Fear God
5
📚Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, and draw near to listen rather than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. 2 📚Do not be rash with your mouth, and do not let your heart be hasty to speak anything in God’s presence; for God is in heaven, and you on earth, so let your words be few.
3 📚For a dream comes through the abundance of business, and a fool’s voice is known through the abundance of words.
4 📚When you make a vow to God, do not be slow in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed.
5 📚It is better for you not to vow than that you vow and not pay.
6 📚Do not let your mouth cause your body to sin, nor say before the temple messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your words, and destroy the work of your hands?
7 📚For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also emptiness; but you must fear God.
5:1-7 Solomon now turns to the matter of religion. It is the one thing he does not think is vain, the thing that men should have above everything (note on Eccl 3:14). But he sees very little of it that seems real to him. Most people dream of prosperity and success and are willing to make even foolish vows, and speak many empty words to God. In other words, what passes for religion with most people is a vain, empty, worthless thing. See notes at Ps 50:7-21; Isa 1:11-17. Compare Matt 15:8-9; 23:2-32.⚜
The emptiness of riches
8 📚If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violation of judgment and justice in a province, do not be surprised at the matter; for one official has a higher one watching over him; and there are higher ones than they.
9 📚Moreover the produce of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the fields.
10 📚He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves wealth with his income. This also is emptiness.
11 📚When goods increase, those who eat them increase; and what benefit is there to their owners, except to fix his eyes on them?
12 📚The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the wealth of the rich will not allow him to sleep.
5:10-12 Instead of bringing satisfaction, more and more wealth produces more and more worry. These words were written, not by a poor man who envied the rich, but by one of the richest persons whoever lived.⚜
13 📚There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches being hoarded by their owners to their hurt.
14 📚But those riches are lost through a bad venture, and when he becomes the father of a son there is nothing in his hand.
15 📚As he came naked out of his mother’s womb, so he will depart as he came, and take nothing from his labour which he can carry away in his hand.
16 📚And this also is a grievous evil, that he will go just as he came; and what profit does he have who has laboured for the wind?
5:13-16 Riches are not lasting even in this world, and nothing can be taken out of the world when a man dies (Eccl 2:18-23. The only riches we can keep forever are those we give away. See Matt 6:19-20; Luke 12:33; 18:22). Selfishness will end in self-destruction and the loss of everything the selfish man pursues for himself.⚜
17 📚Also all his days he eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and wrath and sickness.
5:8-17 Society is full of corruption and self-seeking. Men struggle for wealth which is meaningless. In v 8 Solomon tells us not to be surprised at what happens. He has learned that corruption in society comes from greed and injustice in men’s hearts. Corrupt human beings cannot produce satisfactory societies (Eccl 7:20; 9:3).⚜
5:17 This is the result of a life lived for the things of this world. God has made us for Himself, not for anything less. If we live for those lesser things our lives will end in misery.⚜
18 📚See what I have seen: it is good and proper for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for this is his lot.
19 📚Also concerning every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to partake of it, and to accept his lot and to rejoice in his labour, this is the gift of God.
20 📚For he will not reflect much on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness in his heart.
5:18-20 Solomon returns to the thoughts expressed in Eccl 2:24-26 and Eccl 3:12-14. If there is any happiness for man on earth it is the gift of God.⚜