CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 11:1. Cast thy bread upon the waters.] “Bread,” rendered in Isaiah 28:28, “bread corn.” It has been supposed that there is an allusion to the manner of sowing the seed-corn of the rice plant during the time of the flooding of the fields. But it is doubtful whether this kind of grain was cultivated in Judea in the times of Solomon. The peculiarity of Egyptian agriculture may have suggested this image, where the seed is sown literally “upon the waters” before the inundation of the Nile has subsided. Perhaps the writer had no peculiar usage of agriculture in his mind, but by a bold figure represents a free-handed benevolence which does not too nicely calculate cost and results.
Ecclesiastes 11:2. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight.] “Seven and eight” and similar combinations are often used in the sense of undefined plurality. (Mich. Ecclesiastes 5:5, Proverbs 30:15, Amos 1:3.) The meaning here is clear: seven must not be the limit, but rather “seven and more.”
Ecclesiastes 11:3. And if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.] This figure is suitable to represent the idea of irrevocable Divine judgments overtaking man; but it may be doubted whether it requires that idea. The more probable signification, and more suitable to the theme of these verses, is given by Lange: “The utility of the tree remains the same, whether it falls upon the ground of a possessor bordering it to the north or to the south; if it does not profit the one, it does the other. And it is just so with the gifts of love; their fruit is not lost, although they do not always come to light in the manner intended.”
Ecclesiastes 11:5. The way of the spirit.] Lit. The way of the wind. The same word signifies both wind and spirit. The double meaning may be taken as most in harmony with the latter part of the verso. We cannot track and discover all the mysteries of nature. (John 3:8.) Nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.] The formation of man’s physical nature in the womb has always been regarded as peculiarly mysterious. (Psalms 139:13-16.)
Ecclesiastes 11:6. And in the evening with-hold not thine hand.] Lit. “towards evening.” Be diligent both early and late. Either this or that.] Either the labour of the morning or of the evening.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 11:1-6
THE PRECEPTS OF BENEVOLENCE
Benevolence is goodness considered, not as an internal state, but as an active habit. As such, it needs the direction of principles and rules, otherwise this genial impulse may degenerate into softness, and fail in various ways of producing the highest possible good. Precepts and rules are but the true method of performing any work or duty when that method is interpreted in language. Benevolence has its precepts.
I. Learn to Venture Much. (Ecclesiastes 11:1.) We are not certain that our kindest works shall have their proper effect, either in winning the gratitude or securing the permanent benefit of others. In the moral. as well as in the natural, world, there is an appearance of waste and failure. Yet the impulse of benevolence must not from hence be discouraged, nor wait for the time of action till it has the fullest assurance of success. We must learn to venture much, for we have often to cast our seeds of kindness “upon the waters,” not knowing whither they will be carried, often, too, with as little prospect of reaping any ultimate good as if we scattered them upon the barren foam of the sea. The prospect of immediate success must not be our motive. We have to act upon a higher and a nobler principle.
1. We must learn to do good for its own sake. It destroys the nobility of goodness if we are anxious to ascertain what profit we shall have. Moral action that depends entirely upon the spur of reward only belongs to the lowest degrees of spiritual life. The angels do all for love and nothing for reward. The highest virtue is bold to act, indulges in the liberties of a free spirit, and is contented with the luxury of doing good.
2. We must have faith in the imperishableness of good deeds. It is true that the promise of immortality is only to the doer himself. “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (1 John 2:17.) Much of his work must perish, tainted as it is with human infirmity, and imperfect. Yet all that is of sterling value in it shall abide. Good deeds springing from the fount of purity and unselfishness can never die. They are preserved for ever in the favourable remembrance of God. Even in the present life we are permitted to see some of the fruits and rewards of them. The long delay of their due recognition and recompense may discourage us, but if we are faithful and unwearied in duty we shall see fruit “after many days.”
3. We must consider that the issues and rewards of our life are with God. In allowing our goodness freely to spend itself, we are imitating the property of our Heavenly Father, and we may safely leave with Him our keeping and our reward. He knows all the issues of the good man’s life, and all the riches of his sure recompense in eternity. These are greatly hidden from us here; therefore, in the meantime, we must learn the uses of that faith which ventures all. Venture is the very soul of the religious life—the attitude of the righteous towards the great things of God yet to be revealed; and the spirit of it penetrates all the forms of duty.
II. Do not adopt a Quantitative Standard of Duty. (Ecclesiastes 11:2.) We must not order our benevolence by a cold, arithmetical law. If the purpose to bless seven candidates for our good offices be the limit we have set to our charity, that limit should not be so final and irreversible as to prevent us from extending our kindness yet to another, if he also stands in need of our favour.
