For he shall not much remember the days of his life. The man who has learned the lesson of calm enjoyment does not much concern himself with the shortness, uncertainty, or possible trouble of life. He carries out the counsel of Christ, "Be not anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:34). Ginsburg gives an entirely opposite rendering to the clause, "He should remember that the days of his life are not many;" i.e. the thought of the shortness of life should urge us to enjoy it while it lasts. But the Authorized Version is supported by the Septuagint and Vulgate and most modern commentators, and seems most appropriate to the context. The marginal rendering, "Though he give not much, yet he remembereth," etc; which Ginsburg calls a literary curiosity, must have been derived from the version of Junius, which gives, "Quod si non multum (supple, est illud quod dederit Deus, ex versu praec.)," etc. Because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. The man passes a calm and contented life, because God shows that he is pleased with him by the tranquil joy shed over his heart. The verb מַעֲנֶה (the hiph. participle of עָנָה) is variously rendered. The Septuagint gives, ὁ θεὸς περισπᾷ αὐτὸν ἐν εὐφροσύνῃ καρδίας αὐτοῦ, "God distracts him in the mirth of his heart;" Vulgate, Eo quod Deus occupet deliciis cot ejus; Ginsburg, "God causeth him to work for the enjoyment of his heart," i.e. God assigns him work that he may thence derive enjoyment; Koster," God makes him sing in the joy of his heart;" Delitzsch, Wright, and Plumptre, "God answers (corresponds with) the joy of his heart," which the latter explains to mean "is felt to approve it as harmonizing, in its calm evenness, with his own blessedness, the tranquility of the wise man mirroring the tranquility of God." But this modified Epicureanism is alien from the teaching of Koheleth. Rather the idea is that God answers him with, imparts to him, joy of heart, makes him sensible of his favorable regard by this inward feeling of satisfaction and content.
HOMILETICS
Vanities in worship.
I. IRREVERENCE. Specially exhibited in entering upon Divine service. Discommended and rebuked as:
1. Inconsistent with the sanctity of the place of worship—the house of God. Wherever men convene to offer homage to the Divine Being, in a magnificent cathedral or in a humble upper room, upon hillsides and moors, or in dens and caves of the earth, there is a dwelling-place of Jehovah no less than in the temple (Solomonic or post-exilic) or in the synagogue, of both which the Preacher probably thought. What lends sanctity to the spot in which worshippers assemble is not its material surroundings, artificial or natural (architectural elegance or cosmical beauty); it is not even the convening there of the worshippers themselves, however exalted their rank or sacred the character of the acts in which they engage. It is the unseen and spiritual, but real and supernatural, presence of God in the midst of his assembled saints (Exodus 20:24; Psalms 46:4-7; Matthew 18:20; Matthew 28:20); and the simple consideration of this fact, much more the realization of that nearness of God to which it points, should awaken in the breast of every one proceeding towards and crossing the threshold of a Christian sanctuary the feeling of awe which inspired Jacob on the heights of Bethel (Genesis 28:17), Ethan the Ezrahite (Psalms 89:7), and Isaiah in the temple. (Isaiah 6:1). The thought of God's immediate neighborhood and of all that it implies, his observance of both the persons of his worshippers (Genesis 16:16), and the secrets of their hearts (Psalms 139:1), should put a hush on every spirit (Habakkuk 2:20; Zechariah 2:13), and dispose each one to "keep his foot," metaphorically, to "put off his shoe," as Moses did at the bush (Exodus 3:5), and Joshua in presence of the Captain of Jehovah's host (Joshua 5:15).
2. Opposed to the true character of Divine worship. When congregations assemble in the house of God to do homage to him whose presence fills the house, this end cannot be attained by offering the sacrifice of fools, i.e. by rendering such service as proceeds from unbelieving, disobedient, and hypocritical hearts (Proverbs 21:27), but only by assuming the attitude of one willing to hear (1 Samuel 3:10; Psalms 85:8) and to obey not man but God (Psalms 40:5). If unaccompanied by a disposition to do God's will, mere external performances are of no value whatever, however imposing their magnificence or costly their production. What God desires in his servants is not the outward offering of sacrifices or celebration of ceremonies, but the inward devotion of the spirit (1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 51:16, Psalms 51:17; Jeremiah 7:21-23; Hosea 6:6). The highest form of worship is not speaking of or giving to God, but hearing and receiving from God.
