Ecclesiastes 11:8

But if a man live many years,.... Enjoying light and life, and beholding the sun with much delight and pleasure.

But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. But if a man live many years, (and) rejoice in them all.

Live many years; which is a privilege granted but to few persons comparatively. And rejoice in them all; and suppose he enjoy all the comforts, and escape all the embitterments, of human life, all his days; which also is a great rarity. Let him remember, it is his duty and interest seriously to consider, the days of darkness; of death, or of the state of the dead, which is oft expressed by darkness, as , &c., and here is opposed to the foregoing light. They shall be many, i.e. far more than the days of this short life, especially if to the time of lying in the grave be added that greater and utter darkness which is reserved for impenitent sinners, and which is everlasting, 25:30 . And this is added for the caution of mankind, that they may not rejoice excessively in, nor content themselves with, the happiness of the present life, but may seek for something more durable, and more satisfactory. All that cometh; all things which befall any man belonging only to this life, whether they be comfortable or vexatious, they are but vain and inconsiderable, because they are short and transitory.

Ecclesiastes 11:8 But if a man live many years, [and] rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh [is] vanity.Ver. 8. But if a man live many years and rejoice, &c., ] q.d., Say he live pancratice et basilice, and sit many years in the world’ s warm sunshine, yet he must not build upon a perpetuity, as good Job did, but was deceived, when he said, "I shall die in my nest," and holy David, when he concluded, "I shall never be moved." For as sure as the night follows the day, a change will come, a storm will rise, and such a storm as to wicked worldlings will never be blown over. Look for it, therefore, and be wise in time. "Remember the days of darkness," that is, of adversity, but especially of death and the grave. The hottest season hath lightning and thunder. The sea is never so smooth but it may be troubled; the mountain not so firm but it may be shaken with an earthquake. Light will be one day turned into darkness, pleasure into pain, delights into wearisomeness, and the dark days of old age and death far exceed in number the lightsome days of life, which are but a warm gleam, a momentary glance. Let this be seriously pondered, and it will much rebate the edge of our desires after earthly vanities. "Dearly beloved," saith St Peter, "I beseech you, as pilgrims and strangers abstain from fleshy lust," &c., q.d., The sad and sober apprehension of this, that you are here but sojourners for a season, and must away to your long home, will lay your lusts a-bleeding and a-dying at your feet. It is an observation of a commentator upon this text, that when Samuel had anointed Saul to be king, to confirm unto him the truth of the joy, and by it to teach him how to be careful in governing his joy, he gave him this sign, "When thou art departed from me today, thou shalt find two men at Rachel’ s sepulchre." For he that findeth in his mind a remembrance of his grave and sepulchre, will not easily be found exorbitant in his delights and joys; for this it was, belike, that Joseph of Arimathea had his sepulchre ready hewn out in his garden. The Egyptians carried about the table a death’ s head at their feasts; and the emperors of Constantinople, on their coronation day, had a mason appointed to present unto them certain marble stones, using these ensuing words - “ Elige ab his saxis ex quo, invictissime Caesar, Ipse tibi tumulum me fabricare velis. ” “ Choose, mighty sir, under which of these stones, Your pleasure is, erelong, to lay your bones.” Isidor.

(8) Days of darkness.—Psalms 88:12; Psalms 143:3; Job 10:21. (Comp. also Psalms 56:13; Job 33:30.)

Verse 8. If a man live many years] And even have prosperity through the whole; yet the days of darkness-times of affliction, weakness, and perhaps old age, will be many. If he die not a violent death, which no man can wish, he will die a lingering death; and this is ordinarily attended with many pains, and many sorrows; therefore let him prepare to meet his God; and to carry this thought through life, that all must terminate in death. The writer of Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes 7:36, has a good saying, similar to this: "Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember thy END; and thou shalt never do amiss;" ουκαμαρτησεις, thou wilt not sin.

8. But if a man live many years …] Better, For if a man … The relation is one of connexion rather than contrast. In the calm, enjoyable because beneficent, life which the thinker now contemplates as within his reach, the remembrance of the darkness which lies beyond is to be a motive, not for a fretful pessimism, but for a deliberate effort to enjoy rightly. The figure of a corpse which was carried about in the banquets of the Egyptians was intended not to destroy or damp the joy, but to make it more lasting by making it more controlled (Herod. ii. 78). The teaching now is something more than the “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” of the sensualist (Wis 2:1-6; 1 Corinthians 15:32). “Respice finem; Memento mori,” these rules teach us to use life wisely and therefore well. let him remember the days of darkness] These are clearly not the days of sorrow or adversity (though the phrase as such might admit that meaning), but those of the darkness which is contrasted with the light of the sun, with the light of life, the land that lies behind the veil, in the unseen world of Hades or of Sheol, the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. As the Greeks spoke of the dead as οἱπλείονες “the many,” so does the writer speak of the days after death as “many.” The night will be long and dreary, therefore it is well to make the most of the day. The teaching of the whole verse finds, as might be expected, an echo in that of the Epicurean poet, when he greets his friend on the return of spring, but the echo is in a lower key. Nunc decet aut viridi nitidum caput impedire myrtoAut flore, terrζ quem ferunt solutζ,Pallida Mors ζquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernasRegumque turres. O beate Sexti,Vitζ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam,Jam te premet nox, fabulζque ManesEt domus exilis Plutonia.“Now is it meet to crown bright browWith wreaths of fresh green myrtle; now.With flowers that owe their timely birthTo spring’s soft influence o’er the earth.With equal foot the pauper’s cellDeath visits, and where emperors dwell,Wherefore my Sextus, good and dear,Life’s little span forbids us hereTo start, if we indeed are wise,On some far-reaching enterprise:Soon Night and fabled forms of dread,Where Pluto lords it o’er the dead,Shall meet thee in thy narrow bed.”Hor. Od. i. 4. All that cometh is vanity] There is a significance in the new form of the burden of the Debater’s song. The sentence of “vanity,” i.e. of shadowy transitoriness, is passed not only on the years in which he is, in a measure, capable of enjoyment, and on the days of darkness, but even on that which lies beyond them. The unknown future—the undiscovered country—it was, from the point of view from which, for the time, he looked at it, “vanity” to build too much even on that.

8. But if, etc. — Better, Even though a man live many years let him rejoice in them all. This course of activity and kindness should be maintained to the last. In this way the longest life will have the longest sunshine.