CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 4:5. Eateth his own flesh.] Accomplishes his own ruin by indolence, exhausts his fortune, preys upon himself like one mad with hunger.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Ecclesiastes 4:4-6
THE PENALTIES OF SUCCESS
We have hero the case of a man who has escaped many ills and disasters of life. His work has led to a successful issue. Such a man may be regarded as comparatively happy, yet society fixes certain penalties upon his condition.
I. The successful man is often a mark for the envy of others. (Ecclesiastes 4:4.) The world idolizes success, and gives credit to the man who has achieved it for deep contrivance and many virtues. Yet success has some drawbacks and disadvantages. It often draws upon itself the envy of others. But 1—This envy is unjust. Society should bow cheerfully to the condition by which a man enjoys the fruit of his labour. The success of another should not be a huge object casting a dark shadow upon our own portion. Yet the language of Haman is that of most men (Esther 5:13).
2. This envy brings many evils in its train. The envious man may be tempted to ruin the successful, to attack his reputation, or to depreciate his work. Hence arise various forms of low cunning and deceit. The first murder had its bitter root in envy.
3. This envy is worthless. “This also is vanity,” ending in no good result for those who indulge it—a consuming fire in the breast.
4. This envy is unwise. In the proper ordering of human society, the wise and the good should rule, and come to place and power. Even in the present disorder, it often happens that talent and virtue are rewarded with success. But envy has prevented many a man from occupying his proper place, and thus the progress of society is retarded.
II. The successful man has no unmixed enjoyment. He is above the reach of many evils, and has much to make him happy. Yet his lot is not pure and unmixed joy. He has much to chafe his affections—to worry and distract his mind. “Vexation of spirit” is also his portion. This may arise from the fact—
1. That the skill he has shown meets with such an ungrateful return. He has been remarkable for industry and wisdom, and, it may be, has exerted himself for the public good; yet, for all his pains, he is only made the mark of envy. Ingratitude has often been the sad and vexatious heritage of some of the bravest and best workers.
2. That the evil affections of mankind are so far beyond the reach of remedy. All the efforts and reforms of the wisest can never eliminate the feeling of envy from mankind. Men are ever prone to envy that successful work in which they have taken no part.
III. The work of the successful man is often depreciated by the indolent. The slothful man is described as working his own ruin. (Ecclesiastes 4:5.) He cannot endure to witness the success of men of greater talents and energy than himself. Hence he assumes the features of wisdom, and counsels moderation. (Ecclesiastes 4:6.) Why all this labour for so little result? It is better to manage life with sobriety than to gain success at the expense of proper repose.
1. This counsel is given by men who are the least ready to do any good work themselves. The idle man folds his hands, and calls that work useless which he cannot imitate, either from natural or moral unfitness. He waits for miracles, and expects the end without the means.
2. This counsel possesses an element of wisdom. It is not altogether foolish and vain advice, but has in it some features of truth. It is better to secure a little, and to enjoy it, than to aim at too much; and thus to purchase success by the loss of happiness and quiet. To cultivate contentment, and to cool the fever of ambition, should be the aim of every wise man.
3. This counsel is wrong in its extreme form. Men must have large aims if they would perform great and lasting works. A low and mean ideal cripples the energies of the soul. Every true man must have a purpose wider than himself.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 4:4. Envy is opposed to that expansive charity which rejoices in the success of another. Like love, it is not an intermittent, but a constant passion; thus it frets and consumes the possessor.
The trail of the serpent Envy is traced across every earthly paradise.
“Envied of his neighbour,” nay of his father-in-law; for did not this make Saul to envy David, so that David flying to Achish had rather be under an enemy than under envy; nay, of his brother, when there was but one brother in the world [Jermin].
No man so secure in the peaceful results of his honest labour and skill as to be beyond the reach of the archers of envy.
Even he who gains the applause of men obtains a tribute often impaired by envy.
When a statue had been erected by his fellow-citizens of Thasos to Theagenes, a celebrated victor in the public games of Greece, we are told that it excited so strongly the envious hatred of one of his rivals, that he went to it every night, and endeavoured to throw it down by repeated blows, till at last, unfortunately successful, he was able to move it from its pedestal, and was crushed to death beneath it on its fall. This, if we consider the self-consuming misery of envy, is truly what happens to every envious man. He may perhaps throw down his rival’s glory; but he is crushed in his whole soul beneath the glory which he overturns [Dr. T. Brown].
Ecclesiastes 4:5. Idleness makes a desert of the mind; multiplies the snares of temptation; and ends in self-destruction.
He who does not keep his powers in a state of healthy activity will find that they waste away. This is true of the physical, moral, and spiritual.
The difficulty of accomplishing successful work, and the envy it raises in others, should not cause us to fold our hands in indolence.
The purest pleasures are those which are won by exertion—the sweet rewards of toil. He who folds his hands tastes not the honey of life, but consumes himself with long regrets and imaginary fears.
Ecclesiastes 4:6. We may conceive that, as in the verse before, Solomon showeth his misery in his wasted estate; so here he showeth his misery in a plentiful estate. He who laboureth and getteth but a little, yet by labour hath a quiet mind free from a burdensome tediousness, is to be preferred before him [Jermin].
There is in human life a certain golden mean in which the greatest happiness can be enjoyed.
A competence with quietness is to be preferred to abundance with all its necessary train of anxieties and cares.
This speech can be put into the mouth either of a fool or of a wise man, for it has elements which suit both characters. As uttered by a fool, it springs from envy. It is the affectation of wisdom, used to despise the work of another. But as spoken by a wise man, it is a sober counsel to hit the happy medium between absolute indolence and that restless activity which pushes enjoyment out of life.