CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 7:27. Counting one by one, to find out the account] Collecting the results of many observations—thus forming an opinion carefully and slowly.
Ecclesiastes 7:29. Many inventions] Refers not so much to the devices of wickedness, but rather to evil arts, perverse thinkings, foolish and adventurous speculations.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 7:23-29
THE CONFESSIONS OF A RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHER
The Royal Preacher, approaching religion from its speculative or philosophic side, has some sad confessions to make.
I. That the Search for Wisdom is Difficult. (Ecclesiastes 7:23-24.) His search is represented as most complete, marked by earnestness, the Royal thinker urging himself to it by a strong effort of the will. “I said I will be wise.” The plan of procedure was most complete and exhaustive. It was no surface inspection—no mercenary work. He “applied” his “heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom.” He tried to discover what lay behind all appearances, “the reason of things”—that deep insight which would reveal to him perfect order and harmony. In his speculations, he used variety of method, approaching the subject from different sides. Virtues were contemplated in their opposites. With a painful revulsion of feeling, knowledge was obtained from the morbid anatomy of sin. “Wickedness” and “folly,” “foolishness” and “madness,” are not inviting subjects, but they are facts of human life, and must be investigated by all who would speculate upon the state of man. Here is a search after wisdom most energetic and complete. Whence does the difficulty arise? In general, it arises from the vast dimensions of the subject of investigation. But these dimensions are here contemplated in two directions.
1. In their surface. The knowledge of man—his duty and destiny, and of the mysteries of religion—forms a subject extending far beyond our mental sight. We see and explore our narrow circle all around, but it is bounded by darkness, clouds, and shadows. If we adventure far, and the scene opens out before us, yet it closes behind us! We cannot chase the darkness away. The surface which we are permitted to explore is painfully limited. Like the end of the rainbow, where fancy has placed a golden cup, the prize of absolute wisdom is unattainable by man. The most successful explorer must make the confession, “It was far from me.”
2. In their depth. “Exceeding deep, who can find it out?” Even that which is before our eyes, when we attempt to fathom it, proves too deep to be sounded by our plummet. Great secrets lie there hidden from mortal sight. Even the commonest objects are mysterious, and lie on dark foundations, quite inaccessible by us; and therefore how remote from our reach must be the ultimate mystery of God and man!
II. That the Results of the Search are Humiliating. They are but poor, scanty, and unsatisfactory. And this,
1. In a speculative view. The gains of our search after wisdom, regarded as an intellectual effort, are but small. We meet with some success, and obtain considerable insight into man’s life and destiny. But the goal of absolute wisdom is as far off as ever. We can only express the little that we know in broken accents. Cur different movements of thought come into frequent collision. Partial wisdom—mere fragments of knowledge—are all that we have—crumbs from the table.
2. In a practical view. In this direction, our search after wisdom is more plentiful in results. We gather more facts and principles. But how sad and humiliating are these! We have been investigating evil, disorder, the force and terrible complications of temptation—all the melancholy facts of human nature under the influence of violent passions and unworthy motives. We have here a recital of some of these sad facts.
(1) That there are some special dangers to virtue. (Ecclesiastes 7:26.) There are temptations in life which have elements of special danger. They deceive by treacherous arts, and the unsuspecting sinner, at first pleased with the siren song, delays, yields to the enchantment, and is lured to his destruction. That book of practical and prudential wisdom, the Proverbs of Solomon, is full of warnings against the seductive arts of women. Their lascivious looks and foul embrace are here described as “snares,” “nets,” and “bands.” An easy virtue is soon entrapped and overwhelmed. The Serpent first approached man through his weak side, and she who was first deceived more easily deceives others (1 Timothy 2:14). This portion of humanity, when loosened from the restraints of social morality and religion, presents the most pitiable forms of degradation, and one of the chief dangers to virtue. Special help from God is needed to escape these dangers. “Whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her.”
