Ecclesiastes 5:1

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,.... The house of the sanctuary of the Lord, the temple built by Solomon; and so any place of divine worship, where the word of God is preached, and his ordinances administered.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

CHAPTER 5 Vanities in divine matters, . In murmuring and repining, . In riches and covetousness. ,10; for riches rob men of ease, ,12, procure their death, , fly away, , cannot be carried with them into the grave, . A contented life best: this is the gift of God, . The seven first verses of this chapter are inserted partly as the only effectual remedy against all the foregoing vanities, and partly as a caution to take heed of bringing vanity into the service of God, or of worshipping God vainly and foolishly. Keep thy foot; the feet of thy soul, which are the thoughts and affections, by which men go to God, and walk or converse with him. Make straight steps. See that your hearts be purged from sin, and prepared and furnished with all graces or necessary qualifications, as good intention, reverence, humility, &c. It is a metaphor from one that walketh in a very slippery path, in which there needs more than ordinary care to keep him from falling. The house of God; the place of God’ s solemn and public worship, whether the temple or synagogue. Be more ready, Heb. more near, more forward and inclinable. Prefer this duty before the following. To hear; to hearken to and obey God’ s word, there read and preached by the priests or prophets; for hearing is very frequently put in Scripture for obeying. The sacrifice of fools; such as foolish and wicked men use to offer, who vainly think to please God with the multitude and costliness of their sacrifices without true piety or obedience. They consider not that they do evil; they are not sensible of the great sinfulness of such thoughts and practices, but, like fools, think they do God good service; which is implied, as is usual in such expressions.

Ecclesiastes 5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.Ver. 1. Keep thy foot,] q.d., Wouldst thou see more of the world’ s vanity than hitherto hath been discoursed? get thee "to the sanctuary," as David did. For as they that walk in a mist see it not so well as those that stand on a hill; so they that have their hands elbow deep in the world cannot so easily discern what they do as those that go a little out from it. To the house of God therefore, to the temple and synagogues, to the churches and oratories steer thy course, take thy way. Only "see to thy feet," i.e., keep thy senses and affections with all manner of custody, from the mire of wicked and worldly matters. Shoes we have all upon our feet - that is, to speak in St James’ s phrase, "filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness" in our hearts, that must be put off at God’ s school door, as God taught Moses and Joshua. And Pythagoras, having read Moses belike, taught his scholars as much, when he saith, ανυποδητοςθυεκαιπροσκυνει, Put off thy shoes when thou sacrificest and worshippest. His followers, the Pythagoreans, expounded his meaning, when they would not have men ενπαροδωπροσκυνειν, but οικοθενπαρασκευασαμενοι, worship God carelessly or by the way, but prepare themselves at home aforehand. And Numa Pompilius, one that had tasted of his learning, would not have men worship the gods ενπαρεργωκαιαμελως, by the by, and for fashion, but χοληναγονταςαποτωναλλων, at good leisure, and as making religion their business. In the law of Moses, the priests were commanded to wash the inwards and the feet of the sacrifice in water. And this was done, πανυσυμβολικως, saith Philo, not without a mystery - sc., to teach us to keep our feet clean when we draw nigh to God. Antonius Margarita, in his book of the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, tells us that before their synagogues they have an iron plate, against which they wipe and make clean their shoes before they enter; and that being entered, they sit solemnly there for a season, not once opening their mouths, but considering who it is with whom they have to do. Thus it was wont to be with them; but alate though they come to their synagogues with washen hands and feet, yet for any show of devotion or elevation of spirit, they are as reverent, saith one that was an eyewitness, as grammar boys are at school when their master is absent: their holiness is the mere outward work itself, being a brainless head and a soulless body. And yet upon the walls of their synagogues they write usually this sentence, by an abbreviature, "Tephillan belo cauvannah ceguph belo neshamah," i.e., A prayer without effection, is like a body without a soul.