3. Proceeding from ignorance both of the sanctity of the place and of the spirituality of its worship. However the final clause may be rendered (see Exposition), its sense is that irreverence springs from ignorance—from failing properly to understand the character either of that God they pretend to worship, or of that worship they affect to render. Ignorance of God, of his nature as spiritual, of his character as holy, of his presence as near, of his knowledge as all-observant, of his majesty as awe-inspiring, of his power as irresistible, is the prime root of all wrong worship, as Christ said of the Samaritans (John 4:22), and as Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17:23).
II. FORMALITY. Manifested when engaged in Divine service and more particularly in prayer. Two phases of this evil commented on.
1. Rashness in prayer. (Verse 2.) Hasty utterance of whatever comes uppermost, as if any jangle of words might suffice for devotion—a manner of prayer totally inconsistent with the thought that one is standing in the Divine presence. If a petitioner would hardly venture to lay his requests before an earthly sovereign, how much less should a suppliant draw near to Heaven's throne without calm forethought and deliberation? Moreover, it is inconsistent with the real nature of prayer, which is a making known to God of the soul's needs with thankful acknowledgment of the Divine mercies; and how can one either state his own wants or record God's mercies who has never taken time to investigate the one or count up the other?
2. Prolixity in prayer. Much speaking, endless and unmeaning repetitions—a characteristic of Pharisaic devotions adverted to by Christ (Matthew 6:7), and difficult to harmonize either with a due regard to the majesty of God or with the possession of that inward calm which is a necessary condition of all true prayer. As a dreamer's eloquence, usually turgid and magniloquent, proceeds from an unquiet state of the brain, which during day has been unduly excited by a rush of business or by the worries of waking hours, so the multitude of words emitted by a "fool's 'voice is occasioned by the inward disquiet of a mind and heart that have not attained to rest in God. At the same time, "the admonition, 'let thy words be few,' is not meant to set limits to the fire of devotion, being directed, not against the inwardly devout, but against the superficially religious, who fancy that in the multitude of their words they have an equivalent for the devotion they lack" (Hengstenberg).
III. INSINCERITY. Displayed after leaving Divine service, more especially in the non-fulfillment of vows voluntarily taken while engaged in worship. Against this wickedness the preacher inveighs.
1. Because such conduct cannot be other than displeasing to God. "When thou vowest a vow, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed." As the Almighty himself is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever," "without variableness or shadow of turning," and "changeth not," so he desires in all his worshippers the reflection at least of this perfection, and cannot regard with favor one who plays fast and loose with his promises to men, and far less with his vows to God.
2. Because such conduct is in no sense unavoidable. A worshipper is under no obligation to vow anything to Jehovah. Whatever is done in this direction must proceed from the clearest free-will. Hence, to escape the sin of breaking one's vows, one is at liberty not to vow (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). Hence also should one cautiously guard against the utterance of rash and sinful vows like those of Jephthah ( 11:30) and of Saul (1 Samuel 14:24), lest through fulfilling (no less than through breaking) them one should incur sin. Similarly, "we must not vow that which through the frailty of the flesh we have reason to fear we shall not be able to perform, as those that vow a single life and yet know not how to keep their vow" (Matthew Henry). The same remark applies to taking vows of total abstinence from meats and drinks.
3. Because such conduct cannot escape the just judgment of God. The rashly uttered vow, afterwards left unfulfilled, sets the speaker of it in the place of a sinner, upon whom as guilty God will inflict punishment. Thus through his mouth, his "flesh," or his body, i.e. his whole personality, of which the flesh or body is the outer covering, is caused to suffer. Being just and holy, God can by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7), although he can justify the ungodly (Romans 4:5). Hence the vow-breaker cannot hope to elude the due reward of his infidelity.