1. True goodness is above the tyranny of minute maxims and rules. That portion of moral conduct which consists in doing good to others has its own laws; but these are wide. Like the laws of nature, they are general and all-pervading. They cannot be represented by a severe and formal code, which does not rise above the letter, and knows nothing of that generous and free spirit of goodness which giveth life. The loving heart disdains the suggestions of that austere and cynical spirit of economy which says, “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” (John 12:5.) The highest goodness acknowledges no law but the law of love.
2. True goodness often secures a grateful return of favours. “Thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.” It is, therefore, wise and prudent to create an interest beforehand, so that we may have succour in the day of calamity. We know not what disaster may cast us upon the kindness of others. Let us, therefore, by the deeds of love, make them our friends now. There is a reward which comes to the good man from society. In the time of prosperity he needs it for his encouragement; but in the time of adversity, it may be his very health and life.
3. True goodness has always some beneficial results. (Ecclesiastes 11:3.) Through the ingratitude of mankind, and the moral perversity that is in the world, our good deeds may often seem to fail. Yet they will have some grateful issue—some precious results which cannot altogether die. These may fall out in quite a different direction from the course of our expectation. In any way, there will be benefit and blessing. The utility of the tree is not destroyed whether it falls to the north or to the south. In any case it will be a profit to some one.
III. Do not Act by Constraint. (Ecclesiastes 11:3.)
1. The constraint of law can never produce the highest goodness. It is possible for a man to do the deeds of kindness, not so much from love as from a sense of right. In the same proportion as he acts herein from any external constraint does he fail to rise to the true nobility of goodness. “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
2. The only constraint should be that of love. If the clouds be “full of rain” they must burst in showers of blessing upon the earth. They are the natural image of a heart that can hold out no more, that blesses by a sweet constraint, and in doing good to others relieves itself. The highest natures are not ashamed to own the gracious necessity under which they are laid by love.
IV. Be not Over-Cautious. (Ecclesiastes 11:4.) He who is always watching with nervous anxiety the wind and rain, and must have the most perfect conditions before he begins his work, can only meet with but poor success. There is a certain boldness about true feeling that does not wait till all is clear and perfectly ascertained. In the uncertainties of the present life, there is a moral obligation to act upon imperfect evidence, upon assurances whose solidity is not quite beyond a doubt. The impulse of affection and love will often carry a man beyond the warrant of the logical understanding. He who is timid and hesitating cannot accomplish much god. It is best to follow the promptings of the generous heart, whithersoever they will lead, without waiting for that assurance of certainty which is never perfectly given to man in this life. In moral action, over-refinements arc dangerous—they are impracticable. Therefore, he who waits for action till the most complete conditions favour him may have long to wait, and must suffer many disadvantages.
1. He must lose many opportunities of doing good. If a man does not attempt the duty lying immediately before him, the opportunity may slip away for ever. He must be poor in good works who makes too careful a selection of what he shall do.
2. Such delay tends to paralyse effort. Caution is a valuable principle when used to secure accuracy in moral conduct, and to enable a man to walk surefootedly in this present life. But over-caution amounts to a disease, relaxes the sinews of effort, and impairs the moral force. He who puts off the doing of good actions, from time to time, loses the healthfulness which a vigorous activity would give him, and in the end scarcely accomplishes anything.
V. Be Earnest and Untiring. (Ecclesiastes 11:6.) Earnestness and perseverance are the sure conditions of ultimate success. The holy examples of all the wise and good, and the solemn verities amidst which we now live, alike enforce these upon us. This earnestness and untiring devotion to every good work implies—
1. A wide and varied action. It extends throughout every part of our working time—from “morning” till “evening.” It is distributed over an ample field, and embraces opportunities on every side. It implies—
2. A surer and more plentiful reward. If we sow with a liberal and diligent hand, some seeds will be sure to spring up. We may be discouraged by the appearance of a waste of power. God may destroy some of the seeds we sow, but He will preserve others. The work of the morning, or the work of the evening, may perish, yet we may fondly hope that one of them, at least, will succeed. In any case, the diligent worker shall see some profit of his labour. Then, too, the success may happen to be very great. “Thou knowest not … whether they both shall be alike good.” The law still holds in every case, “He that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully.”
VI. Consider that God often Hides from Us the Success of Our Work. (Ecclesiastes 11:5.) It is not possible for us to know the full extent of the impressions we make upon the minds and hearts of others. The good seed we sow may be borne very far, and quite beyond our observation and knowledge ripen into precious fruit. God, in this thing also, does hide Himself. Our works, as well as the deepest things of our soul, are laid up with Him, awaiting that Judgment which shall make all things manifest. The labours of love cannot be fully reckoned up in this world. This ignorance of the whole cause of our success is—
1. A necessity of our present condition. Man is still the greatest mystery to himself. The delicacy of the human spirit is such that it is impossible to say how far it is affected by the words and acts of another. In our present imperfect stage we cannot have full light either upon the reasons of God’s dealings, or upon the issues of our conduct. This ignorance, in both cases, may be a necessary discipline. It is suitable to a life of faith, and for perfecting the grace of humility.
