their lives bitter with hard work, making building-material and bricks, and doing all sorts of work in the fields under the hardest conditions.
Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me. Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?
They take their rest at night without clothing, and have no cover in the cold. They are wet with the rain of the mountains, and get into the cracks of the rock for cover. The child without a father is forced from its mother's breast, and they take the young children of the poor for debt. Others go about without clothing, and though they have no food, they get in the grain from the fields. Between the lines of olive-trees they make oil; though they have no drink, they are crushing out the grapes. From the town come sounds of pain from those who are near death, and the soul of the wounded is crying out for help; but God does not take note of their prayer.
He keeps himself in a secret place like a lion in his hole, waiting to put his hands on the poor man, and pulling him into his net. The upright are crushed and made low, and the feeble are overcome by his strong ones.
Because of the crushing of the poor and the weeping of those in need, now will I come to his help, says the Lord; I will give him the salvation which he is desiring.
I will say to God my Rock, Why have you let me go from your memory? why do I go in sorrow because of the attacks of my haters?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ecclesiastes 4
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 4 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 4
Ec 4:1-16.
1. returned—namely, to the thought set forth (Ec 3:16; Job 35:9).
power—Maurer, not so well, "violence."
no comforter—twice said to express continued suffering without any to give comfort (Isa 53:7).
2. A profane sentiment if severed from its connection; but just in its bearing on Solomon's scope. If religion were not taken into account (Ec 3:17, 19), to die as soon as possible would be desirable, so as not to suffer or witness "oppressions"; and still more so, not to be born at all (Ec 7:1). Job (Job 3:12; 21:7), David (Ps 73:3, &c.), Jeremiah (Jer 12:1), Habakkuk (Hab 1:13), all passed through the same perplexity, until they went into the sanctuary, and looked beyond the present to the "judgment" (Ps 73:17; Hab 2:20; 3:17, 18). Then they saw the need of delay, before completely punishing the wicked, to give space for repentance, or else for accumulation of wrath (Ro 2:15); and before completely rewarding the godly, to give room for faith and perseverance in tribulation (Ps 92:7-12). Earnests, however, are often even now given, by partial judgments of the future, to assure us, in spite of difficulties, that God governs the earth.
3. not seen—nor experienced.
4. right—rather, "prosperous" (see on Ec 2:21). Prosperity, which men so much covet, is the very source of provoking oppression (Ec 4:1) and "envy," so far is it from constituting the chief good.
5. Still the
fool (the wicked oppressor) is not to be envied even in this life, who "folds his hands together" in idleness (Pr 6:10; 24:33), living on the means he wrongfully wrests from others; for such a one
eateth his own flesh—that is, is a self-tormentor, never satisfied, his spirit preying on itself (Isa 9:20; 49:26).
6. Hebrew; "One open hand (palm) full of quietness, than both closed hands full of travail." "Quietness" (mental tranquillity flowing from honest labor), opposed to "eating one's own flesh" (Ec 4:5), also opposed to anxious labor to gain (Ec 4:8; Pr 15:16, 17; 16:8).
7. A vanity described in Ec 4:8.
8. not a second—no partner.
child—"son or brother," put for any heir (De 25:5-10).
eye—(Ec 1:8). The miser would not be able to give an account of his infatuation.
9. Two—opposed to "one" (Ec 4:8). Ties of union, marriage, friendship, religious communion, are better than the selfish solitariness of the miser (Ge 2:18).
reward—Advantage accrues from their efforts being conjoined. The Talmud says, "A man without a companion is like a left hand without the right.
10. if they fall—if the one or other fall, as may happen to both, namely, into any distress of body, mind, or soul.
11. (See on 1Ki 1:1). The image is taken from man and wife, but applies universally to the warm sympathy derived from social ties. So Christian ties (Lu 24:32; Ac 28:15).
12. one—enemy.
threefold cord—proverbial for a combination of many—for example, husband, wife, and children (Pr 11:14); so Christians (Lu 10:1; Col 2:2, 19). Untwist the cord, and the separate threads are easily "broken."
13. The "threefold cord" [Ec 4:12] of social ties suggests the subject of civil government. In this case too, he concludes that kingly power confers no lasting happiness. The "wise" child, though a supposed case of Solomon, answers, in the event foreseen by the Holy Ghost, to Jeroboam, then a poor but valiant youth, once a "servant" of Solomon, and (1Ki 11:26-40) appointed by God through the prophet Ahijah to be heir of the kingdom of the ten tribes about to be rent from Rehoboam. The "old and foolish king" answers to Solomon himself, who had lost his wisdom, when, in defiance of two warnings of God (1Ki 3:14; 9:2-9), he forsook God.
will no more be admonished—knows not yet how to take warning (see Margin) God had by Ahijah already intimated the judgment coming on Solomon (1Ki 11:11-13).
14. out of prison—Solomon uses this phrase of a supposed case; for example, Joseph raised from a dungeon to be lord of Egypt. His words are at the same time so framed by the Holy Ghost that they answer virtually to Jeroboam, who fled to escape a "prison" and death from Solomon, to Shishak of Egypt (1Ki 11:40). This unconscious presaging of his own doom, and that of Rehoboam, constitutes the irony. David's elevation from poverty and exile, under Saul (which may have been before Solomon's mind), had so far their counterpart in that of Jeroboam.
whereas … becometh poor—rather, "though he (the youth) was born poor in his kingdom" (in the land where afterwards he was to reign).
15. "I considered all the living," the present generation, in relation to ("with") the "second youth" (the "legitimate successor" of the "old king," as opposed to the "poor youth," the one first spoken of, about to be raised from poverty to a throne), that is, Rehoboam.
in his stead—the old king's.
16. Notwithstanding their now worshipping the rising sun, the heir-apparent, I reflected that "there were no bounds, no stability (2Sa 15:6; 20:1), no check on the love of innovation, of all that have been before them," that is, the past generation; so
also they that come after—that is, the next generation,
shall not rejoice in him—namely, Rehoboam. The parallel, "shall not rejoice," fixes the sense of "no bounds," no permanent adherence, though now men rejoice in him.