V. (1) In the Hebrew division this is the last verse of the preceding chapter; but clearly here a new section begins, containing proverbs in the second person singular, which has not hitherto been used. There is no obvious connection with what has gone before; possibly the precepts here introduced were traditionally known to have been part of Solomon’s teaching. They consider not.—The most natural translation of this clause would be, “They know not how to do evil,” i.e., are incapable of doing evil. This would force us to understand the subject of the clause to be, not the fools, but those who are ready to hear. The Authorised Version exhibits one of the expedients resorted to in order to get a better meaning. Another is, “They are without knowledge, so that they do evil.”

CHAPTER V The reverence to be observed in attending Divine worship, 1-3. We should be faithfu1 to over engagements, 4-7. The oppression of the innocent, 8. The king dependent on the produce of the soil, 9. Against covetousness, 10, 11. The peace of the honest labourer, 12. The evil effect of riches, 13, 14. Man cannot carry his property to the grave, 15-17. We should thankfully enjoy the blessings of God, 18-20. NOTES ON CHAP. V Verse 1. Keep thy foot] This verse the Hebrew and all the versions join to the preceding chapter. Solomon, having before intimated, though very briefly, that the only cure against human vanity is a due sense of religion, now enters more largely on this important subject, and gives some excellent directions with regard to the right performance of Divine service, the nature of vocal and mental prayer, the danger of rash vows, c. - C. The whole verse might be more literally translated thus: - "Guard thy steps as thou art going to the house of God and approach to hearken, and not to give the sacrifice of fools, for none of them have knowledge about doing evil." "They offer gifts for their sins, and do not turn from their evil works; for they know not (they distinguish not) between good and evil." See the Chaldee.

1. Keep thy foot] In the Heb., LXX. and Vulg. this verse forms the conclusion to chap. 4. The English version is obviously right, however, in its division of the chapter. The moralist reviews a new region of experience. “Vanity” has been found in all that belongs to the outward secular life of men. Is their higher life, that which we call their religion, free from it? Must not the Debater, from his standpoint, rebuke the follies and sins even of the godly? Here, as might be expected, we have an intermingling of two elements of thought, the traditional teaching which the thinker has learnt from psalmist and prophet, and the maxims which have come to him from his Greek, probably from his Epicurean, teachers. Both, it will be seen, find echoes in the precepts that follow. The precepts are suggestive as shewing the kind of religion which the Debater had seen in Palestine, the germs of the formalism and casuistry which afterwards developed into Pharisaism. To “keep the foot” was to walk in the right way, the way of reverence and obedience (Psalms 119:32; Psalms 119:101). The outward act of putting the shoes off the feet on entering the Temple (Exodus 3:5; Joshua 5:15), from the earliest times to the present, the custom of the East, was the outward symbol of such a reverential awe. We note, as characteristic, the substitution of the “house of God” for the more familiar “house of the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:20; Isaiah 33:1, and elsewhere). Possibly the term may be used, as in Psalms 74:8; Psalms 83:12, to include synagogues as well as the Temple. The precept implies that he who gives it had seen the need of it. Men went to the place where they worshipped with little thought that it was indeed a Beth-el, or “house of God.” and be more ready to hear] The words have been differently interpreted: (1) “And to draw near to hear is better than to offer the sacrifice …;” and (2) “To hear (= obey) is nearer (i.e. is the truer way for thy foot to take) than to offer the sacrifice …” The general spirit of the maxim or precept is identical with that of 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 40:6-8; Psalms 50:8-14; Psalms 51:16-17. The “sacrifice of fools” as in Proverbs 21:27 is that offered by the ungodly, and therefore an abomination. for they consider not that they do evil] The A.V. is perhaps sufficiently expressive of the meaning, but the following various renderings have been suggested: (1) “they know not, so that they do evil,” i.e. their ignorance leads them to sin; (2) “they (those who obey, hear) know not to do evil,” i.e. their obedience keeps them from it. Of these (1) seems preferable. Protests against a superstition that was not godliness, the δεισιδαιμονία of the Greeks (Acts 17:22), were, it need scarcely be said, part of the current teaching of Epicurus and his followers.

Keep thy foot - i. e., Give thy mind to what thou art going to do.

1. Keep thy foot — Behaviour is in the Bible frequently presented under the figure of walking and running. Keeping the feet implies caution in deportment, as opposed to a bold recklessness.