CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 11:7. Truly the light is sweet.] Light as the symbol of life. (Psalms 36:9, Job 3:20.)
Ecclesiastes 11:8. Yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many.] Days of misfortune and gloom in this world, and a yet longer season in the dark sojourn of the dead. In the imperfect revelation of the time, the state of the departed was considered as dark and cheerless. All that cometh is vanity.] Everything that happens in the course of the world’s history and in daily life; more especially every man, since men are the prime movers and chief figures in all these things.
Ecclesiastes 11:9. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth.] These words need not be understood as ironical. There is a sober and healthy joy which is consistent with the remembrance of the judgment. And walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes.] There are lawful pleasures both for the heart and eyes; yet in all these things the solemn reckoning of the future must be kept in view.
Ecclesiastes 11:10. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart.] The word signifies “sorrow, dissatisfaction,” not as in the LXX. and Vulgate, “anger.” The command to “rejoice,” in Ecclesiastes 11:9, is here followed by a warning against the opposite state of feeling. Put away evil from thy flesh.] Evil in the sense of misfortune—some evil condition of life.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 11:7-10
THE COUNSELS OF WISDOM TO THE CHILDREN OF PLEASURE
Wisdom commends the rational and sober use of pleasure. But when pleasure is pursued for its own sake, leads to forgetfulness of God, or weakens the power of moral control, it becomes an evil. But even those who are most careful herein have need constantly to keep before them certain solemn truths.
I. To Remember how Empty the Most Favoured Life is of any Solid Good. The wise man is ready to admit all the good that life contains. He does not, in the spirit of a gloomy philosophy, condemn all enjoyment,
1. The consciousness of existence is itself a pleasure. (Ecclesiastes 11:7.) Light speaks to us of all that is glad, joyous, and free; and light is the symbol of life. Existence is an inheritance, and we fondly cling to it, even when bereft of all else. To enjoy the light of the sun and the comfort of the elements is, in itself, pure delight.
2. Some lives may have a large capacity for pleasure. This may be favoured by the length of life. A man may live “many years, and rejoice in them all.” Time is, at least, one dimension of the capacity of life; and if it be extended in other dimensions by the ability to enjoy and improve it, life may be filled with much good. Or, take life in the season of its greatest power of enjoyment. (Ecclesiastes 11:9.) Youth is the time of the greatest vigour, when the sense of enjoyment is keenest. Care has not yet begun to corrode the mind, nor faith in man to lessen, nor hope to lose her charms. The young man may well “rejoice” in his “youth.”
3. A life devoted entirely to pleasure, however favoured, has no solid worth. He who lives to satisfy his appetites, unmindful of the claims of duty and of his solemn reckoning with God, will find at the close of life that he has been grasping a shadow. The pleasing forms die in his embrace, like those of a dream when one awaketh. If a man has anything to dread from the judgment, life, however blessed by outward favours, must be but a sad portion after all. But, taking man at his best estate here, and comparing it with the sublimer destinies awaiting him in future worlds, it will be found that the successive stages of life are vanity. The rosy dawn and the bright morning of life may be beautiful, but they hold their perfection only for a little moment. The day, meanwhile, hastens on to its close, and a night of uncertain duration shuts up the scene. The contemplation of life must produce a despairing sadness, unless a man has the hope of immortality. This hope shifts the centre of the soul from the region where all is unsubstantial and vain, and places it where all is real and abiding. This idea raises and transforms life. Without it, life will be found to be empty of any enduring worth.
II. To Consider the Dread Abode to which They are Hastening. (Ecclesiastes 11:8.) The Old Testament speaks in very gloomy language of that dark house where souls are detained after death. The darkness that rested upon life and immortality could not be cleared away until His coming who was the life and light of men. Yet even the advanced light of the Gospel does not completely relieve the gloom with which this dread subject afflicts and oppresses the human mind. Departed saints have still, in some form, to submit to the long reign of death. Still, “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body,” they groan for perfection and full investiture. With all the superior light and hope of the Gospel, the subject is yet sufficiently solemn. There are views of the state of the dead upon which it is salutary that we should dwell, even while we cherish the brightest hope of reward. This tends to preserve that humility which is proper to our present condition, and to set the pleasures of the world in their true light. The following thoughts arise whenever we contemplate the state of the dead:
1. There is the sense of obscurity and neglect. A man is removed from the eyes of the living, and though his memory is preserved awhile, he is, at length, forgotten. There is an idea of utter neglect. It seems as if the invisible thread of love and memory, which connects the two worlds, becomes at last severed. With all the dear human hopes and feelings that now fill us, we cannot contemplate such a fate without due solemnity.
