Ecclesiastes 11:8

These verses come after the Preacher’s counsel to sow, give and work without knowing how things will turn out, because God holds the future (Ecclesiastes 11:1–6). They open the last part of his teaching, which ends with the words “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 12:8). Before he speaks of old age and death, he stops to name a simple, certain good.

The Hebrew reads literally “and sweet is the light”, and the KJV’s “Truly” renders that opening “and”. The word for sweet, mâthôwq, is the ordinary word for a sweet taste. Giving a word of taste to something seen tells us how deeply the light of day delights us, the way honey delights the mouth. The light, ʼôwr, is illumination, here the plain daylight that drives away the dark. “A pleasant thing” translates ṭôwb, the common Hebrew word for good, and it is good “for the eyes”, ʻayin. To behold, râʼâh, is the usual verb for seeing, and here the eyes look at the sun, shemesh, with enjoyment.

In Ecclesiastes, to see the sun is to be alive. Of a stillborn child the Preacher says, “he hath not seen the sun” (Ecclesiastes 6:5). So this verse praises the sweetness of life itself. In ancient Israel daylight was precious for work, travel and meeting others, and farming that hung on the sun made its sweetness a daily experience. The book often speaks of life “under the sun”, with all its limits and frustrations, and here it sets beside that phrase a moment of plain delight in the sun.

This delight is a gift from God, which the Preacher urges again and again. He says there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice and do good in his life, and that to eat, drink and enjoy the good of all his labour is the gift of God (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13, Ecclesiastes 5:18–20). James says that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights (James 1:17), and a psalm marvels that God made all his many works in wisdom (Psalm 104:24). Throughout Scripture light also pictures life, joy and the presence of God: “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1).

“But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all” pictures a long life enjoyed from beginning to end. The verb châyâh means to live, and here it is the gift of many years. The Preacher wants that joy to fill all of them, and rejoicing is the right and grateful answer to a long life.

“Yet let him remember the days of darkness.” The verb is zâkar, to remember, the same verb the Preacher takes up again in “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth”. The word for darkness, chôshek, is used for literal dark and also for misery, sorrow and death. The days of darkness are the times of trouble, grief and loss, the weakness of old age and the approach of death, and they stand against the light and the sun of verse 7. The Preacher goes on to call them “the evil days” and to describe the failing body of old age in Ecclesiastes 12:1–7.

“For they shall be many” says that these days are certain and may be long. Job says the same: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble” (Job 14:1). Moses prays, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

The word for vanity, hebel, has the base sense of a breath or vapour, and in Ecclesiastes it speaks of what is fleeting and what cannot satisfy for long. It is the keynote of the whole book: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). “All that cometh” is everything still ahead, joy and sorrow alike, and all of it passes. James uses the same picture: “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14).

Now the Preacher speaks directly to the young, with a run of commands: rejoice, walk, know. He names their season twice, with two Hebrew words. The first, yaldûwth, means boyhood or childhood and youth. The second, bᵉchurôwth, means youth as a stage of life, a time marked by joy and strength. “Let thy heart cheer thee” is a wish that the young man’s heart would make him glad. Young people in ancient Israel often had short and hard lives, which made this call to enjoy the years of vigour all the more tender.

“Walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes” gives the young real freedom. A way, derek, comes from a root meaning to tread, and it is a road and then a course of life, the habits and choices a person follows. The heart, lêb, is the centre of a person, where thought, will and feeling live, and its ways are his desires. “The sight of thine eyes” joins marʼeh, what is seen or appears, to ʻayin, the eyes, and means what a person finds attractive.

