Ecclesiastes 11
Butler1. CAST thy bread upon the waters: for thou 2 shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, yea, even unto eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the 3 earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, 4 there shall it be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth 5 the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the 6 work of God who doeth all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not
1. THE figure used here is found by some in the sowing of grain upon the fields while yet under water in the process of irrigation, or from the inundation of swollen streams; and by others in the freighting of grain over the waters to distant markets—the returns from which might be only “after many days.” In either case “bread” would mean the grain of which bread is made. Whichever is the figure used, the sense is ultimately the same. Dispense thy charities liberally and look for returns in the distant future. H. C.—As the husbandmen sow beside all waters, or in moist and fruitful places, and after many days reap a bountiful harvest, so good and charitable deeds will in due time bring a harvest of blessedness to those who perform them. Do good; seek to make others better and happier, is the purport of this exhortation. J. M. M.
Do we not see, no less than in the parable of the sower, the common work of man as a tiller of the ground turned into the symbol and token of his life as an heir of God’s kingdom? The words of the Preacher say to each man in the common daily tasks in which his life is spent, to each in his vocation and ministry, Do that which is right and true always; let acts of kindness be scattered freely. The seed never fails of fruit somewhere or at some time. The harvest may be a long way off, yet after many days thou shalt find. E. H. P.—Our reward for well-doing is very certain. “Though thou cast it upon the waters, and it seem lost, yet thou shalt find it after many days, as the husbandman finds his seed again in a plentiful harvest, which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. 7 Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing 8 it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Yea, if a man live many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. 9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring 10 thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
and the merchant his venture in a rich return. It is not lost, but well laid out and well laid up; it brings in full interest, in the present gifts of God’s providence and graces and comforts of His Spirit, and the principal is sure, laid up in heaven, for it is lent to the Lord.” “Thou shalt find it, perhaps not quickly, but after many days; the return may be slow, but it is sure, and will be so much the more plentiful.” Wheat, the most valuable grain, lies longest in the ground. Long voyages make the best returns. H.
Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe; it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one) it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove after a thousand years. • Carlyle.—Such is God’s husbandry. Do the right deed. Do it in faith, and in prayer commend it to the care of God. And though the waves of circumstance may soon waft it beyond your ken, they only carry it to the place prepared by Him. And whether on an earthly or a heavenly shore, the result will be found, and the reaper will rejoice that he once was a sower. Hamilton.
The forgotten and unrecorded work lives in the blessed results to the doers. Whatever of recognition and honor we may miss here, we cannot be robbed of the blessing to ourselves, in the perpetual influence on our own character, of every piece of faithful even if imperfect service. Habits are formed, emotions deepened, principles confirmed, capacities enlarged by every deed done for Christ, which make an over-measure of reward here, and in their perfect form hereafter are heaven. Nothing done for Him is ever wasted. Then let us do our work for Christ, not much careful whether it be greater or smaller, obscure or conspicuous, assured that whoever forgets us and it He will remember, and however our names may be unrecorded on earth they will be written in heaven, and confessed by Him before His Father and the holy angels. A. M.
2. This verse gives in part the interpretation of the parable, in part presents a new one. “Give a portion to seven;” yes, and if an eighth appear at thy gate, send him not away empty; let him be a welcome guest to thee. Do good not according to the measure which thou appointest to thyself, but to the opportunities that God gives thee. E. H. P.—In your charities be not confined to a single object, but have an interest in many; scatter abroad; the investments are safe; an evil day may come when you will need that mercy which you show to others. J. M. M.
“Give much, if thou hast much to give, not a pittance, but a portion, give good measure, be generous in giving, as they were, when, on festival days, they sent portions to them for whom nothing was prepared (Neh. 8:10) worthy portions.” God is rich in mercy to all, to us, though unworthy, He gives liberally, and upbraids not with former gifts, and we must be merciful, as our heavenly Father is. H.—Every man should give as he has received. He cannot give more; he wrongs his Master and his brethren if he gives less. And be it little or much, God has a place for it, and a blessing for it. Large and conspicuous service is not to be undervalued; nor is the more quiet and restricted service to be despised. We may not say which is most vital or which God shall most bless. R. Cordley.
