There is one [alone], and [there is] not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet [is there] no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither [saith he], For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This [is] also vanity, yea, it [is] a sore travail.
Ver. 8. There is one alone, and there is not a second.] A matchless miser, a fellow that hardly hath a fellow; a solivagant, or solitary vagrant, that dare not marry for fear of a numerous offspring. Child he hath none to succeed him, nor brother to share with him, and yet "there is no end of all his labour"; he takes incessant pains and works like a horse, "neither is his eye satisfied with riches"; that lust of the eye - as St John calls covetousness 1Jn 2:16 - is as a bottomless gulf, as an unquenchable fire, as leviathan that wanteth room in the main ocean, or as behemoth, that "trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth." Job 40:23
Neither saith he, For whom do I labour and bereave my soul of good?] Si haec duo tecum verba reputasses, Quid ago? respirasset cupiditas et avaritia paululum, saith Cicero to Nevius. a If thou wouldst but take up those two words, and say to thyself, What do I? thy lust and covetousness would be somewhat rebated thereby. But lust is inconsiderate and headlong; neither is anything more irrational than irreligion. The rich glutton bethought himself of his store, and resolved to take part of it, Luk 12:17 so did Nabal; but this wretch here hath not a second, he "plants a vineyard and eats not of the fruit thereof." 1Co 9:7
And bereave my soul of good,] i.e., Deprive myself of necessary conveniences and comforts, and defraud my genius of that which God hath given me richly to enjoy; 1Ti 6:17 or, bereave my soul of good, of God, of grace, of heaven, never thinking of eternity, of "laying up for myself a good foundation," that I may "lay hold upon eternal life"; 1Ti 6:19 but by low ends, even in religious duties, making earth my throne and heaven my footstool. "This is vanity" in the abstract; "this is a sore travail," because, Nulla emolumenta laborum, No good to be gotten by it - no pay for a man's pains; but, as the bird that sitteth on the serpent's eggs, by breaking and hatching them brings forth a perilous brood, to her own destruction, so do those that sit abrood on the world's vanities.
a Orat. pro Quinti