2. There is the sense of uncertainty. Whenever we think of what is beyond our knowledge, and especially of that in which we ourselves must play an important part, vague fears arise in the mind. With our present experience, we are not able to conceive of the manner in which they live who have put off this vesture of mortality. And this very uncertainty becomes an oppression. This is, indeed, relieved by faith; yet despite of all, it will now and then suggest itself to contemplation.
3. There is the sense of privation. There must be such, as far as this life is concerned. When we have passed the bounds of time and space, the pleasures of this world exist for us no more. We seem half afraid that even there we shall lack many enjoyments. Thus, in certain moods of mind, must we think of that long night which succeeds our mortal day. Though such thoughts should not be the governing ideas of our spiritual life, yet they are valuable for several purposes of discipline. They impart that soberness to the mind, by which we learn to taste the pleasures of life as those who have shortly to enter upon a scene of unknown and untried things. To every one, the wise man says, “let him remember the days of darkness: for they shall be many.”
III. To be Mindful of the Solemn Judgment Awaiting Mankind. (Ecclesiastes 11:9.) This does not refer to any penalties of sin in the present life, though these are Divine Judgments, but rather to that solemn reckoning which God will make with all mankind. The fact of human responsibility makes a future Judgment necessary. Mankind will not be judged in masses, but each one by himself. “God will bring thee into judgment.”
1. The moral worth or worthlessness of each human life will be estimated. The true character of each man will be revealed. The Judgment is spoken of as that which shall make manifest what we really are. (2 Corinthians 5:10.)
2. The judgment will be against all lives in which there has been a non-recognition of God. The youth is reminded that for the joy which is so natural to his season of life, for walking in the ways of his heart and in the sight of his eyes, God will bring him into judgment. This does not necessarily mean condemnation. He who in life’s work or pleasures recognises God, and is governed by spiritual ideas, though he may feel solemn as he thinks of the test to which he shall be brought, has yet nothing to fear. It will be a test discovering what he is, not one which destroys. Like gold which is proved in the fire, the Judgment will, indeed, be a trial for all the righteous, but it will not be destruction. But he who in his pleasures and works has forgotten God, has lived without a due sense of responsibility, and of the awful future, has all to fear from the Holy One, who is determined to put all sin out of His sight. Nothing that is evil can live in the light of His countenance, and all is sad and unprofitable upon which that light does not shine. Human life in all its duties, joys, and sorrows, is sanctified and raised by the continual desire to please God. Without this the whole of life comes under condemnation.
IV. To Allow these Facts Practically to Influence the Conduct. (Ecclesiastes 11:10.) In this section the wise man dwells upon the chief facts of probation and destiny. No stage of life is permanent, but all is fleeting. All are hastening to that long dark night in which no man can work. All alike await the Judgment, even the best and holiest needing to find mercy of the Lord in that day. What course of conduct is the wisest in the face of these solemn truths? How, especially, is the youth, to whom the world offers the strongest temptations, so to order his life, lest he should come into the condemnation of the Judgment?
1. He should remove the causes of inward trouble. “Remove sorrow from thy heart.” Sin, in its many forms, is the cause of all trouble and sorrow. All disorders in the universe arise from this one bitter root. If sin is put away, though a man may have outward trouble, yet the depths of him will be lightened up with the presence of God; and in a rich hope, and an approving conscience, he will have the comfort of an unearthly joy. The youth who follows his desires, without any moral restraint, must sooner or later know sad grief heavy at his heart. Conscience will one day awake and afflict his soul.