The Spirit of God is bound down to no man’s method, and conforms His operations to no man’s ideas of fitness. The Church is the product of the Divine Spirit, infinitely free and wise, using all sorts of agencies, and bringing men into the kingdom by just such methods as He sees best. Thus it is enforced upon us that we must sow our seed by all waters; with strong hands and feeble hands; in the Church and the Sabbath school, in the family and out by the waysides of life. Only we must sow in prayer; sow in tearful love; sow in humble confidence in Jesus; not knowing whether this or that shall prosper, but confident that in the end we shall return with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us. S. W. Fisher.
All life is unearned increase. We are so accustomed to think of our planting and our watering, our reaping and our storing, that many of us forget altogether, or remember it only slightly and occasionally, that God gives the increase. The seed is cast into the ground, and the farmer guards it and cultivates it, but neither blade nor ear nor full corn in the ear are made by these processes, nor do these processes give any equivalent for the rich gains of summer and autumn. The springing blade is the direct gift of God—an unearned increase which comes to the husbandman. H. C. T.
3. Calamities will come by a common law of human life, even as great storms come in the course of nature, and, coming, hurl down the trees of the forest to lie where they fall—that is, the effects of these calamities are more than transient, and are not easily remedied. Provide, therefore, wisely and abundantly against these seasons of disaster. H. C.
In regard to the “evil coming on the earth” (v. 2), the sweeping calamities that lie beyond man’s control, he is as powerless as he is when the black clouds gather and the winds rush wildly. He knows only that the clouds will pour down their rain, that the tree will lie as the tempest has blown it down. Is he, therefore, to pause and hesitate and stand still? This question is answered in
4. Our ignorance of the future is not to put a stop to action. The very watching for opportunities may end in missing them. There are times when it is our wisdom to be “instant out of season.” . . . All the great thinkers of the world tell us, as with one voice, that the future which God appoints will come, for good or evil, joy or sorrow; that it is unwise in any man to anticipate the worst. Let him do the right thing at the present hour, and then he has done all that in him lies to make his path clear, and he may leave the rest to God. No temper is more fatal to energy, manliness, usefulness, than that of anxiety and fear. E. H. P.
Unforeseen events come from God; and the man who is always gazing on the uncertain future will neither begin nor complete any useful work; but do thou bear in mind that times and circumstances, the powers of nature and the results to which they minister, are in the hand of God; and be both diligent and trustful. Anon.—What God has arranged we cannot alter, nor can we foretell what He will do. The husbandman, if he wait for the wind to come into what he deems a favorable quarter before he ventures to sow, may not sow in good time. If he depends on the appearance of the clouds, and regards them as ominous of bad weather, then by delaying to sow in due time he will not reap a harvest. One must go straightforward in his duty, and not make this dependent on slight circumstances and uncertain omens. M. S.—If in sowing or reaping the husbandman is deterred by every sign of unfavorable weather, he may lose the fruits of his labor. So in the exercise of charity and in the discharge of duty generally, if we wait until every real or imaginary obstacle is put out of the way we shall lose the opportunity. We must attempt to do good in the face of obstacles and discouragements. J. M. M.
5. There are and will be things in God’s providential administration of human affairs which thou canst not fathom to the bottom, just as in the processes of nature referred to we are compelled to confess our ignorance. Where animal life comes from, what it is in its essential nature, and many of its laws are matters too deep for our philosophy. H. C.—“Thou knowest not the work of God, nor is it fit thou shouldest; thou mayest be sure He will make good His word of promise, though He does not tell thee how, and though He works in a way by Himself, He will work, and none shall hinder; but then He will work, and the blessing shall work insensibly but irresistibly; God’s work shall certainly agree with His Word, whether we see it or no.” H.
6. Ignorance as to the results of labor, still more, apparent or actual failure in earlier efforts, often tempt men to despondency or indolence. This maxim bids them take comfort, since the seed sown in the morning of life may bear its harvest at once, or not till the evening of age. The man may reap at one and the same time the fruits of his earlier and later sowing, and may find that “both alike are good.” E. H. P.
