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Commentary on Ecclesiastes 6 verses 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, Ecc 6:1. 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,
I. The abundant reason he has to serve God with joyfulness and gladness of heart; how well God has done for him.
1.He has given him riches, wealth, and honour, Ecc 6:2. Note, (1.) Riches and wealth commonly gain people honour among men. Though it be but an image, if it be a golden image, all people, nations, and languages, will fall down and worship it. (2.) Riches, wealth, and honour, are God's gifts, the gifts of his providence, and not given, as his rain and sunshine, alike to all, but to some, and not to others, as God sees fit. (3.) Yet they are given to many that do not make a good use of them, to many to whom God does not give wisdom and grace to take the comfort of them and serve God with them. The gifts of common providence are bestowed on many to whom are denied the gifts of a special grace, without which the gifts of providence often do more hurt than good.
2.He wants nothing for his soul of all that he desires. Providence has been so liberal to him that he has as much as heart could wish, and more, Psa 73:7. He does not desire grace for his soul, the better part; all he desires is enough to gratify the sensual appetite, and that he has; his belly is filled with these hidden treasures, Psa 17:14.
3.He is supposed to have a numerous family, to beget a hundred children, which are the stay and strength of his house and as a quiver full of arrows to him, which are the honour and credit of his house, and in whom he has the prospect of having his name built up and having all the immortality this world can give him. They are full of children (Psa 17:14), while many of God's people are written childless and stripped of all.
4.To complete his happiness, he is supposed to live many years, or rather many days, for our life is to be reckoned rather by days than years: The days of his years are many, and so healthful is his constitution, and so slowly does age creep upon him, that they are likely to be many more. Nay, he is supposed to live a thousand years (which no man, that we know of, ever did), nay, a thousand years twice told, a small part of which time, one would think, were enough to convince men, by their own experience, of the folly both of those that expect to find all good in worldly wealth, and of those that expect to find any good in it but in using it.
II. The little heart he has to use this which God gives him, for the ends and purposes for which it was given him. This is his fault and folly that he renders not again according to the benefit done unto him, and serves not the Lord God his benefactor, with joyfulness and gladness of heart, in the abundance of all things. In the day of prosperity he is not joyful. Tristis es, et felix? - Art thou happy, yet sad? See his folly: 1. He cannot find in his heart to take the comfort of what he has himself. He has meat before him; he has wherewith to maintain himself and his family comfortably, but he has not power to eat thereof. His sordid niggardly temper will not suffer him to lay it out, no, not upon himself, no, not upon that which is most necessary for himself. He has not power to reason himself out of this absurdity, to conquer his covetous humour. He is weak indeed, who has not power to use what God gives him, for God gives him not that power, but withholds it from him, to punish him for his other abuses of his wealth. Because he has not the will to serve God with it, God denies him the power to serve himself with it. 2. He suffers those to prey upon him that he is under no obligation to: A stranger eateth it. This is the common fate of misers; they will not trust their own children perhaps, but retainers and hangers-on, that have the art of wheedling, insinuate themselves into them, and find ways of devouring what they have, or getting it to be left to them by their wills. God orders it so that a stranger eats it. Strangers devour his strength, Hos 7:9; Pro 5:10. This may be well called vanity, and an evil disease. What we have we have in vain if we do not use it; and that temper of mind is certainly a most wretched distemper which keeps us from using it. Our worst diseases are those that arise from the corruption of our own hearts. 3. He deprives himself of the good that he might have had of his worldly possessions, not only forfeits it, but robs himself of it and throws it from him: His soul is not filled with good, Ecc 6:3. He is still unsatisfied and uneasy. His hands are filled with riches, his barns filled, and his bags filled, but his soul is not filled with good, no, not with that good, for it is still craving more. Nay (Ecc 6:6), he has not seen good; he cannot so much as please his eye, for that is still looking further and looking with envy on those that have more. He has not even the sensible good of an estate. Though he looks not beyond the things that are seen, yet he looks not with any true pleasure even on them. 4. He has no burial, none agreeable to his rank, no decent burial, but the burial of an ass. Through the sordidness of his temper he will not allow himself a fashionable burial, but forbids it, or the strangers that have eaten him up leave him so poor, at last, that he has not wherewithal, or those to whom he leaves what he has have so little esteem for his memory, and are so greedy of what they are to have from him, that they will not be at the charges of burying him handsomely, which his own children, if he had left it to them, would not have grudged him.
