RICHES Inthis chaper Qoheleth goes on further to show the meaningless of worldly wealth. 1. Wealth that cannot be enjoyed 1-9. 2. Fixity of Fate 10-12. WEALTH THAT CANNOT BE ENJOYED [1-9] 6:1-9 develops the above from the negative side. This leads to the ssixth proverb in the series in verse 9. the author meditates on the mystery of why some people do not have the gift spoken of in 5:18-20. He comes to the conclusion that those who do not have it, though they have no burial (never die), would have done better to have been born dead. The concludin proverb holds that satisfaction is better than perpetual longing. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 253.] One of life's greatest misfortunes is that a man may have riches and not be able to enjoy them, either because of an early death or perhaps because of a spirit of avarice which will not let him be satisfied. "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wants nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease" [1- 2]. "God gives him not power to eat thereof." This verse, as well as the phrase, "a stranger eats it," shows that the picture is of a man who dies early in life before he has had a chance to enjoy his wealth. No son becomes his heir, but rather some stranger benefits by it all. "If a man beget an hundred {children}, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also {that} he have no burial; I say, {that} an untimely birth {is} better than he. (4) For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. (5) Moreover he has not seen the sun, nor known {any thing}: this has more rest than the other. (6) Yea, though he live a thousand years twice {told}, yet has he seen no good: do not all go to one place? (7) All the labour of man {is} for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. (8) For what has the wise more than the fool? what has the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?" [1-8]. "If a man beget an hundred children." This is the opposite of the previous case. Even if a man has long life and many child- ren, this is no guarantee of the enjoyment of life. He may be so bound up with avarice or worry that he lacks the capacity to feel satisfied. To make the contrast even greater, the author 2 adds, "and also that he have no burial." That is, if he were to live forever, and still not be able to enjoy life, it would have been better if he had never lived at all. 6:3 + Therefore the miscarriage of worldly things is better than their birth. Indeed, in regard to the man who has come into this life and has endured the vanity and darkness of this world over an extended longevity, Ecclesiastes declared that "the miscarriage is better than he." For the one enjoys rest rather than the other, because the former has not experienced the inconstancy of life, wherein even a man who lived a thousand years could not have seen the good. It is more of a grace to have avoided such things, then, than to have suffered them. St. Ambrose 1. The Prayer of Job and David, 2:4:15. (Fathers of the Church). "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit" [9]. Satisfaction in the things that life affords is better than "the wandering of the desire," that is, better than a life that can never find fulfillment in its longings. FIXITY OF FATE [10-12] 6:10-12 concludes by repeating the themes of 1:3-11 and 3:1-8. Life is endless repetition (verse 10). No word uttered, even by the wise, can give it meaning (verse11). The meaning of the totality of life is beyond the ken of human beings, who die so soon (verse 12). [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] "That which has been is named already, and it is known that it {is} man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. (11) Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what {is} man the better? (12) For who knoweth what {is} good for man in {this} life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?" [10-12]. It is ultimately useless to try to change things, and to wish for more than one has. Submission to the fixed order is best, since God has determined things the way they are. man is powerless even to argue the issue. 1 Eccl 7: 12 + For, as the preacher says, "wisdom is a defense and money is a defense" also. We must not hastily conclude that this statement conflicts with that of the Lord: "verity I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven; and again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Were it so, the salvation of Zacchaeus the publican, described in scripture as a man of great wealth, would contradict the Lord's declaration. St. Jerome 1. Letter 79:3. Eccl 7: 16 + He has ended his discussion of wedlock and virginity, and has carefully steered between the two precepts without turning to the right hand or to the left. He has followed the royal road and fulfilled the command not to be righteous over much. St. Jerome 1. Against Jovinianus, 1:14. Eccl 7: 16 + Do you expect me to explain the purposes and plans of God ? The Book of Wisdom gives an answer to your foolish question: "Look not into things above you, and search not things too mighty for you." And elsewhere, "Make not yourself overwise, and argue not more than is fitting." And in the same place, "In wisdom and simplicity of heart seek God." You will perhaps deny the authority of this book; listen then to the Apostle blowing the Gospel trumpet: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out ! For who has known the mind of the Lord ? or who has been His counselor ?" St. Jerome 1. Against the Pelagians 1:32. Eccl 7: 16 + "The apostle, in concluding his discussion of marriage and of virginity, is careful to observe a mean course in discriminating between them, and, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, he keeps to the King's highway, and thus fulfills the injunction, `Be not righteous overmuch.' St. Jerome 1. Letter 48:8. Eccl 7: 28, 29 + He says that he had found man upright. Consider the force of the words. The word man comprehends both male and female. "But a woman," he says, "among all these have I not found." Let us read the beginning of Genesis, and we shall find Adam, that is man, called both male and female. Having then been created by God good and upright, by our own fault we have fallen to a worse condition; and that which is Paradise had been upright, when we left paradise we corrupt. If you object that before they sinned there was a distinction in sex between male and female, and that they could without sin have come together, it is uncertain what might have what might have happened. St. Jerome 1. Against Jovinianus, 1:29. 7:26 + For although a perfect apprehension of the truth is at present far removed from us by reason of the infirmity of the flesh, yet it is possible, as the Preacher himself has said, to perceive the madness of the impious, and having found it, to say that 'more bitter that death.' St. Athanasius 1. Letter 52:2. 7:29 + For she is made to see God, and to be enlightened by Him; buy of her own accord in God's stead she has sought corruptible things and darkness, as the Sporot says somewhere in writing, "God made man upright, but they have sought out many invertions." Thus it has been then that men from the first discovered 2 and contrived and imagined evil for themselves (as was said in the former treatise), received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but were being corrupted according to their devices, over them as king. St. Athanasius 1. Against the Heathen, 7. ADVICE BASED ON REALITY (7:1-9:16) The book is loosely organized, and the ouline used here is arbitrary. However, chapter 7 does seem to mark a turn from the author's presentation of his philosophy to more practical advice on the basis of that philosophy. Again a major subdivision begins with poetry. