Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these [things] God will bring thee into judgment.
Ver. 9. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth,] i.e., Do if thou darest; like as God said to Balaam, "Rise up and go to Balak" Num 22:20 - that is, go if thou thinkest it good; go since thou wilt need to go; but thou goest upon thy death. Let no man imagine that it ever came into the Preacher's heart here, oleum camino addere, to add fuel to the fire of youthful lusts, to excite young people, unruly enough of themselves, to take their full swing in sinful pleasures. Thus to do might better befit a Protagoras, of whom Plato a reports, that he many times boasted, that whereas he had lived sixty years, forty of those sixty he had spent in corrupting those young men that had been his pupils; or that old dotterel in Terence, that said, Non est mihi, crede, flagitium adolescentem helluari, potare, scortari, fores effringere: I hold it no fault for young men to swagger, drink, drab, revel, &c. Solomon in this text, either by a mimesis brings in the wild younker thus bespeaking himself, Rejoice, my soul, in thy youth, &c., and then nips him on the crown again with that stinging "but" in the end of the verse; or else, which I rather think, by an ironic concession he bids him "rejoice," &c., yields him what he would have, by way of mockage and bitter scoff; like as Elijah jeered the Baalites, bidding them cry aloud unto their drowsy or busy god; or as Micaiah bade Ahab, by a holy scoff, go up against Ramothgilead and prosper; or as our Saviour bade his drowsy desciples, "Sleep on now, and take your rest," Mar 14:41 viz., if you can at least, or have any mind to it, with so many bills and halberds about your ears.
And let thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth.] In diebus electionum tuarum, so Arias Montanus reads it; In the days of thy choosings - that is, when thou followest the choice and the chase of thine own desires, and doest what thou wilt without control. Luk 12:45
Walk in the way of thine heart.] Which bids thee eat, drink, and be merry, and had as lief be knocked on the head as do otherwise. Hence fasting is called an "afflicting of the soul"; and the best find it no less grievous to go about holy duties, than it is to children to be called from their sports, and set to their books.
And in the sight of thine eyes.] Those windows of wickedness, and loop holes of lust.
But know.] Here is that which mars all the mirth, here is a cooler for the younker's courage, sour sauce to his deserts, for fear he should surfeit. Verba haec Solomonis valde ernphatica sunt, saith Lavater. There is a great deal of emphasis in these words of Solomon. Let me tell thee this as a preacher, saith he; and oh that I could get words to gore the very soul with smarting pain, that this doctrine might be written in thy flesh!
That for all these things.] These tricae, as the world accounts them; these trifles and tricks of youth, which Job and David bitterly bewailed as sore businesses.
God will bring thee to judgment.] Either in this life, as he did Absalom and Adonijah, Hophni and Phinehas, Nadab and Abihu, or infallibly at thy death's day, which indeed is thy dooms day; then God will bring thee perforce, be thou never so loath to come to it; he will hail thee to his tribunal, be it never so much against thy heart, and against the hair with thee. And as for the judgment what it shall be, God himself shows it in Isaiah 28:17, "Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." Where, what is the hail, saith one, but the multitude of accusations which shall sweep away the vain hope that men have, that the infinite mercy of God will save them, howsoever they live? And what is the hiding place, but the multitude of excuses which men are ready to make for themselves, and which the waters of God's justice shall quite destroy and overthrow? Young men, of all men, are apt to make a covenant with death, and to put far away from them the thought of judgment. But it moves them not so to do; for Senibus mors in ianuis, adolescentibus in insidiis, saith Bernard. Death doth not always knock at the door, but comes often like a lightning or thunderbolt; it blasteth the green grain, and consumeth the new and strong building. Now at death it will fare nothing better with the wild and wicked youngster, than with that thief, that having stolen a gelding, rideth away bravely mounted, till such time as being overtaken by hue and cry, he is soon afterwards sentenced and put to death.
a Plato in Meneu.