2. It is analogous to our ignorance of nature’s mysteries. We can observe the effects and direction of the wind, but cannot tell “whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” (John 3:8.) We have no faculty to observe where the wind arises, and where it breathes out its last gasp. In like manner we are ignorant of the mystery of organic life—most notably of human life. Science can do much in classifying facts and reducing them to general laws, but cannot arrive at the ultimate mystery. How our physical nature is developed in the darkness of the silent womb, and prepared for the light and work of life, is still inexplicable to us. If we are ignorant of what is so intimately connected with ourselves, how can we presume to know all the work that God is doing in the world? Let us stand in awe and reverence before the depths of Divine knowledge, which conceal so much from our most piercing sight. Enough for man to know, that there is duty to be done, there are safe principles to act upon, and all faithful workers are sure of reward.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 11:1. Suppose that you are in the South Sea Isles, where the bread-fruit grows, and that by chance, or on purpose, you scatter some of its precious bunches on the sea. At the moment you may feel that they are lost; but, should the winds and waters waft them to one of those reef islands with which such seas are thickly studded, the wandering seeds may get washed ashore, and beneath those brilliant suns may quickly grow to a bread-fruit forest. And should some disaster long years after wreck you on that reef, when these trees are grown and their clusters ripe, you may owe your sustenance to the bread which you cast on the waters long ago. Such is God’s husbandry. Do the right deed. Do it in faith, and in prayer commend it to the care of God. And though the waves of circumstance may soon waft it beyond your ken, they only carry it to the place prepared by Him. And whether on an earthly or heavenly shore, the result will be found, and the reaper will rejoice that he once was a sower [Dr. J. Hamilton].
In the eyes of mere economists and calculators, many deeds of love may seem but a reckless waste, and the hope of any real advantage or fruit of them a vain presumption. But the same God who gives to the good man the impulse of duty also gives him his faith. Thus he learns to work beyond the warrant of appearances, and to leave his reward with God.
The seeds of goodness, scattered by a loving hand in the most unpropitious circumstances, may yet become the life of many.
In the course of history, the corruptions of the Church have grown so great that the times required bold men who would venture to cast their seeds of truth upon the waters that, to common eyes, only seemed to give them sepulchre. An ocean of prejudices, prescriptive authority, venerable fictions, and worldly interests, was ready to swallow up their truth. But the seeds they sowed found nourishment and the favour of heaven; they have ripened into successive harvests, and have become the life and rejoicing of many.
The ingratitude of men may seem unprofitably to engulf the labours of love, yet those labours cannot entirely fail of reward. The least possible result is, that they return with blessing into the bosom of the doer.
Ecclesiastes 11:2. Miss no opportunity of performing kind actions. Though you should have bestowed your bounty on seven—on a number which you might deem sufficient—should an eighth present himself, do something for him also, for you know not what evil shall be upon earth. You know not in this world of mutation how soon you may be the pensioner instead of the almoner. You know not how soon you may be glad of a crust from those who are at present thankful for your crumbs. Beneficence is the best insurance [Dr. J. Hamilton].
We are not in danger of erring on the side of large bounty. Our natural selfishness inclines us rather to keep within the mark than to go beyond it.
The best use we can make of the talents committed to us is by their means to secure friends.
In the time of our prosperity we may not perceive what stores of love our kindness has caused to be laid up for us. It needs the occasion of our calamity to unlock them.
We can store up mechanical energy, so that it remains quiescent till such time as we have need of it for effective work. In like manner we can store up for ourselves the energy of love in the hearts of men, and in the day of our distress it will become a power to bless and save.
In what opposite ways may the same consideration be applied? The very circumstance which Solomon here urges as a reason for present and generous liberality, the covetous worldly-minded man pleads as an apology for hoarding. I know not, he says, “what evil may come upon the earth.” I must, therefore, take good care of what I have got. Who can tell but I may otherwise come to dependence, and die poor myself? A prudent precaution to prevent our becoming a burden upon others in the time of age and infirmity, is by no means to be condemned. But it is an awful perversion, when the apprehension of future possibilities is made an excuse for griping avarice. How much more noble the use that is made, by the spirit of God, of our ignorance of the future! Instead of withholding from others on this ground, says Solomon, rather give while you have to give, and give liberally: lose not the precious opportunity; “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Enjoy, then, the pleasure of present beneficence [Wardlaw].
Ecclesiastes 11:3. As the clouds are formed, not as an end, in themselves, but that they may water the earth, so God bestows His bounties upon men that they may bless others.