2. He should avoid the physical penalties of sin. There are spiritual sins for which the flesh is not chastised. There are carnal sins whose penalties man is made to bear in his body. Some vices injure health, exhaust physical vigour, and bring acute misery. “Put away evil from thy flesh” is the counsel of wisdom to those who are tempted to try dangerous pleasures. A man may well reflect whether he does not pay too high a price for the sinful indulgence of the flesh. These natural chastisements foredate the Last Judgment, and full retribution for all sin. Their lessons should be early learned, lest youth should transmit to age the inheritance of suffering and shame. To put away evil from the heart, and sorrow from the flesh, is to garnish and prepare the soul, that heavenly influences there may take up their abode. The joy of opening life is a hollow vanity, unless a man has learned to cherish those joys which time can never fade.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 11:7: All light is pleasant; ’tis the very smile of nature, the gloss of the world, the varnish of the creation, a bright paraphrase upon bodies. Whether it discover itself in the modesty of a morning blush, and open its fair and virgin eyelids in the dawning of the day; or whether it dart out more vigorous and sprightful beams, shining out in its noonday glory; whether it sport and twinkle in a star; or blaze and glare out in a comet; or frisk and dance in a jewel; or dissemble and play the hypocrite in a glow-worm; or epitomize and abbreviate itself in a spark, and show its zeal in the ruddiness of its complexion in the yolk of the fire; or grow more pale, pining, or consuming away in a candle. However it is pleased to manifest itself, it carries a commanding lustre in its face.… Is it not a pleasant thing to behold a sun? nay, to behold but a candle, a deputed light, a vicarious light—the ape of a sunbeam? [Culverwell.]
Light is the emblem of all that is joyous in life. Sorrow and melancholy seek the shade and the darkness.
It is only the brightest passages, the best moments of life, that can be aptly and truly represented by the light. Sin has disturbed the harmony between the natural and the spiritual worlds.
Ecclesiastes 11:8. If a man’s life is not approved of God, prosperity, however long continued, will end in the darkening of all that is hopeful and bright in life. This is but the prelude of a sadder privation beyond life.
The most favourable instances of the worldly prosperity of godless men do not affect the truth, that all that cometh of such a life is vanity.
In the years of thy life, therefore, remember these days. In thy days of delight, remember these days of trouble, and let the remembrance of them make thee to provide against them by well ordering thy life [Jermin].
As long as life is coming, or to come, its vanity does not appear. On the contrary, there is nothing thought of then but content and satisfaction; nothing but Elysian prospects, dreams of happiness, and landscapes of Paradise. For there is a strange fallacy in Hereafter; and distance, which lessens objects to the eye, magnifies them to the mind. We are big with the hopes of that part of life which is coming on, and live day after day upon the fancy of what to-morrow will produce, like the spectators of a play still in expectation of the next scene; but yet, when to-morrow comes, we find it just like yesterday, vain and without content; and so will every to-morrow be when it comes to be to-day [Norris].
There are days of darkness which will come to the just, in this world; but it is not a darkness which hides God. Rather is it like that of night, which uncovers the celestial globe, and reveals bright glories in the heavens which were never seen by day.
Ecclesiastes 11:9. When the heart is in a right state no joy will harm, provided only it be true joy, and not merely a corrupting mirth. Enjoy it, then, if there is anything pleasant for the sight or hearing provided you sin not against God [Luther].
To walk in the ways of the heart and in the sight of the eyes may be taken in a bad sense, as representing that wilfulness in conduct which does not acknowledge God. But there is a proper use both of the heart and of the eye. God denies no lawful pleasures to that faculty which loves, or to that which appreciates the forms of beauty in the world. The principle by which life is governed is the chief thing. To the pure, all these things are pure.
The stronger the temptations to unlawful pleasures, the stronger should be felt the restraints of religion.
In the enjoyments of pleasure, a man should have the thought ever present with him that he is living under the shadow of the Day of Judgment—a shadow which is deepening fast. This will prevent him from abusing that which was intended for his training and improvement.
To be brought face to face, at last, with God will of itself be terrible distress to all who have not learned in life to find their chief delight in Him.
Ecclesiastes 11:10. There are inward and outward troubles—sources of pain to the body and to the mind. From some of these our goodness cannot deliver us; but from the worst forms of them we can be saved by obedience to the will of God.
That heart which God’s Spirit has renewed and occupies, however oppressed with the troubles of life, can have no essential and crushing sorrow.
He who is saved from sin is saved from the cause of the deepest troubles. He possesses the true life, and therefore enjoys the gladness which it brings. He becomes a partaker of the Divine nature, and is blessed.
Godliness, while it raises and purifies the spirit of man, does also redeem the flesh from many evils. Herein is a prophecy of a more complete redemption for the body. The tree of life in Paradise heals all the ills of man.
Let, therefore, the youthful worldling pause. Let him not suffer his fond hopes, and dazzling visions of the future, to deceive him, “for childhood and youth are vanity.” The promises they make to the thoughtless, carnal mind, are false. The halo which they throw around the world is a deceitful glare. The joyous anticipations in which they indulge are continually liable to disappointment; and every day, every hour, events may arrive that will sweep them utterly away, or bury them in darkness and death [Buchanan].