Elsewhere this same pair warns Israel. The fringes on their garments were to remind them “that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring” (Numbers 15:39). In this verse heart and eyes become paths of enjoyment, and the boundary comes in the very next clause. The Preacher counts the enjoyment of God’s gifts the best a person can do under the sun: “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour” (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

“But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” The Hebrew joins this to what goes before with its simple “and”, which the KJV rightly renders “but” to show the turn. “Know thou”, from yâdaʻ, to know, is a command: be sure of this, and let it shape the way you walk. God here is ʼĕlôhîym, plural in form and read as a plural of majesty when it names the true God. Judgment, mishpâṭ, is a verdict or sentence, the act of judging and the justice it carries out. It is the same word that closes the book: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

“For all these things” takes in everything the verse has just allowed: the rejoicing, the ways of the heart and the sight of the eyes. Every choice and every pleasure will come before God. The New Testament says the same: “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12), and “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Jesus says that men will give account of every idle word they speak (Matthew 12:36–37).

“Therefore” draws the conclusion. Because youth is sweet, because God will judge, and because the days run quickly, the young are to clear their lives of two things. The verb for “remove”, çûwr, means to turn aside or take away. “Sorrow”, kaʻaç, is vexation, grief, irritation or anger, the kind of inner turmoil that eats at a person and clouds his judgment. It is to be taken out of the heart, lêb, the centre of the whole inner life.

“Put away” translates ʻâbar, to pass over or cross over, so the evil is made to pass away. “Evil”, raʻ, is anything bad, from wickedness to harm and calamity. “Flesh”, bâsâr, is the body, and with “heart” it names the whole person, inside and out. Believers differ on what kind of evil is meant. Most read it as moral evil, the wicked deeds a person does in the body, so that the verse joins peace within to purity in conduct. Others take it as trouble or pain in the body, so that the verse pairs vexation of the heart with the ills of the body, and tells the young to keep both away while their strength lasts. On either reading the young are to guard the whole self. Solomon writes, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

The reason for both commands is that “childhood and youth are vanity”. Childhood is yaldûwth again, and youth is shachărûwth, a word found only here in the Bible and drawn from the word for dawn. Youth is the morning of life, and like the dawn it does not stay. Calling it hebel says that it passes like a breath. The Preacher is urging the young to use their youth well, because it is precious and short.

That is why he can tell them elsewhere, “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works” (Ecclesiastes 9:7), and why he goes straight on to “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth”. The words are addressed to the young, but every season of life passes, and the call holds for every age. Paul writes, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15–16).

The sweet light of verse 7 points us to Jesus, who said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). John writes of him, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:4–5). He is the brightness of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3), and God has shined in our hearts “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). In God’s presence is “fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11), and Christ came that we might have life “more abundantly” (John 10:10).

The days of darkness and the vanity of all that comes find their answer in him. All things were made by him and hold together in him (Colossians 1:16–17), so the fleeting days of our lives have lasting purpose when they are lived for him. His resurrection swallows up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54–57), and he promises a new creation where God will wipe away all tears and there will be no more death, sorrow, crying or pain (Revelation 21:4–5). With our life hidden with Christ in God, we set our affection on things above (Colossians 3:1–4).

The judgment of verse 9 is real, and none of us has walked in the ways of the heart and the sight of the eyes without sin, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). By his death God reconciles us and presents us holy in his sight (Colossians 1:21–22), and whoever believes in him has everlasting life (John 3:16). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), so the judge of all is the Saviour who died for us.

The two commands of verse 10 meet him too. To the vexed heart he says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), and he gives a peace “not as the world giveth” (John 14:27). For putting away evil, our old man is crucified with him, so that we should no longer serve sin (Romans 6:6). He is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30), the wisdom that teaches us to number our days. In him the believer can rejoice freely and live every day, eating and drinking and all the rest, to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

You can enjoy the light with a clear conscience. The sunshine on your face, the strength of your body and the years God gives you are his gifts, and he wants you to rejoice in them. If you are young, this passage speaks to you most directly: be glad in your youth, and walk where your heart leads with the knowledge that God sees and will judge, so that your joy is the kind you will be glad to bring before him.

Whatever your age, remembering the days of darkness makes the good days sweeter and the hard days less of a surprise. Each day is a breath, so each is worth using well. Clear your heart of the vexation that steals your days, turn from the evil that harms you and others, and give thanks for the light while it shines. The God who made the sun and will judge the world has given his Son, the light of the world, so that those who trust him can walk in the light both now and forever.