Ecclesiastes 6:3 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

Beget an hundred (i:e., very many) children (thus not having a "stranger" as his heir, Ecclesiastes 6:2),

And live many years, so that the days of his years be many (the phrase hints that at best man's years are but days, short and soon gone, Genesis 47:9),

And (yet) his soul be not filled with good ... (2 Kings 9:26; 2 Kings 9:35);

... untimely birth (an embryo) (is) better than he - for, though it enjoys no good, it suffers no evil (Ecclesiastes 6:4-5). In the East, to be without burial is the greatest degradation. 'Better the fruit that drops from the tree before it is ripe, than that left to hang on until rotten' (Henry).

Ecclesiastes 6:3

3 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.