4. Because such conduct is practically indefensible. To say before the angel or presiding minister in the temple or synagogue in whose hearing the vow haft been registered that the registration of it had been an error, was, in the judgment of the Preacher, no excuse, but rather an aggravation of the original offence, and a sure means of drawing down upon the offender the anger of God, and of causing God to effectually thwart and utterly destroy the designs his pretended worshipper had, first in making his vows and afterwards in breaking them; and so, when one retreats from protestations and promises made to God, it is no justification of his conduct in the eyes of others who may have listened to or become aware of his votive engagements, to aver that he had made them in error. Nor is it sufficient to excuse one in God's sight to say that one was mistaken in having promised to do so-and-so. Hence, if one vows before God with regard to matters left in his option, it is his duty to fulfill these vows, even should it be to his hurt. But in all respects it is wiser and better not to vow except in such things as are already enjoined upon one by God; and should it be said that no possible need can arise for taking upon one's self by voluntary obligation what already lies upon one by Divine prescription, this will not be denied. Yet one may vow to do what God has commanded in the sense of resolving to do it—always in dependence on promised grace; and with regard to this no better counsel can be offered than that given by Harvey—
"Call to thy God for grace to keep
Thy vows; and if thou break them, weep.
Weep for thy broken vows, and vow again:
Vows made with tears cannot be still in vain."
LESSONS.
1. The condescension of God in accepting human worship.
2. The dignity of man that he can render such worship as God can accept.
3. The spirituality of all sincere worship of God.
4. The displeasure of God against all worship that is merely external.
The picture of an ideal state.
I. THE SOIL WELL CULTIVATED. As the land of a country is its principal source of wealth, where this is left untilled only destitution to the people upon it can ensue. Access to the broad acres of earth, to extract therefrom by means of labor the treasures therein deposited, constitutes an indispensable prerequisite to the material prosperity of any province or empire. Hence the Preacher depicts, or enables us to depict, a state or condition of things in which this is realized—the common people spread abroad upon the soil and engaged in its cultivation; the upper classes or feudal lords deriving their support from the same soil in the shape of rents, and even the king receiving from it in the form of taxes his imperial revenues.
II. THE LAW EQUALLY ADMINISTERED. The opposite of this is the picture sketched by the Preacher, who probably transferred to his pages a spectacle often witnessed in Palestine during the years of Persian domination—"the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province;" the laboring classes despoiled of their scanty savings, and even denied their fair share in the fruits of their own industry, ground down and oppressed by the tyranny and avarice of their social and political superiors, the satraps and other officers who ruled them, and these again preyed on by fiercer harpies above them, and so on, up through each ascending rank of dignitaries, till the last and highest was reached. Reverse the state of matters thus described, and imagine all classes in the community dwelling together in harmony, and conspiring to advance each other's comfort and happiness—the toiling millions cheerfully, honestly, and diligently cultivating the soil, and manufacturing its products into higher forms of wealth and beauty, the upper classes jealously guarding the rights and furthering the welfare of these industrious artisans, and each regarding the other with confidence and esteem—the poet's dream of Utopia, in which "all men's good" should be "each man's rule," would then be realized:
III. THE SOVEREIGN BENEFICENTLY ENTERPRISING. Not in pushing forward his own personal aggrandizement, which in ancient Oriental countries was often done at the expense of his subjects, as by Pharaoh of Egypt (Exodus 1:11) and Solomon of Israel and Judah (1 Kings 12:4), but by devoting his energies to further the material (.and intellectual) advancement of his people. "But the profit of a land every way is a king that maketh himself servant to the field," or "is a king over the cultivated field", or is a king devoted to agriculture (Rosenmüller, Delitzsch, Wright), like Uzziah of Judah, who "loved husbandry" (2 Chronicles 26:10). It is only amplifying this thought to represent the ideal state as one in which the king or emperor consecrates his life and powers to the honorable and laborious task of promoting the material prosperity and temporal happiness of his subjects by removing the yoke from agriculture, fostering trade and commerce, encouraging manufactures and inventions aiding science and art, diffusing education, and stimulating his people upward in every possible way towards the ideal of all free peoples, viz. self-government.
