Ecclesiastes 7:17

Be not over much wicked,.... Not that a man should be wicked at all; but some, observing that wicked men prolong their days in wickedness, are encouraged to go into greater lengths in sin than they

Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time? Over much wicked - so worded to answer to "righteous over much." It does not imply that we may be wicked a little.

Be not over-much wicked; do not take occasion, either from the impunity of sinners, , or from the prohibition of excessive righteousness, to run into the contrary extreme, the defect of righteousness, or to give up thyself to the practice of all manner of wickedness, as the manner of many men is, . But this is not to be understood as if he allowed a lower degree of wickedness, no more than that prohibition of not letting the sun go down upon a man’ s wrath, , permits him to keep his wrath all the day long; and no more than the condemnation of excess of riot, and of abominable idolatries, ,4, doth justify any kind of rioting or idolatry. Neither be thou foolish; which he adds to show that such sinners, howsoever they esteem themselves wise, yet in truth are egregious fools, as the following words prove. Die before thy time; either by the justice of the magistrate, or by the vengeance of God. For though I said that sometimes a wicked man prolongeth his days, &c., , yet commonly such persons are cut off, and thou hast sufficient reason to expect and fear it.

Ecclesiastes 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?Ver. 17. Be not wicked over much,] viz., Because thou seest some wicked men live long, and scape scot free for the present, as Ecclesiastes 7:15. For God may cut thee short enough, and make thee die before thy time - i.e., before thou art fit to die - and when it were better for thee to do anything rather than die, since thou diest in thy sins, which is much worse than to die in a ditch. Now they are too much wicked, and egregiously foolish, that "add rebellion to sin," "drunkenness to thirst," "doing wickedly with both hands earnestly," refusing to be reformed, hating to be healed. These take long strides toward the burning lake, which is but a little before them. The law many times lays hold of them, the gallows claims its right, they preach in a Tyburn tippet, as they say; or otherwise, God cuts them off betime, even long before, as he knows their thoughts and dispositions long before. We used to destroy hemlock even in the midst of winter, because we know what it will do if suffered to grow. "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days." God cut off Eli’ s two sons in one day for their excessive wickedness; and further threatened their father, that there should not be an old man left in his house for ever. Wicked men die tempore non suo, as the text is by some rendered. The saints die not till the best time, not till their work is done - and then God sends them to bed; the two witnesses could not be killed while they were doing it - not till that time, when if they were but rightly informed, they would even desire to die.

Verse 17. Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?] אל תרשע הרבה al tirsha harbeh. Do not multiply wickedness, do not add direct opposition to godliness to the rest of your crimes. Why should you provoke God to destroy you before your time? Perdition will come soon enough. If you will not turn from your sins, and avoid it finally, yet keep out of it as long as you can. It cannot be supposed, except by those who are totally unacquainted with the nature of true religion, that a man may have too much holiness, too much of the life of God in his soul! And yet a learned doctor, in three sermons on this text, has endeavoured to show, out-doing Solomon's infidel, "the sin, folly, and danger of being righteous overmuch." O rare darkness!

17. Be not over much wicked] There seems something like a paradox in the counsel. Surely, we think, the teacher is carrying his doctrine of the mean too far when he gives a precept, which, by forbidding excess, seems to sanction a moderate amount of wickedness. Various attempts have been made to tone down the precept by taking “wicked” as = not subject to rule, or = engaged in worldly affairs (the “mammon of unrighteousness”) that so often lead to wickedness. The difficulty vanishes, however, if we will but admit that the writer might have learnt the art of a playful irony from his Greek teachers. He has uttered the precept, “Be not righteous over-much.” That most men would receive as a true application of the doctrine of “Nothing in excess,” or, in the phrase we owe to Talleyrand, “Surtout, point de zêle.” He mentally sees, as it were, the complacent smile of those who were in no danger of that fault and who think that the precept gives them just the license they want, and he meets the feeling it expresses by another maxim. “Yes, my friends,” he seems to say, “but there is another ‘over-much,’ against which you need a warning, and its results are even more fatal than those of the other.” In avoiding one extreme men might fall easily into the other. why shouldest thou die before thy time?] Literally, Not in thy time. The form of the warning is singularly appropriate. The vices thought of and the end to which they lead are clearly those of the sensual license described in Proverbs 7. Death is the issue here, as the loss of spiritual discernment was of the Pharisaic or the over-philosophizing temper described in the preceding verse. In both precepts we may trace Koheleth’s personal experience. Ch. 2 traces the history of one who in his life experiments had been both “over much wise,” and, it must be feared, “over much wicked.”

17. Over much wicked — A course of desperate wickedness, and especially of bodily vices, consumes prematurely the vigour which would suffice for a long and active life.