Therefore use wisdom and all due diligence. Let no hopeful means of good be omitted, sowing thy seed morning by morning, and at evening still let thy hand be active and thy heart earnest; for thou canst not tell which of the many things shall be successful. Do your whole duty and then calmly leave the issues with God. H. C.—To each of us our heavenly Father has given the germ of a life that can never die. The law of that life is, that nothing will be, nor can be lost. Its unconsidered fragments are like grains of seed-corn, full of infinite after-promise. Even as the field of the dead is God’s acre, so is the field of living duty His harvest field. Jackson. (Bampton Lectures.)
God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right by anything that we do or neglect to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the more because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labor of men that, in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the further off we place our aim and the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss in such respect for futurity. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that above all other attributes separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Ruskin.
All the materials essential to our well-being in both worlds, for the body, the mind, and the soul, for time and for eternity, God has provided, by His own unassisted and unmodified power, in that region of His working which is far above the reach of our own will and effort. But the well-being of man is never attained except he brings himself into harmony with all the conditions of the Divine bestowal. Sowing and reaping, toiling and gathering, are conditions with man, if not with birds and lilies. Withhold these, and man never reaches that state of physical well-being which was designed for him. He does not comply with those terms which are inseparable from the blessing. The sun may shine and the rain may fall, spring and summer through, and all the wealth of air and soil be bestowed munificently, but if man will not hold the plough, nor sow the seed, nor work at all, he will reap small advantage from the willing liberality of God. Precisely so is it in regard to God’s spiritual munificence. W. Adams.
In the moral, as well as in the natural world, there is an appearance of waste and failure. Yet the impulse of benevolence must not from hence be discouraged, nor wait for the time of action till it has the fullest assurance of success.
We must learn to venture much, for we have often to cast our seeds of kindness “upon the waters,” not knowing whither they will be carried; often, too, with as little prospect of reaping any ultimate good as if we scattered them upon the barren foam of the sea. The prospect of immediate success must not be our motive. We have to act upon higher and nobler principles. We must learn to do good for its own sake. We must have faith in the imperishableness of good deeds. We must consider that the issues and rewards of our life are with God. He knows all the issues of the good man’s life, and all the riches of His sure recompense in eternity. These are greatly hidden from us here; therefore, in the mean time, we must learn the uses of that faith which ventures all. Venture is the very soul of the religious life, the attitude of the righteous toward the great things of God yet to be revealed; and the spirit of it penetrates all the forms of duty. Homilist.—If God scorns not apparent waste, ought we to scorn it, if the gain of it at last be only the winning or the edification of a single soul? O wearied toilers in the heat and dust of the day, the seed that ye have sown beside all waters, your unavailing sacrifices for others, your thankless labors by day and your fruitless tears by night, are not all wasted! The waste of faith and hope and love, lavished apparently in vain upon insensible hearts, will some day be seen to be no waste at all; and he who has shared in the sufferings of Christ shall, like his Divine Master, see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And then we shall fully understand the gain of waste. S. S. T.
Thou knowest not whether shall prosper. If it is the morning seed that is to have the blessing, the preceding work of all thine evening may be necessary for it; and if it is the seed sown at evening which Divine grace shall choose, the toil of all the foregoing mornings of prayer and of effort may be just as necessary as the seed. This combined uncertainty and responsibility illustrate in an eminent degree the situation of parents in regard to their children. Cheever.—How little we know when we are doing our most effective work! How little we can tell whether shall prosper, this or that. A single word spoken in season; a helping hand in time of need; a tear of Christian sympathy; a prayer, winged heavenward by faith and love; a widow’s mite cast into God’s treasury, may be forgotten by the Christian toiler, but not by Him who is enthroned on high. He sees and hears and blesses; and so where the toiler hath trodden, flowers bloom, and fountains spring, and harvests wave, and souls redeemed sing songs of joy. S. S. T.
7-10. Solomon now prepares to draw to a close. The dejection and sadness which pervade some of his utterances near the beginning are now gone. He has solved the problem which perplexed his mind, and we no more hear him say, as in chap. 2:17, “I hated life;” but he speaks, with the cheerfulness and animation becoming a true friend of God. J. M. M.—The remaining verses of the chapter are in another strain. Life is precious, and God has filled this world with many sources of pleasure; yet in the midst of your joy, forget not that days of darkness will come (vs. 7, 8). Let the young man enjoy the vigor of youth and its legitimate pleasures, yet evermore bearing in mind that God holds him responsible for all his moral life and will bring him into judgment (v. 9). Let him therefore banish discontent from his heart, and, observing the laws of health, prolong his youthful vigor to the utmost, for childhood and youth are subject to vanity—the failure and loss of earthly good (v. 10). H. C.
