Ecclesiastes 4:1-16 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Ecclesiastes 4. A Gloomy Survey. The chapter falls into four parts, which treat respectively of oppression (Ecclesiastes 4:1-3), rivalry (Ecclesiastes 4:4-6), isolation amounting to self-torture (Ecclesiastes 4:7-12), and a paragraph on a young king's popularity (Ecclesiastes 4:13-16).

Ecclesiastes 4:1. Man's inhumanity to man awakens Qoheleth's compassion; they had no comforter must refer in both cases to the oppressed; the words are repeated for the sake of emphasis.

Ecclesiastes 4:2 f. No man can be accounted happy till he is dead (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:1, contrast Ecclesiastes 9:4); indeed better than life and even death is not to be born (cf. Ecclesiastes 6:3 and Job 3:11-16, also Sophocles, Πd. Col. 1225, Non-existence is better than highest fame).

Ecclesiastes 4:4. Note mg. Competition is as inhuman as tyranny, it is only another form of oppression. But (Ecclesiastes 4:5) laziness is no virtue, the idle man starves. The verse is perhaps a current proverb; it might mean the idler somehow manages to get a living without the worry of the toiler. The best thing is to follow the golden mean (Ecclesiastes 4:6). The words for handful are different the first denotes the open palm, the second the grip. Another woe is avarice (Ecclesiastes 4:7 f.) ; the life of the lonely miser is a sore travail.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, proverbial sayings on the advantages of comradeship. The setting is that of a journey with its perils from bad roads, chilly nights, and brigands. And if two are better than one, three are better still. The section is often taken as a parable of friendship; Charles Wesley built up a hymn on it, Two are better far than one, For counsel or for fight. The allegorists make the threefold cord a reference to the Trinity or to the union of Faith, Hope, and Love.

Ecclesiastes 4:13-16. There have been as many interpretations of the personage here referred to as of the number of the Beast in the Apocalypse. The most obvious illustration is that of Joseph and Pharaoh, the one that best fits the date of the book Ptolemy V, who at the age of five succeeded his aged father, Ptolemy IV in 205. Others see a reference to Antiochus Epiphanes and Alexander Balas, who was of humble origin and popular with the Jews (cf. pp. 416, 608), but this is perhaps too late. No certainty is attainable.

Ecclesiastes 4:15. the second is perhaps a gloss; in any case it can only mean a second youth. The moral is driven home in Ecclesiastes 4:16: the popular favourite of to-day is forgotten, and perhaps execrated, to-morrow. It was so with the young Ptolemy (Epiphanes), whose advisers were a bad lot, so that when Antiochus III (perhaps the second of Ecclesiastes 4:15) annexed Palestine to Syria (p. 62) in 198 the Jews welcomed the change.

Related Commentaries of Ecclesiastes 4:1

Ecclesiastes 4:1-16

1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the sidea of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.

3 Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

4 Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit.

5 The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.

6 Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.

7 Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun.

8 There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.

9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.

10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

13 Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished.

14 For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor.

15 I considered all the living which walk under the sun, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead.

16 There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.