Ecclesiastes 7:13

Consider the work of God,.... This is dressed to those who thought the former days better than the present, and were ready to quarrel with the providence of God, Ecclesiastes 7:10; and are therefore

Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? Consider the work of God - consider that it is impossible to alter His dispensations. For who can make (that) straight?

The work of God; not of creation, but of providence; his wise, and just, and powerful government of all events in the world, which is proposed as the last and best remedy against all murmurings and sinful disquietments of mind, under the sense of the great and many disorders which happen in the world, as is implied, , against which wisdom is prescribed as one remedy, ,12, and now here is another. Who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? no man can withstand, or correct, or alter any of God’ s works; and therefore all self-tormenting frettings and discontents at the injuries of men, or calamities of times, are not only sinful, but also vain and fruitless. This reason implies that there is a hand or work of God in all men’ s actions, either effecting them if they be good, or permitting them if they be bad, and ordering and overruling them, whether they be good or bad. And God is here said to make things crooked, as he is said to make the hearts of sinners fat or hard, , and elsewhere, not positively, but privatively, because he denies or withdraws from men that wisdom or grace which should make them straight.

Ecclesiastes 7:13 Consider the work of God: for who can make [that] straight, which he hath made crooked?Ver 13. Consider the work of God, &c.] q.d., Stoop, since there is no standing out. See God in that thou sufferest, and submit. God by a crooked tool many times makes straight work; he avengeth the quarrel of his covenant by the Assyrian, that rod of God’ s wrath, though he thinks not so. Job could discern God’ s arrows in Satan’ s hand, and God’ s hand on the arms of the Sabean robbers. He it is that "killeth and maketh alive," saith holy Hannah; "he maketh poor and maketh rich, he bringeth low and lifteth up." All is done according to the counsel of his will; who, as he may do what he pleases, so he will be sure never to overdo; his holy hand shall never be further stretched out to smite, than to save. This made David "dumb, for he knew it was God’ s doing." "It is the Lord," said Eli, "let him do," and I will suffer, lest I add passive disobedience to active. Aaron, his predecessor, had done the like before him upon the same consideration, in the untimely end of his untowardly children. Jacob, likewise, in the rape of Dinah. Agnovit haud dubie ferulam divinam, saith Pareus on that text; he considered the work of God in it, and that it was in vain for him to seek to make that straight which God had made crooked. There is no standing before a lion, no hoisting up sail in a tempest, no contending with the Almighty. "Who ever waxed fierce against God and prospered?" Who ever got anything by kicking against the pricks, by biting the rod which they should rather have kissed? See Isaiah 14:27 Job 9:12-13; Job 34:12-18. Set God before your passions, when they are up in a hurry, and all will be hushed. Set down proud flesh when it bustles and bristles under God’ s fatherly chastisements, and say soberly to yourselves, Shall I not drink of the cup that my Father, who is also my physician, hath put into mine hands; stand under the cross that he hath laid on my shoulders; stoop unto the yoke that he hangeth on my neck? Drink down God’ s cup willingly, said Mr Bradford the martyr, and at first when it is full, lest if we linger we drink at length of the dregs with the wicked. Ferre minora volo, ne graviora feram. That was a very good saying of Demosthenes, who was ever better at praising virtue than at practising it. Good men should ever do the best, and then hope the best. But if anything happen worse than was hoped for, let that which God will have done be borne with patience.

Verse 13. Consider the work of God] Such is the nature of his providence, that it puts money into the hands of few: but wisdom is within the reach of all. The first is not necessary to happiness; therefore, it is not offered to men; the latter is; and therefore God, in his goodness, offers it to the whole human race. The former can rarely be acquired, for God puts it out of the reach of most men, and you cannot make that straight which he has made crooked; the latter may be easily attained by every person who carefully and seriously seeks it from God.

13. who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked] The sequence of thought is as follows. To “consider the work of God” intelligently is one application of the wisdom which has been praised in Ecclesiastes 7:11-12. In so considering, the mind of the Debater goes back to Ecclesiastes 7:10, and he bids men accept the outward facts of life as they come. If they are “crooked,” i.e. crossing and thwarting our inclinations, we cannot alter them. It is idle, to take up a Christian phrase that expresses the same thought, to seek to “change our cross.” We cannot alter the events of life, and our wisdom is not merely to accept them as inevitable, but to adapt ourselves to them. It is a striking example of Rabbinic literalism that the Chaldee Targum refers the words to the impossibility of removing bodily deformities, such as those of the blind, the hunchback, and the lame. The word and the thought are clearly the same as in ch. Ecclesiastes 1:15.

The work of God - The scheme of Divine Providence, the course of events which God orders and controls (compare Ecclesiastes 3:11). It comprises both events which are “straight,” i.

13. Consider the work of God — The thought is of comparing the past and present, as in Ecclesiastes 7:10. If there is any special hardship on these times, remember who hath appointed the rod.