The good heart owns no necessity but that of its own loving nature.
A cloud full of rain, and yet leaving the earth beneath it parched and desolate, would be an anomaly in the natural world; and is not a griping, narrow-souled, selfish rich man an anomaly of the same kind? God has given him the means of making “his very paths drop fatness.” … In what manifest opposition, then, to the ways and to the will of God does such a man live, when no drop of this plenteous rain is emptied upon the thirsty earth! when he lives only to hoard and heap up his accumulating treasures; or to lay them out only for the gratification of his own vanity and ambition, or of his sensual ease and pleasure? Such a man is a kind of monstrosity in the moral world—fit to be the object of no other feelings than those of contempt and pity on the part of his fellows; and certain to inherit the displeasure and wrath of Him, whose tender mercies are over all His works [Buchanan].
Our bounty can never be entirely lost. If we do good in all directions, we shall find the reward of it in some direction, though not, perhaps, where we had most looked for it.
Though there be discretion required in charity to know the worth of the persons on whom it is bestowed (Psalms 112:5), yet where the intention of the giver is honest, and endeavours to discern what manner of persons they are to whom he gives, though he may be mistaken, and let his charity fall upon the worst, his reward shall be no less than if it fell upon the better sort; for thus also may this similitude be turned into an argument for charity, as holding forth the certainty of the reward thereof, whether the objects of it be good or bad [Nisbet].
Ecclesiastes 11:4. It is easy to find excuses for the neglect of our duty.
Timidity is a source of moral weakness. Trembling caution can accomplish very little. There is a dauntlessness about faith which does not wait till all is most favourable.
If we are never to do an act of kindness till we are perfectly sure that it will not be abused, and that it will really and fully accomplish the purpose we intend by it, we shall never perform any such act at all. If I am never to give an alms until I know the whole history, past and future, of the individual who is to receive; if I am never to befriend one who is in difficulty and distress till I can be positively assured that he will prove himself worthy of it; if I am never to bestow my money on any undertaking for promoting the temporal or spiritual welfare of my fellow-men till I have infallible proof that there shall be no mistake committed in the management of it, and that it shall effect all the good which its authors are looking for and aiming at, I may as well resolve at once to do nothing in the way of spending my worldly substance for the interests of religion or humanity at all [Buchanan].
Certainty is not attainable in the business of common life, therefore men are content to act upon probabilities. Why should they require more in moral duties?
The great preachers of the Gospel have had the courage to sow the seed of the Word when the temper of the time seemed altogether unfavourable. They did not wait till all were willing hearers.
Ecclesiastes 11:5. The way of the human spirit from the Creator’s power to the consciousness of life, thought, and feeling, and the manner of its strange union with this material frame, are mysteries of which human knowledge can give no perfect account. We can no more determine the ultimate facts of it than we can distinctly mark the place of the rising and expiring of the viewless wind.
The old mystery of life, which has puzzled the thoughtful in all ages, still returns. God retains the secret as a standing challenge to man.
Throughout all the seeming nature there remains this mysterious, generative, life-giving process in the vegetable, the animal, and especially in the human birth, as a constant symbol of the supernatural presence, or of the old unspent creative force, still having its witness in continually recurring acts, ever testifying to the great Divine secret that baffles science, and to the explanation of which she cannot even make an approach [Dr. T. Lewis, in Lange].
Let us apply ourselves to the duty lying near us, and for the assurance of reward and success be content to know that there is an invisible power, accomplishing in secret and in darkness the will of heaven.
Our spirits might well faint amidst all the discouragements of duty, were we not assured that somewhere there is perfect knowledge and never-failing power. This is the stable centre of the soul.
Ecclesiastes 11:6. We cannot calculate beforehand the success, in special instances, of our labours to do good. The result will, doubtless, show that there has been some waste of power. But this should not discourage us.
We may be tempted to try nothing by the morbid apprehension of failure. The better course is to calculate on some of our attempts failing; and on this account, that we may have the greater probability of succeeding in some, to make them the more numerous; whilst, at the same time, we bring to bear upon every one of them the entire amount of prudence and forethought we possess, that, as far as lieth in us, we may ensure a favourable issue to them all [Wardlaw].
For sowing—for doing well, every time serveth; and who knoweth which shall do best in the acceptance of God, and in the advancing of our blessedness? Be, therefore, diligent and sow continually. It is not in sowing as it is in buying and selling; in those, things are done by weight and by measure; but in sowing? there is a scattering abroad in a free and full manner. Wherefore, when it is said of the righteous man, “He hath dispensed, he hath given to the poor,” Theodoret noteth upon it, “He imitateth those that sow their seed abundantly, scattering it about in hope of filling their hands again” [Jermin].