III. The preference which the preacher gives to an untimely birth before him: An untimely birth, a child that is carried from the womb to the grave, is better than he. Better is the fruit that drops from the tree before it is ripe than that which is left to hang on till it is rotten. Job, in his passion, thinks the condition of an untimely birth better than his when he was in adversity (Job 3:16); but Solomon here pronounces it better than the condition of a worldling in his greatest prosperity, when the world smiles upon him. 1. He grants the condition of an untimely birth, upon many accounts, to be very sad (Ecc 6:4, Ecc 6:5): He comes in with vanity (for, as to this world, he that is born and dies immediately was born in vain), and he departs in darkness; little or no notice is taken of him; being an abortive, he has no name, or, if he had, it would soon be forgotten and buried in oblivion; it would be covered with darkness, as the body is with the earth. Nay (Ecc 6:5), he has not seen the sun, but from the darkness of the womb he is hurried immediately to that of the grave, and, which is worse than not being known to any, he has not known any thing, and therefore has come short of that which is the greatest pleasure and honour of man. Those that live in wilful ignorance, and know nothing to purpose, are no better than an untimely birth that has not seen the sun nor known any thing. 2. Yet he prefers it before that of a covetous miser. This untimely birth has more rest than the other, for this has some rest, but the other has none; this has no trouble and disquiet, but the other is in perpetual agitation, and has nothing but trouble, trouble of his own making. The shorter the life is the longer the rest; and the fewer the days, and the less we have to do with this troublesome world, the less trouble we know.
'Tis better die a child at four,
Than live, and die so at fourscore.
The reason he gives why this has more rest is because all go to one place to rest in, and this is sooner at his rest, Ecc 6:6. He that lives a thousand years goes to the same place with the child that does not live an hour, Ecc 3:20. The grave is the place we shall all meet in. Whatever differences there may be in men's condition in this world, they must all die, are all under the same sentence, and, to outward appearance, their deaths are alike. The grave is to one, as well as another, a land of silence, of darkness, of separation from the living, and a sleeping-place. It is the common rendezvous of rich and poor, honourable and mean, learned and unlearned; the short-lived and long-lived meet in the grave, only one rides post thither, the other goes by a slower conveyance; the dust of both mingles, and lies undistinguished.
"There
is an evil I have observed beneath the sun, and it is prevalent among mankind;
a man to whom God has given riches, wealth and honour, and he lacks nothing
that his heart could desire, yet God did not give him the power to enjoy it. This is futility and an evil disease. If a man begets an hundred children and lives
many years - great being the days of his life - and his soul is not content
with the good - and he even is deprived of burial; I say: the stillborn is
better off than he. Though its coming is
futile and it departs in darkness, though its very name is enveloped in
darkness, though it never saw the sun nor knew; it has more satisfaction than
he. Even if he should live a thousand
years twice over, but find no contentment - do not all go to the same
place?" He describes the riches of misers and asserts that this
evil is often in men, since none of those things, which are thought to be good
in the world, is lacking in him, and nonetheless he torments himself with the
most inane sparing, saving those things to be devoured by others. Nor does he say this in exaggeration, for
even if he produced an hundred books and lived longer than Adam, that is almost
one thousand years, but lived two thousand years, he would rot his mind with
desire and avarice. He is born
prematurely in a worse state that dies, as soon as he seems born. For he did not see evil things or good
things; but although he used to possess good things, he was tormented by
thoughts and sadness, and having been born prematurely he has more rest, than a
greedy man who is old. But both however
are seized by the same fate, while both the first and the last are taken away
by the same death. This could also refer
to Israel, because God gave Israel the law, which speaks about the prophets,
the testament, the Promised Land and the Saviour: "let the reign of God be
removed from you and given to a nation that brings forth his fruit" [Matth. 21, 43.]. All these things have been given to a foreign
and pilgrim people from peoples who see their good yet do not enjoy it. They say we are of much better condition, who
are considered to be as new-born and premature by those, who praised themselves
in antiquity, finding glory in their fathers, saying: "our father was
Abraham" [Ioh. 8, 39.],
but however both we and they hasten to one place, that is to the judgement of
God. But what Ecclesiastes says in the
middle is this: "but there was no tomb for him". This either means that that rich man does not
think of his death, and while he possesses all, is greedy even in building a
tomb; or that often he is killed on account of those riches, by plots against
his life, and is left unburied, or, what I think is a better interpretation, he
needs nothing of good deeds, from which he is able to obtain for himself memory
among those who come after him. And so
that he will not pass through life in silence, just as cattle, although he had
a means, by which he was able to show that he had lived.