7. It cannot be denied that life is sweet; it is sweet to bad men because they have their portion in this life; it is sweet to good men, because they have this life as the time of their preparation for a better life; it is sweet to all men; nature says it is so, and there is no disputing against it; nor can death be desired for its own sake, but dreaded, unless as a period to present evils or a passage to future good. Life is sweet, and therefore we have need to double a guard upon ourselves lest we love it too well. H.
8. In the midst of the unbroken joys of youth and of prosperous life, let no man forget that far other scenes may be before him; that days of darkness will follow these days of light, for they surely will, and they may be many. H. C.—The whole system of worldly amusement is adapted to make us forget the real condition of human life, to disguise every object, and to invest the present state with a sort of theatrical glow. It is contrived, in every part of it, to banish reflection, to hide the future from the view, and to make us overlook the evils of life and the realities of eternity. But still, as the nature of things remains the same, the lot of mankind is, sooner or later, a state of suffering, from which no past successes, no seeming stability in our station, can possibly secure. It is wisdom, then, to form a just estimate of human life; to correct the illusions of our passions, and to regulate our expectations respecting the good and evil of the present, by the result of universal observation and experience. R. Hall.
9. Rejoice, cheer, walk. Here, as in chap. 9:7, the imperative mood is used, not exactly to express a coi manl, but rather to encourage one who possesses certain gifts from God to remember that they come from God and are to be used in accordance with His will. W.T.B.—The Preacher frankly commends to youth a joyful, cheerful life as its natural and proper heritage. He does not invite to a feast, and then set up the skeleton of judgment at the table, to fill the feaster with fear and trembling. There is no covert irony in the call to rejoice. The judgment is brought in, but in a way which ministers to the rejoicing instead of clouding it… Why may not the young man lawfully rejoice in his youth, provided he remembers his Creator? The mistake is in divorcing the Creator and Judge from the joy of life; whereas, God is the true joy of life. Vincent.
When he exhorts the young to make the best of life, and cheerfully to enjoy it, he throws in the salutary and soul-stirring caution, “But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment.” In other words, “Do all this, with the constant recognition and remembrance of the truth, that you are to give an account to God, for the manner in which you demean yourself amid all your enjoyments.” M. S.—The precept expands itself to a wonderful richness and fulness of meaning by being understood affirmatively. It still forbids, indeed, by implication, unholy joy. For if we are to rejoice, and our rejoicing be limited and chastised by the thought of judgment, then surely unholy joy is altogether excluded. But besides this negative precept, which is only the indirect and secondary meaning of the verse, it also enforces holy joy, Christian rejoicing, such as that of which Paul writes, and that not only under the limitation implied by the prospect of judgment, but on the very ground of judgment to come. We are to rejoice, not now and then, when we forget judgment, death, and sin, but evermore; in youth no less than in manhood and old age; and for our life of Christian joy—for our omission to rejoice, if we omit it, for our ill-rejoicing, if we rejoice amiss, as for true and holy rejoicing, if, by the blessed Spirit of Christ duly cherished, we rejoice as we ought to do—we shall be judged, and in that judgment either saved by God’s unspeakable mercy in Christ or condemned. G. Moberly.
It is not in itself sinful that a young man should rejoice in his youth, enjoying his youthful vigor and health; nor that his heart should be cheerful; nor that he should walk in ways pleasant and agreeable to himself, in harmony with the laws of his being, provided, however, always that he regulate his pursuit of pleasure by a sense of his moral responsibilities to God. It is vital here to draw the line between admissible cheerfulness, legitimate physical and social enjoyments on the one hand, and on the other, sinful indulgences, injurious, if not even ruinous to one’s self or to others. The context forbids the construction which makes these verses ironical. The numerous parallel passages in the book suffice to settle this point definitely. (See chaps. 2:24; 3:12, 13, 22; 5:18-20; 8:15.) We must then include the passage before us in this class, and explain it as referring to the legitimate enjoyments of youth, bearing in mind, however, that the author wisely guards against excess and abuse by solemnly assuring the young man that in reference to this whole period of his life and to all its special and abundant sources of enjoyment God will bring him into judgment, not to condemn him for the wholesome enjoyment of youthful vigor, but for its sinful abuse; not for any pleasures that are legitimate, but for all that are illegitimate, pernicious, morally wrong. H. C.
