Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ecclesiastes

by Samuel Cox

"Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled, Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God Himself is sun and moon."

Nevertheless, if his life is to be full and complete, he must be able to pluck whatever bright flowers of joy spring beside his path, to find "laughing waters" in the crags he climbs, and to rejoice not only in "the glossy purples" of the armed and stubborn thistle, but in the delicate beauty of the ferns, the pure grace of the cyclamens, and the sweet breath of the fragrant grasses and flowers which haunt those severe heights. If he is to be a Man, rather than a Stoic or an Anchorite, he must add to his sense of duty a keen delight in all beauty, all grace, all innocent and noble pleasure. For the sake of others, too, as well as for his own sake, he must carry with him "the merry heart which doeth good like a medicine," since, lacking that, he will neither do all the good he might, nor himself become perfect and complete. And it is proof, I think, of the good divinity, no less than of the broad humanity, of the Preacher that he lays much stress on this point. He not only bids us enjoy life, but gives us cogent reasons for enjoying it. "Even," he says, "if a man should live many years, he ought to enjoy them all." But why? "Because there will be many dark days," days of old age and growing infirmity in which pleasures will lose their charm; days of death through which he will sleep quietly in the dark stillness of the grave, beyond the touch of any happy excitement (ver. 8). Therefore the man who attains the Chief Good will not only do the duty of the moment; he will also enjoy the pleasure of the moment. He will not toil through the long day of life till, spent and weary, he has no power to enjoy his "much goods," or no time for his soul to "make merry the glad." While he is "a young man," he will "rejoice in his youth, and let his heart cheer him," and go after the pleasures which attract youth (ver. 9). While his heart is still fresh, when pleasures are most innocent and healthful, easiest of attainment and unalloyed by anxiety and care, he will cultivate that cheerful temper which is a prime safeguard against vice, discontent, and the morose fretfulness of a selfish old age.

Combined with a stedfast Faith in the Life to come. Ch. x., v. 9-Ch. xii, v. 7.

But, soft; is not our man of men becoming a mere man of pleasure? No; for he recognises the claims of Duty and of Charity. These keep his pleasures sweet and wholesome, prevent them from usurping the whole man, and landing him in the satiety and weariness of dissipation. But lest even these safeguards should prove insufficient, he has also this: he knows that "God will bring him into judgment;" that all his works, whether of charity or duty or recreation, will be weighed in the pure and even balance of Divine Justice (ver. 9). This is the secret of the pure heart—the heart that is kept pure amid all labours and cares and joys. But the intention of the Preacher in thus adverting to the Divine Judgment has been gravely misconstrued, wrested even to its very opposite. We too much forget what that Judgment must have seemed to the enslaved Jews;—how weighty a consolation, how bright a hope! They were captive exiles, oppressed by profligate despotic lords. Cleaving to the Divine Law with a passionate loyalty such as they had never felt in happier days, they were nevertheless exposed to the most dire and constant misfortunes. All the blessings which the Law pronounced on the obedient seemed withheld from them, all its promises of good and peace to be falsified; the wicked triumphed over them, and prospered in their wickedness. Now to a people whose convictions and hopes had suffered this miserable defeat, what truth would be more welcome than that of a life to come, in which all wrongs should be both righted and avenged, and all the promises in which they had hoped should receive a large fulfilment that would beggar hope? what prospect could be more cheerful and consolatory than that of a day of retribution on which their oppressors would be put to shame, and they would be recompensed for their fidelity to the law of God? This hope would be sweeter to them than any pleasure; it would lend a new zest to every pleasure, and make them more zealous in good works.

Nay, we know, from the Psalms composed during the Captivity, that the judgment of God was an incentive to hope and joy; that, instead of fearing it, the pious Jews looked forward to it with rapture and exultation. What, for example, can be more riant and joyful than the concluding strophe of Psalm xcvi.?

Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; Let the field exult and all that therein is; And let all the trees of the wood sing for joy Before Jehovah: for He cometh, For He cometh to judge the earth, To judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with his truth;

or than the third strophe of Psalm xcviii.?

Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein; Let the floods clap their hands, And let the hills sing for joy together Before Jehovah: for He cometh to judge the earth; With righteousness shall He judge the world, And the peoples with equity.

It is impossible to read these verses, and such verses as these, without feeling that the Jews of the Captivity anticipated the Divine Judgment, not with fear and dread, but with a hope and joy so deep and keen as that they summoned the whole round of Nature to share in it and reflect it.

If we remembered this, we should not so readily agree with the Preachers and Commentators who assume Coheleth to be speaking ironically in this verse, and as though he would defy his readers to enjoy their pleasures with the thought of God and his judgment of them in their minds. We should rather understand that he was making life more cheerful to them; that he was removing the blight of despair which had fallen on it; that he was kindling in their dreary prospect a light which would shine even into their darkened present with gracious and healing rays. All wrongs would be easier to bear, all duties would be faced with better heart, all alleviating pleasures would grow more welcome, if once they were fully persuaded that there was a life beyond death, a life in which the good would be "comforted" and the evil "tormented." It is on the express ground that there is a Judgment that the Preacher, in the last verse of this chapter, bids them banish "care" and "sadness," or, as the words perhaps mean, "moroseness" and "trouble;" though he also adds another reason which no longer afflicts him much, viz., that "youth and manhood are vanity," soon gone, never to be recalled, and never enjoyed if the brief occasion is suffered to pass.