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SUMMARY
Ecclesiastes 6:5 profoundly contrasts the state of a stillborn child with that of a long-lived individual who fails to find enjoyment or purpose in life. The Preacher asserts that the stillborn, having never experienced the world's sorrows, vanities, or the toil of existence, possesses a superior "rest" compared to one whose prolonged life is marked by dissatisfaction and futility. This verse underscores Qoheleth's radical critique of earthly existence when viewed solely "under the sun," highlighting the inherent emptiness of human striving apart from a divine perspective.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Ecclesiastes 6:5 masterfully employs several potent literary devices to convey Qoheleth's stark message. The most prominent is idiom, specifically the phrase "seen the sun," which functions as a common Hebrew expression for being alive or experiencing life. This idiomatic usage succinctly and poetically conveys the stillborn child's complete lack of worldly experience and its consequent freedom from life's burdens. The verse also relies heavily on contrast, setting the quiet, undisturbed non-existence of the stillborn against the burdensome, unfulfilled, and ultimately futile existence of the long-lived man. This stark juxtaposition powerfully highlights the Preacher's pessimistic conclusion that a life of unfulfilled vanity is worse than no life at all. Furthermore, there is an element of hyperbole in the Preacher's assertion, as it pushes the boundaries of conventional wisdom and societal values to emphasize the profound depth of his disillusionment with life "under the sun" when viewed solely from an earthly, human-centered perspective.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Ecclesiastes 6:5, with its bleak assessment of life's value when unfulfilled, presents a profound theological challenge, particularly to any mindset that equates longevity or material accumulation with inherent blessing or ultimate meaning. It boldly posits that mere existence or the accumulation of earthly advantages, without the capacity for true enjoyment or divine purpose, can be worse than never having lived. This radical perspective compels the reader to look beyond conventional earthly metrics of success for ultimate meaning and satisfaction. The "rest" found in non-existence implicitly points to a deeper, universal human longing for peace and cessation from toil—a longing that the Preacher ultimately suggests can only be truly met in a right relationship with God, as the book's concluding verses reveal. It powerfully highlights humanity's inherent spiritual emptiness and dissatisfaction when separated from its Creator, even amidst apparent earthly blessings.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
This verse, though initially unsettling in its starkness, offers a profound mirror for self-reflection on what we truly value and pursue in our lives. If even a long life filled with earthly advantages can be deemed worse than non-existence, where then does genuine, lasting satisfaction truly lie? It challenges us to critically examine whether our primary pursuits are merely "under the sun"—focused on fleeting material gains, social status, personal comfort, or even simply longevity—or if they are anchored in something eternal, transcendent, and truly fulfilling. The Preacher's lament for "rest" resonates with the universal human desire for peace from life's relentless burdens and anxieties. This should prompt us to seek a deeper purpose that transcends earthly struggles and disappointments, recognizing that true rest and meaning are not found in the absence of life, but in a life lived in alignment with divine purpose. It encourages us to cultivate a perspective that values spiritual contentment, God-given joy, and faithful obedience over worldly accumulation, finding our deepest satisfaction in God's provision and presence regardless of our circumstances.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does Ecclesiastes 6:5 advocate for suicide or despair?
Answer: No, Ecclesiastes 6:5 does not advocate for suicide or despair. Instead, it functions as a powerful rhetorical device employed by Qoheleth (the Preacher) to express the extreme frustration and profound futility he observes in a life lived "under the sun" without a higher, divine purpose. The Preacher's pessimistic observations throughout the book, including this verse, are strategically designed to dismantle false hopes and misplaced trust in worldly achievements, wealth, honor, or even a long life. By exposing the inherent emptiness of such pursuits, Qoheleth clears the ground for his ultimate, climactic conclusion: that the only true meaning, satisfaction, and enduring wisdom are found in fearing God and diligently keeping His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13). It is a philosophical and theological exploration of life's meaning, not a literal endorsement of non-existence.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Ecclesiastes 6:5, with its lament over the profound futility of an unfulfilled life and the ironic "rest" found only in non-existence, finds its ultimate and glorious Christ-centered fulfillment in the person and redemptive work of Jesus. The very "rest" that Qoheleth desperately seeks, yet can only conceive as the absence of life's burdens, is fully and freely offered by Christ. Jesus himself extends the divine invitation: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This is not the passive rest of non-existence, but a dynamic, spiritual rest from the crushing burden of sin, the futility of human striving, and the anxieties of a life lived apart from God. While the stillborn child "has not seen the sun, nor known anything" of the world's sorrows, Christ, the "light of the world," willingly entered into the full experience of human suffering, temptation, and even death, not to escape it, but to conquer it. Through His perfect life, atoning sacrifice, and glorious resurrection, He offers a life that is not "vanity" but is overflowing with eternal purpose, profound meaning, and unshakeable joy. In Christ, we truly "see the sun" in the radiant light of God's glory (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Preacher's knowledge of life's futility "under the sun" is utterly overcome by the transformative knowledge of God in Christ, who gives meaning to every moment and promises a future where there is no more sorrow, pain, or death, but eternal life in His presence (Revelation 21:4).