(2) That the highest moral excellence is rare. (Ecclesiastes 7:28.) The Royal Preacher professes an extensive knowledge of human nature. He is satisfied with no hasty glance, obeys not the impulse of first impressions, but acquires his knowledge by slow and painful steps. He searches out his facts “one by one,” summing them up with a cool and severe judgment. (Ecclesiastes 7:27.) As a standard of comparison, he takes man as he came pure from the hands of his Maker, before his glory had fallen—God’s idea of humanity. He confesses that no one reaches this absolute standard of sinless purity and perfection. Among men, he had found “one of a thousand,” in some sense, worthy of the name—one who approached the Divine idea within some computable distance. But among women, he had not found one worthy of the name, in the primeval ideal. “That he never found such a one, consequently that he considered the whole female sex as vicious, and highly corrupt, cannot possibly be his opinion, as appears from Ecclesiastes 7:29, as also in Chap. Ecclesiastes 9:9. But that moral excellence, taken as a whole, is much more rarely found than among men, that sin reigns more uncontrolled among the former than the latter, and in the forms of moral weakness and proneness to temptation, as well as in the inclination to seduce, to deceive, and ensnare—such is clearly the sense of this passage” [Lange].
3. That man must sigh in vain for a lost Paradise. (Ecclesiastes 7:29.) That perfect uprightness, that moral integrity of man in his primeval state, is but a splendid fact of the past, a sad remembrance of what once was, but is now no longer. There will, indeed, be a restored Paradise for man, but it will not be the same as that which was lost. Fallen man may attain a better estate than that which he forfeited, yet his final honours and distinctions will be those of one whose fortunes have been repaired, and not of one who has preserved his inheritance as he received it from the beginning. The dispensation of mercy itself cannot obliterate the sad facts of sin. Surrounded and penetrated by evils, our spirit can only sigh for the past, “God hath made man upright.”
4. That man makes the evils which trouble him. “They have sought out many inventions.” The sad moral calamity of our race has not destroyed human activity. The powers of our nature still exert themselves with restless effort, but they have taken a wrong direction. They are fruitful in those “inventions” which, though marked by fertility of device and skill, are yet hurtful, and are but great powers altogether misused. The Religious Philosopher does not dwell here upon external actions, but goes rather to their spring in the perverse thinkings of the mind. The devices of natural reason—useless or impious speculations—have often corrupted and confused the truth. Instead of receiving Divine wisdom with the simple instinct and faith of childhood, man follows his own dazzling speculations, and the higher knowledge is hidden from him. (Matthew 11:25.) These perverse thinkings are the seed from which the evil of the world springs, for sin works from within outwardly, from thought to act. The assumed superiority in moral strength and excellence, which man may have over the woman, is but a short-lived and unseemly boast in the presence of that sinfulness which belongs to all the race.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 7:23. The true teacher must be a constant learner. He can only impart what he has gained by trial and exercise.
Though the effort is beset with tremendous difficulties, yet the resolve to be wise, at all hazards, is noble and praiseworthy.
Our study of the mysteries of God, man, and nature, is not altogether barren of results. We are able to “know in part.” We gather a few facts, and by a kind of prophetic insight, frame those portable and convenient statements of them called hypotheses and laws. But even the wisest must confess that the ultimate mystery is as far off as ever.
There are some fixed stars whose distance is so great, that when observed from the extremes of the diameter of the earth’s orbit, they show no change of direction; thus affording no data for the calculation of their distances. If we could get nearer to them, then we should discover how far off they are. He who has approached the nearest to the great secrets of God and this universe, is most of all conscious how distant he is from absolute wisdom.
The goal of intellectual wisdom lies so far off that the hope of attaining it can impart no solid satisfaction. But there is a Divine word which is ever nigh unto man; yea, in his heart, and ready to break forth from his mouth. We need not seek for it in the height of heaven or in the abyss (Romans 10:6-8).
