Ecclesiastes 4:5

The fool foldeth his hands together,.... In order to get more sleep, or as unwilling to work; so the Targum adds, "he folds his hands in summer, and will not labour;'' see Proverbs 6:10.

The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. Still the indolence which 'folds the fool's hands together' is to be reprobated, because such a one ruins himself - "eateth his own flesh" (Isaiah 9:20; Isaiah 49:26).

Foldeth his hands together; is careless and idle, which is the signification of this gesture, 19:24 26:15. Perceiving that diligence is attended with envy, , he, like a fool, runs into the other extreme. Eateth his own flesh; wasteth his substance, and bringeth himself to poverty, whereby his very flesh pineth away for want of bread, and he is reduced to skin and bone; and if he have any flesh left, he is ready to eat it through extremity of hunger.

Ecclesiastes 4:5 The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.Ver. 5. The fool foldeth his hands together.] A graphical and lively description of a sluggard, fitly called a fool (φαυλος), a naughty person. "Thou idle and evil servant." God puts no difference between nequaquam and nequam, a drone and a naughty pack, seem he never so "wise in his own eyes," and have he never so much reason to allege for himself - as in the verse here next following; a fool he is, and so he will soon prove himself; for "he folds up his hands and hides them in his own bosom." A great many chares he is likely to do the while: And as ( Neque mola, neque farina - nothing do, nothing have) "he eateth his own flesh" - he maketh many a hungry meal, he hath a dog’ s life, as we say. "Ease slayeth this fool"; poverty comes upon him as an armed man; grief also slays him; envy consumes his flesh, and he is vexed at the plenty of painful persons, and, because he cannot come at, or rather pull out their hearts, he feeds upon his own.

(5) Eateth his own flesh.—Interpreters have usually taken these words metaphorically, as in Psalms 27:2; Isaiah 49:26; Micah 3:3, and understood them as a condemnation of the sluggard’s conduct as suicidal. But it has been proposed, taking the verse in connection with that which precedes and those which follow, to understand them literally, “eats his meat;” the sense being that, considering the emulation and envy involved in all successful exertion, one is tempted to say that the sluggard does better who eats his meat in quiet. There is, however, no exact parallel to the phrase “eats his flesh;” and I think that if the latter were the meaning intended, it would have been formally introduced in some such way as, “Wherefore I praised the sluggard.” Adopting, then, the ancient interpretation, we understand the course of conduct recommended to be the golden mean between the ruinous sloth of the fool and the vexatious toil of the ambitious man.

Verse 5. The fool foldeth his hands] After all, without labour and industry no man can get any comfort in life; and he who gives way to idleness is the veriest of fools.

5. The fool foldeth his hands together] Simple as the words seem they have received very different interpretations: (1) The fool (the word is the same as in ch. Ecclesiastes 2:14-16, and is that, the prominence of which in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes serve as a connecting link between the two Books), the man without aim or insight, leading a half brutish life, “folds his hands” in the attitude of indolence (Proverbs 6:10; Proverbs 24:33), and yet even he, with his limited desires, attains to the fruition of those desires, “eats his meat” and rejoices more than the wise and far-sighted who finds his dexterous and successful work empty and unsatisfying. (So Ginsburg.) For this sense of the words “eateth his flesh,” we have the usage of Exo 16:8; Exodus 21:28; Isaiah 22:13; Ezekiel 39:17. So taken, this thought coheres with the context, and expresses the sense of contrast between the failure of aspiring activity and skill to attain the happiness they aim at, and the fact that those who do not even work for enjoyment get as full a share of it—perhaps, even a fuller—as those who do. (2) The last clause has been interpreted, as in the A.V., as meaning literally that the slothful man “consumes his own flesh,” i.e. reduces himself literally to the poverty and starvation which culminates in horrors such as this, as in Isaiah 9:20; Jeremiah 19:9, or, figuratively, pines away under the corroding canker of envy and discontent. For the latter meaning, however, we have no authority in the language of the Old Testament, and so taken, the passage becomes only a warning, after the manner of the Proverbs, against the sin of sloth, and as such, is not in harmony with the dominant despondency of this stage of the writer’s experience. The view which sees in Ecclesiastes 4:5, the writer’s condemnation of sloth, and in Ecclesiastes 4:6 the answer of the slothful, seems out of keeping with the context.

Foldeth his hands - The envious man is here exhibited in the attitude of the sluggard (marginal references). Eateth his own flesh - i. e., “Destroys himself:” compare a similar expression in Isaiah 49:26; Psalms 27:2; Micah 3:3.

5. The fool… eateth his own flesh — The activity of the jealous is here contrasted with the quiet of the stupid, to the advantage of the latter: The stupid foldeth his hands, yet hath meat to eat.