In these words the writer falls back on the fact that, after all, this life is worth living, that it is wise to cultivate the faculty of enjoyment in the season when that faculty is, in most cases, capable of being fashioned into a habit. In good faith he tells the young man to “rejoice in his youth,” to study the bent of his character, what we should call his aesthetic tastes, but all this is not to be the reckless indulgence of each sensuous impulse, but to be subject to the thought “God will bring thee into judgment.” What the judgment may be the writer does not define. But the facts on which he dwells, the life of ignoble pleasure or tyranny or fraud carried on successfully to the very last, the unequal distribution of the pleasures and the pains of life, the obvious retort of the evil-doer that if this life were all men could take their fill of pleasure and evade the judgment of man, or the misery of self-made reproach and failure by suicide—all this leads to the conclusion that the “judgment” which the young man is to remember is “exceeding broad,” stretching far into the unseen future of the eternal years. Faith at last comes in where reason fails, and the man is bidden to remember, in all the flush of life and joy, that “judgment" comes at last, if not in man’s present stage of being, yet in the great hereafter. E. H. P.
Looking before the text and after it, thinking of the general scope and tendency of the whole Book of Ecclesiastes, one would say that all the text conveys is this great truth, which we all find out as we grow older, that the reckoning always comes. There is no harm in rejoicing in hopeful youth; God made youth for that. Only remember for steadying and sobering, not for saddening, that the reckoning will come; that through all these things you are sowing, and that you will reap by and by. Remember, then, that for all enjoyment, ay, for hard work and privation and trial too, the reckoning comes, the painful reckoning; for all these things God will bring you into judgment as for the enjoyments of your early days, and the reckoning may be a very heavy one. Even where the present frost is not the direct outcome of the past sunshine, no more sorrowful experience can be known by any human heart than the awful blankness which is expressed by the one word “gone.” To have had and to have lost, that is the judgment in the text. A. K. H. B.
The light is acknowledged to be good and life pleasant. The young man is acknowledged in his natural freedom. His heart is allowed to cheer him in the days of his youth, and he may walk in the ways of his heart and the sight of his eyes. Life is good and to be enjoyed; yet it is always grave, and the account is always running up against it. The true view is at once earnest and genial, bright yet always thoughtful, looking to the end from the beginning and forecasting the future, yet without anxiety, in the experience of the present. Tulloch.
10. The sense seems to be, Put away discontent from your heart and physical evils from your body. Cultivate the spirit of a cheerful contentment, and by carefully observing the laws of health, put from you, far as possible, the ills that flesh is heir to. God made your mind and body for much enjoyment; be careful, therefore, to study and obey the laws of life and happiness pertaining to both mind and body; for at the best childhood and youth are transient, and full of vanity. H. C.—The exhortation is founded on the solemn declaration which goes before, that God will bring him who walks in the ways of His heart and in the sight of His eyes into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart—put away that which is the chief cause of grief, sin, and those evil passions which lead to sin, and thus be at peace with thy judge. J. M. M.
Lives are worth living, if they answer the purpose for which they were given. And such lives, how ineffably sweet and fruitful they are! God’s smile beams upon them, and all humanity is conscious of the fact. Some of them, perhaps most of them, are quiet lives—no ostentation, no bustle and stir, only earnest, faithful, and conscientious doing of whatever their hands find to do. Hallock.
darkness, and beyond the light of sun or star? What wings of human thought or fancy can soar into a region so high, so pure, so fair? And shall the wings be folded? Shall the fire be covered? Shall the force be latent? Shall the life be held in sleep, or swoon, or trance? Shall we not be ourselves? Shall we not be,
and seem, our best? Are we ashamed to acknowledge our celestial friends? Are we afraid of being home too soon? Child of the light and of the day, look upward, homeward, to the land of lights, and God give thee ever clearer sight and stronger helps until the day of thine arrival! A. Raleigh.