He had said, indeed, “I will be wise.” He had set his heart on understanding all mysteries and all knowledge. In that vain confidence to which at one time he had given way, he had imagined himself to be equal to the task of unlocking every secret, whether of nature or of Providence, and of leaving no difficulty unexplained. Time and the trial had undeceived him, and had taught him to form a humbler and juster estimate of the powers that are given to man.… The dark problems which he had thought to solve remained, many of them as far from solution as ever. Such was the experience of Solomon, and such will, and must, be the experience of every finite mind [Buchanan].
Ecclesiastes 7:24. Neither the wide range of subjects with which the intellect can grapple, nor its power of penetrating their depths, can put us into the possession of those secret things which God has reserved for Himself.
The infinite superiority of God renders it necessary that many things be concealed from man. Such mystery and reserve are the life of adoration.
Though Revelation is clear on all matters of practical duty, yet it presents truths whose mysterious depths it does not illumine. Such are the eternity and immensity of God—the mystery of creation—the existence of evil under a holy and righteous government—the dealings of God with men in Providence and in grace.
We can have no true happiness if we wait for perfect satisfaction of the intellect. We can only comprehend God through love. Neither height nor depth can vanquish or distress him who has the love of God in his heart (Romans 8:39).
Wisdom is so far off that it is not known from whence it cometh, nor where the place of it is (Job 28:20). It is so deep that the depth saith it is not in me, and the sea saith it is not with me. It is so far, that the weakness of man’s understanding is over-wearied before it can come unto it; so exceeding deep that the eyes of man’s understanding is dazzled to look into it, and man’s wit is endangered by venturing into it. It is deep and deep, as the original expresses it—deep to men, deep to angels [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 7:25. Wisdom does not yield her treasures to the indolent, but only to minds accustomed to earnest and patient toil.
Truth is so often mixed with error, so completely confused and disguised by that which has gathered around it, that it is only traced out with difficulty and cleared from the entanglement.
We must not be satisfied with the simple observation of facts; we should try to discover their causes, or the principles they illustrate. It is the glory of the human intellect that it can contemplate laws, and does not depend upon the limited information gained from passive impressions.
However painful the task may be, the great teachers of mankind must investigate the causes of the chief dangers to virtue.
There are some forms of human evil so bold, full of wild passion, and irrational, that they stand out like mountains on the scene of the world’s guilt.
That which is truly good is more clearly seen when we consider the evil that is contrary to it. The beauty of holiness, and excellency of saving knowledge, is illustrated, and best seen, when the deformity of sin, the madness and unreasonableness of those courses which natural men take to come at their imaginary happiness, are compared therewith [Nisbet].
Ecclesiastes 7:26. To know the wickedness of folly, the wickedness and foolishness of madness, seems equivalent to knowing the worst species of it.… In his own wild career he had come in contact with folly, and he had himself wrought folly of many sorts. And now, comparing all these one with another, so as to ascertain to which of them the pre-eminence of evil should be assigned, this was the conclusion at which he had arrived. These terribly significant words point plainly to the same seducer of whose base and destructive arts so startling a picture is given in Chap. 7 of the Book of Proverbs [Buchanan].
How strong the expression—“whose heart is snares and nets!” signifying the multitude of her devices of temptation, and the consummate skill, the secrecy, the address, the guile, with which she uses them for the accomplishment of her purposes. Her very “heart is snares and nets,” in whose intricate and entangling meshes the fascinated and deluded soul is taken captive to its destruction. “And her hands as bands.” Her powers of detention are equal to her powers of allurement. Her heart is a net, to entangle the unwary; her hands as bands, to hold him fast when her wiles have proved successful. So irresistible is the power, operating like the spell of enchantment, by which she retains under her influence the hapless victim of her charms [Wardlaw].
The most pleasant fountains of sin turn, in the end, into the bitterness of long regret.
Education and culture—the restraints of human prudence, may do much to preserve the maintenance of the highest virtue, in the face of the most insidious allurements. But religion furnishes the highest motives, the most powerful restraints. The noble ambition to stand well in the sight of God is the only trustworthy sentinel of virtue.
By “the sinner” is meant one who is thoroughly vicious—with whom the practice of evil is habitual. With such the power to resist temptation grows less, and they become an easy prey to every pleasurable sin.
