So also a nobler and happier Mode of Worship is open to men:
Ch. v., vv. 1-7.
1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God;
For it is better to obey than to offer the sacrifice of fools,
Who know not when they do evil.
2 Do not hurry on thy mouth,
And do not force thy heart to utter words before God;
For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth:
Therefore let thy words be few.
3 For as a dream cometh through much occupation,
So foolish talk through many words.
4 When thou vowest a vow unto God,
Defer not to pay it;
For he is a fool whose will is not steadfast.
Pay that which thou hast vowed.
5 Better that thou shouldest not vow
Than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin,
And say not before the Angel, "It was an error:"
For why should God be angry at thine idle talk
And destroy the work of thy hands?
Ver. 6. Before the Angel. That is, before the Angel who, as the Hebrews thought, presided over the altar of worship, and who was present even when only two or three met for the study of the Law: to study the Law being in itself an act of worship.
7 For in many words, as in many dreams, there is vanity:
But fear thou God.
And a more helpful and consolatory Trust in the Divine Providence. Ch. v., vv. 8-17.
8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor,
And the perversion of justice in the State,
Be not dismayed thereat;
For superior watcheth superior,
And superiors again watch over them:
9 And the advantage for the people is, that it extendeth to all,
For even the king is servant to the field.
Ver. 9. Some commentators prefer another possible reading of this difficult verse: But the profit of a land is every way a king devoted to the field, i.e. a lover and promoter of good husbandry. This reading, however, does not, I think, harmonise so well with the context as that given above.
10 He that loveth silver is never satisfied with silver,
Nor he that clingeth to riches with what they yield:
This too is vanity;
11 For when riches increase they increase that consume them:
What advantage then hath the owner thereof,
Save the looking thereupon with his eyes?
12 Sweet is the sleep of the husbandman,
Whether he eat little or much;
While abundance suffereth not the rich to sleep.
13 There is a great evil which I have seen under the sun—
Riches hoarded up by the rich
To the hurt of the owner thereof:
14 For the riches perish in some unlucky adventure,
And he begetteth a son when he hath nothing in his hand:
15 As he cometh forth from the womb of his mother,
Even as he cometh naked,
So also he returneth again,
And taketh nothing from his labour
Which he may carry away in his hand.
16 This also is a great evil,
That just as he came so he must go.
For what profit hath he who laboureth for the wind?
17 Yet all his days he eateth in darkness,
And is much perturbed, and hath vexation and grief.