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:1-14. Six Poetic Pieces of Advice. The author may very well here be employing proverbs from wisdom circles, not his own compositions. his opening chapters, however, put them in a new framework. They make it clear that the good to which traditional wisdom directs people is really only relative good. Thus the author is rooted in his background, but is critical of it. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:1a praises the value of a good reputauion. There is a play on the Hebrew words for name (shem) and ointment (shemen). Verse 7b fits with what the arthor has said in chapters 1-6. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:2-4 holds that wisdom lies in acting in accord with the tragic nature of life as outlined in chapters 1-6 (see above on 3:9-15). [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:5-7 speaks for wisdom instead of foolish pleasure. Foolish laughter is kikened to the crackling of a fire of thorns that gererates no heat. But, characteristic of the author's realism, the conclusion is that even wisdom can be bought. Oppression in verse 7 probably denotes ill-gotten gain. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:8-10 is based on 1:3-11 and 3:1-8. The point is that each event should be accepted for what it is. Heated comparison with previous events is foolish. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:11-12 acknowledges the practical, proximate value of both wisdom and wealth as defenses against life's difficulty and perplexity. [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 254.] 7:13-14 concludes this series on the not so sften struck by the author: No one can change what God has ordained. Take the good for what it is when it comes. When evil comes, accept the fact that our limited perspective does not permit us to see how it fits into the totality of things (cf. 39-15). [1. Interpreter's Concise Commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, Harvey H. Guthrie, p. 255.] 7:23 + Thus Solomon, who was the wisest of all men, whether before himm or in his own time, to whom God gave bread of heart, and a flood of contemplation, more abundant than the sand, even he, the more he entered into the depth, the more dizzy he became, and declared the furth point of wisdom to be the discovery of how very far off she was from him. St. Gregory Nazianzen 1. The Second Theological Oration, 21. 7:16 + And accordingly, when a righteous man is reproved, he is reproved of sin, and not of righteousness. Since in that divine utterance also, where we read, "Be not made righteous over-much," there 3 is notice taken, not of the righteousness of the wise man, but of the pride of the presumptuous. The man, therefore, that becomes "righteous over-much," by that very excess becomes unrighteous. For he makes himself righteous over-much who says that he is made righteous, not by the grace of God, but by the sufficiency of his own will: nor is he righteous through living righteously, but is rather selfinflated with the imagination of being what he is not. St. Augustine 1. On the Gospel of St. John, tr. 95:2. 7:30 + God made man good; so runs the scripture, "God made man upright; and men themselves found out many cogitations." Run from these "many" to One, gather up your scattered things into one : flow on together, fence yourself in, abide with One; go not to many things. There is blessedness. But we flowed away,have gone on to perdition: we were all born with sin, and to that sin wherein we were born have we too added by our evil living, and the whole world has become evil. But Christ came, and he chose that which He made, not what He found; for he found all evil, and by His grace. He made them good. And so was made another "world;" and the "world" now persecutes the "world." St. Augustine 1. Sermons on New Testament Lessons, 46:6. 7:29 We were created good by The Good; for "God made man upright," but by our own free will, we became evil. We had power from being good to come evil, and we shall have power from being evil to become good. But it is He who is ever Good, who make the good out of the evil; for man by his own will had no power to heal himself. You do not look out for a physician to wound yourself; but when you has wound yourself, you look out for one to cure you. St. Augustine 1. Sermons on New Testament Lessons, 11:2. Eccl 7 + And yet it is far more to receive blame from one wise man, than to become a hearer of a whole chorus of worthless and miserable men in their songs. For the laughter of fools is like the cracking of many thorns burning in a fierce fire. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus 1. A Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Eccl 7 + For the life of man has its excellence not in the acquisition of perishable riches, but in wisdom. It is the greatest of all good to take hold of God, and by abiding to him to sin in nothing. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus 1. A Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes. eccl 7 + Wisdom avails more in the way of help than a band of the most power men in a city, and it often also pardons righteously those who fail in duty. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus 1. A Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes. 7:21 + And Ecclesiastes also declares that this cannot be done without fault by any of the saints, and says: 'For there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doe good and sin not." For who, even if he be the chief of all righteous and holy men, can we ever think could, while bound in the chains of this life, so acquire this chief good, as never to cease from HimWho alone is good? Abbot Theonas 1. Conference 23:5. 4 7:21 + And therefore with daily sighs all the saints grieve over this weakness of their nature and while they search into their shifting thoughts and the secrets and inmost recesses of their conscience, cry out in entreaty: "Enter not into judgment with Your sight shall no man living be justified;" and this: "Who will boast that he has a chaste heart? or who will have confidence that he is pure from sin?" and again: "There is not a righteous man upon earth that do good and sin not;" and this also: "Who know his faults?" Abbot Theonas 1. Conference 23:17. 7:21 + Wherefore also that most wise Ecclesiastes reviewing in his mind all the actions and purposes of men declares without any exception: "that there is not a righteous man upon earth, that do good and sin not," i.e., no one ever could or ever will be found on this earth so holy, so diligent, so earns: as to be able continually to cling to that true and unique good, and not day after day to feel that he is drawn aside from it and fails. But still though he maintains that he cannot be free from wrong doing, yet none the less we must not deny that he is righteous. Abbot Theonas 1. Conference 23:18.
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