IV. THE DEITY APPROVING. Here again the Preacher's picture must be changed. What he beheld was wholesale oppression and robbery practiced by the upper and powerful classes against the under and powerless classes, or in modern phrase, "the masses; and God over both looking on in calm silence (Psalms 50:21), but by no means unperturbed indifference (Zephaniah 1:12), accurately noting all the wickedness going on beneath the sun (Psalms 33:13-15), and quietly waiting his own time to call it to account (Ecclesiastes 3:15, Ecclesiastes 3:17; Ecclesiastes 11:9; Ecclesiastes 12:14). What must be substituted is a state of matters in which over the well-organized, industrious, peaceful, co-operating community the almighty Disposer of events, the King of nations and King of kings, presides, beaming on them with his gracious smile (Numbers 6:24-26) and establishing the work of their hands upon them (Psalms 90:17).
Learn:
1. The duty of the state to seek the welfare of all.
2. The duty of each to promote the welfare of the state.
Esther 5:8 -17
A sermon on the vanity of riches.
I. FREQUENTLY ACQUIRED BY WRONG. AS, for instance, by oppression and robbery (Esther 5:8). That honest labor sometimes leads to affluence cannot be denied (Proverbs 10:4); more often, however, it is the ungodly who increase in riches (Psalms 73:12), and that, too, by means of their ungodliness (Proverbs 1:19; Proverbs 22:16; Proverbs 28:20; Habakkuk 2:6, Habakkuk 2:9; 1 Timothy 6:9, 1 Timothy 6:10). Hence the question arises whether, if riches cannot be obtained without plunging into all sorts of wickedness, they are worth seeking to obtain at all; whether, if to secure them a man must not only practice dishonesty, theft, oppression, and perhaps worse, but convert his soul into a harbor of divers pernicious lusts, such as avarice, covetousness, and envy, it is really a good bargain to secure them at such a cost. Christ's question, "What shall it profit a man," etc.? (Matthew 16:26) has a bearing on this.
II. ALWAYS INCAPABLE OF YIELDING SATISFACTION. "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase" (Esther 5:10). In addition to the well-known fact that material wealth has no power to impart solid satisfaction to the better instincts of the soul (Luke 12:15)—a fact eloquently commented on by Burns ('Epistle to Davie')—
"It's no in titles nor in rank,
It's no in wealth like Lou'on Bank,
To purchase peace and rest," etc.
—the appetite for wealth grows by what it feeds on. The rich are ever craving for more. "The avaricious man is always wanting," said Horace ('Epist.,' 1.2. 26); while Ovid wrote of rich men, "Both their wealth and a furious lust of wealth increase, and when they possess the most they seek for more." Hence, to use another rendering, "He whose love cleaveth to abundance hath nothing of it" (Delitzsch). "He who hangs his heart on the continual tumult, noise, pomp, of more numerous and greater possessions if possible, to all real profit—i.e; all pleasant, peaceful enjoyment is lost" (ibid.).
III. OFTEN MULTIPLY THEIR OWNER'S CARES.
1. Numerous dependents. Unless he is a miser, "who shuts up his money in chests and only feeds himself in looking at it with closed doors" (Delitzsch), the rich man, like Job (Job 1:3) and Solomon (1 Kings 4:2, etc.), will maintain a large and expensive household, which will eat up his substance, so that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he shall have little more for his portion in the same than the satisfaction of seeing it pass through his hands (verse 11). As Pheraulas the Persian observed to a Sacian youth, who congratulated him on being rich, "Do you think, Sacian, that I live with more pleasure the more I possess? Do you not know that I neither eat nor drink nor sleep with a particle more pleasure now than when I was poor? But by having this abundance I gain merely this, that I have to guard more, to distribute more to others, and to have the trouble of taking care of more; for a great many domestics now demand of me their food, their drink, and their clothes Whosoever, therefore, is greatly pleased with the possession of riches will, be assured, feel annoyed at the expenditure of them" (Xenophon, 'Cyropaedia,' Job 8:3, 39-44).