Ecclesiastes 7:27. Sin cannot be treated by vague generalities, the forms of it are so many and diversified. We must descend to particulars in order to make a deep impression.
Even the most patent facts should not be treated as known upon a mere surface inspection. The real knowledge of them can only be gained by minute investigation.
Knowledge comes not to man by sudden irradiations, but by slow degrees—by adding, arranging, and reflecting.
Ecclesiastes 7:28. Much is gained by the diligent seeker after wisdom—many facts, principles, lessons, and warnings; but the full possession of wisdom is not permitted to man.
Men of the highest qualities of mind and soul, powerful in word and influence, are but rarely found. There are but few stars of the first magnitude.
The strong expression of a truth brought home to the soul by sore experience, may easily wear the appearance of harshness and exaggeration.
The Preacher may refer to woman in regard to her attainments in Divine wisdom. The superior delicacy of her natural sensibilities often give her the advantage of an immediate and vivid perception of truth, to which man attains chiefly by the slow and laboured processes of the mind. Yet this power, when directed into wrong channels, shows a faculty just as strong in embracing error and superstition. It must be confessed that the natural weakness of woman has contributed, in no small measure, to the spread of these evils. They have too often been the natural home of frivolities both in life and religion. Though the Bible records the praise of many noble women, yet the fact remains that an inspired Apostle thought it necessary to warn the Church against dangers arising from this source (1 Timothy 2:12. 1 Corinthians 14:34). They are the easy dupes of false teachers (2 Timothy 3:6).
Never, perhaps, has there been any period in the history of the visible Church of God, and certainly never in these more modern times, concerning which we are best informed, in which the majority of those who lived in the fear and love of God were not women. Solomon is here evidently speaking, and that as a humbled penitent, of his own particular case. He had loved “many strange women,” outdoing, in this respect, the laxity and the luxury of the heathen monarchs around him.… Is it any wonder that in such a household, even among the thousand he had gathered into it, one solitary example of real goodness could not be found? Among his male attendants and courtiers, gay and dissolute as the society of the palace had become, one might now and then be met with who had not forgotten the piety and integrity of other and better days [Buchanan].
Ecclesiastes 7:29. The present evils of man are not to be charged upon his Maker.
However rude and vague the commencement the Creator may have given to inanimate matter, as the God of souls He must needs produce His own image in fit perfection.
“Upright,”
1. As to his mind. It was a plain mirror wherein the images of truth were reflected without distortion. The knowledge he possessed was, in its kind, perfect and pure, unmixed with baser matter.
2. As to his affections. They were fixed on God. He was pleased and attracted only by what was noble and good.
3. As to his conscience. As an indicator, it was in a condition of perfect adjustment and delicacy. As an instrument of moral control, it had both the right and the power to rule.
4. As to his will. It had no perversity, no element of rebellion; but was easily determined to that which was right and good.
The hurtful inventions—the evil arts and devices of the human intellect, are marked by endless complexity, variety, and skill. This is power ill-directed and misapplied; but still a power, great in its perversion and ruin.
The first Paradise will never return; for the past never returns to us, bringing the same features as those long since vanished. But by that Divine mercy which triumphs over all difficulties, and through them educes a greater good, there will be for man a better Paradise than the first.
We read that in the future Paradise there will be a “tree of life,” but no “tree of knowledge.” “The glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” The mind will then allow God’s light to shine upon it instead of working out its own devices.
The actual existence of moral evil is too notorious to admit of a moment’s question. The Bible account of its origin did not cause it; it existed independently of the revelation which informs us how it began; and the rejection of that revelation neither removes nor mitigates it, nor disencumbers it, in the slightest degree, of its embarrassing difficulties. On the contrary, revelation alone, whilst it assumes and proceeds upon the mournful fact, provides a remedy; all other systems, finding human nature in ruins, leave it as they find it. Revelation rears out of the ruins a magnificent and holy Temple to the God of purity and love [Wardlaw].