Truly the light [is] sweet, and a pleasant [thing it is] for the eyes to behold the sun:
Ver. 7. Truly the light is sweet.] The light of life, of a lightsome life especially. Any life is sweet; which made the Gibeonites make such a hard shift to live, though it were but to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. "I pray thee let me live," live upon any terms, said Benhadad, in his submissive message to that merciful nonsuch. 1Ki 20:32 "If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition," said that καλη και σοφη, that paragon of her time, Queen Esther. Ecc 7:3 a Ebedmelech is promised "his life for a prey"; Jer 39:18 and so is Barak, as a sufficient reward of that good service he had done in reading the roll, for the which he expected some great preferment. Jeremiah 45:5 ; Jer 36:1-2 The prophet chides him, and tells him he might be glad of his life in those dear years of time, when the arrows of death had so oft come whisking by him, and he had so oft straddled over the grave, as it were, and yet was not fallen into it. To maintain our radical humour, that feeds the lamp of life, is as great a miracle, saith one, as the oil in the widow's cruse, that failed her not. To deliver us from so many deaths and dangers as we are daily and hourly subject unto, is a mercy that calls for continual praises to the Preserver of mankind. But more, when men do not only live, but live prosperously, as Nabal did. 1Sa 25:6 "Thus," said David to his messengers, "shall ye say to him that liveth," viz., in prosperity; which such a man as Nabal reckons the only life. The Irish use to ask what such a man meant to die? And some good interpreters are of the opinion, that the Preacher in this verse brings in the carnal churl objecting, or replying for himself against the former persuasions to acts of charity. Ah! saith he; but, for all that, to live at the full; to have a goodly inheritance in a fertile soil, in a wholesome air, near to the river, not far from the town; to be free from all troubles and cares that poverty bringeth; to live in a constant sunshine of prosperity, abundance, honour, and delight; to have all that heart can wish or need require - what a heavenly life is this! what a lovely and desirable condition! &c. "What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days that he may see good?" saith David. Psa 34:12 I do, saith one; and I, saith another; and I, a third, &c., as St Augustine frames the answer. It is that which all worldlings covet, and hold it no policy to part with what they have to the poor for uncertainties in another world. In answer to whom, and for a cooler to their inordinate love of life, the Preacher subjoins -
a Sic de Aspasia Milesia, Cyri concubina. - Aelian, Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 1.