2. Increased anxieties. The rich man, through the abundance of his riches, is worried with cares, which pursue him into the night, and will not suffer hint to sleep (verse 12), for thinking of how he shall protect his wealth against the midnight prowler, of how he shall increase it by successful trade and profitable investment, of how he shall employ it so as to extract from it the largest quantity of enjoyment; whereas the laboring man, whether he eats little or much, drops into refreshing slumber the moment he lays his head upon his pillow, untroubled by anxious thoughts as to how he shall dispose of his wealth, which consists chiefly in the fewness of his wants. So sang Horace long ago of "gentle sleep," which "scorns not the humble abodes of ploughmen" ('Odes,' Job 3:1.21-23), and Virgil of the tillers of the soil, who "want not slumber sweet beneath the trees" ('Georg.,' 2:469); so wrote Shakespeare of the "honey-heavy dew of slumber" ('Julius Caesar,' act it. sc. 1), describing it as
"Sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast;"
('Macbeth,' act 2. sc. 2.)
representing it as lying rather—
"In smoky cribs
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great:"
('Henry IV.,' Part II; act 3. sc. 1.)
and depicting the shepherd's "wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade" as "far beyond a prince's delicates" ('Henry VI.,' act it. sc. 5).
IV. NOT SELDOM DISAPPOINT THE HOPES THEY HAVE RAISED.
1. The hope of never-failing happiness. The rich man hopes that in future years his wealth will be to him a source of comfort (Luke 12:19). As the years go by he discovers they have only been kept to his hurt (verse 13)—if not physically or mentally, at least morally and spiritually (1 Timothy 6:10, 1 Timothy 6:17); and the fact is often so, whether he discovers it or not.
2. The hope of never knowing waist. The rich man expects that, having safely locked them up in a prudent speculation, he will keep them at least during his lifetime; but alas! the speculation turns out "an evil adventure," and his much-prized riches perish (verse 14).
3. The hope of perpetuating his name. Once more the rich man pleases himself with the prospect of founding a family by leaving his son the fortune he has heaped up by toil, thrift, and profitable speculation. By the time he comes to die he has nothing in his hand to bequeath, and so is forced to bid farewell to his hopes and leave his son a pauper.
V. MUST EVENTUALLY BE LEFT BY ALL.
1. Absolutely. However rich a man may grow in his lifetime, of all he has amassed he must divest himself at the grave's mouth, as Claudio in the prison is reminded by the duke-
"If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bent'st thy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee."
('Measure for Measure,' act 3. se. 1.)
"As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labor, which he may carry away in his hand" (verse 15; cf. Job 1:21); for as "we brought nothing into this world," so it is "certain we can carry nothing out" (1 Timothy 6:7).
2. Without compensation. "What profit," then, the Preacher asks, has the rich man who has labored all his days to amass wealth? The answer is, "Nothing! he has simply labored for the wind." Igor is this the worst. To have had a pleasant time of it before being obliged to part with his wealth would have been a compensation, however slight, to the rich man; but for the most part even this is denied him. In order to amass his riches he has commonly been found to play the part of a miser, "eating in the dark to save candle-light, or working all day and waiting till nightfall before he sits down to a meal" (Plumptre); or, if the words "eating in darkness" be taken metaphorically, while gathering gold he has passed his existence in gloom and sadness, having no light in his heart (Hengstenberg), he has fallen into sore vexation at the failure of many of his plans, become morbidly disposed, "diseased in mind and body," and even waxed wrathful at God, himself, and all the world.
LESSONS.
1. The duty of moderating one's pursuit of earthly fiches.
2. The wisdom of laying up for one's self treasures in heaven.
3. The happiness enjoyed by the poor.