2 A man to whom God gives money, wealth, and honour so that he has all his desires but God does not give him the power to have joy of it, and a strange man takes it. This is to no purpose and an evil disease.
He will not give much thought to the days of his life; because God lets him be taken up with the joy of his heart.
With your hand, O Lord, from men, even men of the world, whose heritage is in this life, and whom you make full with your secret wealth: they are full of children; after their death their offspring take the rest of their goods.
And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have a great amount of goods in store, enough for a number of years; be at rest, take food and wine and be happy. But God said to him, You foolish one, tonight I will take your soul from you, and who then will be the owner of all the things which you have got together?
Their houses are free from fear, and the rod of God does not come on them. Their ox is ready at all times to give seed; their cow gives birth, without dropping her young. They send out their young ones like a flock, and their children have pleasure in the dance, They make songs to the instruments of music, and are glad at the sound of the pipe. Their days come to an end without trouble, and suddenly they go down to the underworld. Though they said to God, Go away from us, for we have no desire for the knowledge of your ways. What is the Ruler of all, that we may give him worship? and what profit is it to us to make prayer to him?
It is one who is by himself, without a second, and without son or brother; but there is no end to all his work, and he has never enough of wealth. For whom, then, am I working and keeping myself from pleasure? This again is to no purpose, and a bitter work.
Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.
Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen.
All his days are in the dark, and he has much sorrow, pain, disease, and trouble.
For the Lord your God is guiding you into a good land, a land of water-springs, of fountains, and deep streams flowing out from the valleys and the hills; A land of grain and vines and fig-trees and fair fruits; a land of oil-giving olive-trees and honey; Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper. And you will have food enough and be full, praising the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
And I saw that the cause of all the work and of everything which is done well was man's envy of his neighbour. This again is to no purpose and a desire for wind.
I undertook great works, building myself houses and planting vine-gardens. I made myself gardens and fruit gardens, planting in them fruit-trees of all sorts. I made pools to give water for the woods with their young trees. I got men-servants and women-servants, and they gave birth to sons and daughters in my house. I had great wealth of herds and flocks, more than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I got together silver and gold and the wealth of kings and of countries. I got makers of song, male and female; and the delights of the sons of men--girls of all sorts to be my brides. And I became great; increasing more than all who had been before me in Jerusalem, and my wisdom was still with me. And nothing which was desired by my eyes did I keep from them; I did not keep any joy from my heart, because my heart took pleasure in all my work, and this was my reward.
And God said to Solomon, Because this was in your heart, and you did not make request for money, property, or honour, or for the destruction of your haters, or for long life; but you have made request for wisdom and knowledge for yourself, so that you may be the judge of my people over whom I have made you king:
And he came to his end after a long life, full of days and great wealth and honour; and Solomon his son became king in his place.
When you come there you will come to a people living without thought of danger; and the land is wide, and God has given it into your hands: a place where there is everything on earth for man's needs.
The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ecclesiastes 6
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
In this chapter,
Ecc 6:1-6
Solomon had shown, in the close of the foregoing chapter, how good it is to make a comfortable use of the gifts of God's providence; now here he shows the evil of the contrary, having and not using, gathering to lay up for I know not what contingent emergencies to come, not to lay out on the most urgent occasions present. This is an evil which Solomon himself saw under the sun, v. 1. A great deal of evil there is under the sun. There is a world above the sun where there is no evil, yet God causes his sun to shine upon the evil as well as upon the good, which is an aggravation of the evil. God has lighted up a candle for his servants to work by, but they bury their talent as slothful and unprofitable, and so waste the light and are unworthy of it. Solomon, as a king, inspected the manners of his subjects, and took notice of this evil as a prejudice to the public, who are damaged not only by men's prodigality on the one hand, but by their penuriousness on the other. As it is with the blood in the natural body, so it is with the wealth of the body politic, if, instead of circulating, it stagnates, it will be of ill consequence. Solomon as a preacher observed the evils that were done that he might reprove them and warn people against them. This evil was, in his days, common, and yet then there was great plenty of silver and gold, which, one would think, should have made people less fond of riches; the times also were peaceable, nor was there any prospect of trouble, which to some is a temptation to hoard. But no providence will of itself, unless the grace of God work with it, cure the corrupt affection that is in the carnal mind to the world and the things of it; nay, when riches increase we are most apt to set our hearts upon them. Now concerning this miser observe,
Ecc 6:7-10
The preacher here further shows the vanity and folly of heaping up worldly wealth and expecting happiness in it.
Ecc 6:11-12
Here,