Ecclesiastes 9

God has never promised dying grace when one’s duty is to live. Grace for duty, for toil, for love, for honesty, for earnest service in every good cause, for brave struggle, for unselfish ministry, for holy influence; grace for noble and beautiful living, and for loyal devotion to Christ while the heart’s pulses are full, and while God wants us still in this world. Then grace for dying when the life’s work is done.

J. R. M.—Ask for living grace and glorify Christ thereby, and then you shall have dying grace when dying time comes. Your enemy is going to be destroyed, but not to-day. There is a great host of enemies to be fought to-day, and you may be content to let this one alone for awhile. This enemy will be destroyed, but of the times and the seasons we are in ignorance; our wisdom is to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ as the duty of every day requires. Take your trials as they come! As the enemies march up slay them, rank upon rank. Leave the final shock of arms till the last adversary advances, and meanwhile hold you your place in the conflict. God will in due time help you to overcome your last enemy, but meanwhile see to it that you overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. If you live well you will die well. That same covenant in which the Lord Jesus gave you life contains also the grant of death, for “All things are yours, whether things present or things to come, or life or death, all are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Spurgeon.

7. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God 8 hath already accepted thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let not thy 9 head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in life, and in thy labour 10 wherein thou labourest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. 11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance 12 happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

13. I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise, and it seemed great unto me:

14 there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks

15 against it: now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that

16 same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

17. The words of the wise spoken in quiet are heard more than the cry of him that ruleth

18 among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.

7-9. Here is a turn in the course of thought. The author would say to his readers: Instead of toiling hopelessly and vainly for huge masses of wealth which you can never enjoy, or for posthumous fame and glory that you can never know of, and that will surely be sunk under the waves of oblivion, I counsel you to enjoy with quiet satisfaction your daily bread, thankful that God accepts your work. Let your garments betoken inward purity and true joy; living happily with one wife (not miserably with many), even with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy transient life, for this is thy portion of good for thy labor in this earthly life. We have met substantially the same counsel in 2 : 24 ; 3 : 12, 13, 22 ; 5 : 18, 19 and 8 : 15. H. C.

Let there be “joy and a merry heart within ;” a good heart, so the word is, which distinguishes this from carnal mirth and sensual pleasure, which are the evil of the heart, both a symptom and a cause of much evil there. We must enjoy ourselves, enjoy our friends, enjoy our God, and be careful to keep a good conscience that nothing may disturb us in these enjoyments. We must serve God with gladness in the use of what He gives us, and be liberal in communicating it to others, and not suffer ourselves to be oppressed with inordinate care and grief about the world. H.—Amusement must never become an end in life ; it must always be a means, a help on the way, just as sleep is, just as rest is. An hour’s amusement should be to you just what a night’s sleeping is, or what a day’s resting is ; it should make you stronger, clearer-headed, calmer-souled, braver, more hopeful, more earnest, more enthusiastic, inspiring you for better life. Anything that leaves a taint of impurity upon the life, or starts a thought of impurity in the mind, anything that degrades or debases the soul, is unfit and unworthy amusement for a Christian. Christian amusements must be such as do not harm spiritual life ; they must be means of grace. J. R. M.

Solomon is no ascetic himself ; he does not believe in decrying the moderate pleasures which God provides for us in our daily food and nightly rest ; and he knows that if he were to push the doctrine of the vanity of this world to this extreme, his words would only recoil upon himself and would utterly frustrate his great purpose. Therefore he sees the necessity of discriminating sharply between loving the world supremely and loving its legitimate comforts very moderately ; between grasping it in a spirit that is reckless of God, and accepting certain forms of its pleasure as kindly provided and given of God, to be accepted with gratitude ; between devoting one’s utmost powers to unlimited acquisition, and being satisfied with the moderate enjoyments which man’s physical constitution provides for, and God’s love bestows. He knew that men of the world hold the constitutional enjoyments of life to be admissible and right, and that their good sense persistently repels any effort to make them think otherwise. He therefore took special pains not to offend and repel them from his doctrine. It was not the moderate enjoyment of one’s daily bread, or of the well-ordered family state, that he set forth as vanity and exhorted men to renounce. It was not the legitimate use but the gross abuse of the world that he condemned. The thing he decried and deplored was that in this matter men should be reckless of the ordinations of Divine Providence and of their responsibility to their Great Lawgiver and Judge, and that then, in this spirit, not satisfied with the moderate, legitimate enjoyments of life, they should stride on with all-grasping desire and unmeasured toil to accumulate wealth, honor, and sensual pleasure till they make the whole of life one intense and utter vanity, and bring upon themselves the righteous retributions of their Maker. . . . Let him speak ; his experience may save thousands from the folly of a selfishly pleasure-loving and pleasure seeking life, and from the ruin which such a life so certainly involves. Let him speak, and let the earth hear, for his voice is the testimony of God, warning all pleasure-loving men of the rocks on which myriads have made shipwreck, not for time only, but for eternity. H. C.

As Ewald has long since shown, it is impossible to bring an understanding, studious heart to this book without discovering that its true and ruling intention is to encourage men, perplexed by change and dejected by the disillusionizing processes of experience, to a patient endurance of inevitable disappointments, and a prompt, hearty enjoyment of the remaining and sufficient goods of life. The constant and recurring moral of the book is, that “everything is beautiful in its season,” and in its season should be thankfully enjoyed, without too curious an inquest into its probable genesis and duration ; that there is nothing better, that it is the last result of wisdom, for a man to “enjoy all the good of his labor ;” and that this capacity of wise enjoyment is God’s best gift to man. The cheerful heart that medicines our pain is, then, the gift of God ; and because it is the gift of God, it is open to us all, however delicate or saturnine, our natural temperament may be. And like all other the gifts of God, we come upon it while we are walking in the path of obedience. To “fear God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man,” even as to take the good of God’s gifts and his own labors is the best happiness of man ; and only by doing the duty do we reach the happiness. Cox.

10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. The Scripture does not say, what thy head finds to do; that may find a thousand things; nor what thy heart finds to do, for that may find ten thousand things; but what thy hand findeth to do; that is, look what work God cuts out to thy hand to do; that do with all thy might, for there is no working in the grave. We are to do much good in a little time. Our time is short, our task is great. T. Brooks.

Produce! produce! were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it, in God’s name! ‘Tis the utmost thou hast in thee; out with it then. Up, up! whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Thy life, oh mortal! wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own. It is all thou hast to confront eternity with. Work then like a star, unhasting yet unresting. Carlyle.—Straightway do what thy hand findeth to do! It may be less or more. It may be in public or private. It may be a thing or a course that will be commented on or passed over in silence by others. No matter! when the light comes it is to be followed. Straightway do it and the enemies of souls—of the Gospel of Christ—are taken at advantage, are discomfited, are driven back, while timorous friends, the discouraged, the weak, the halting, receive as it were a new inspiration. A soul in prompt action necessarily charges other souls with the celestial fire—until they, too, glow and burn with love to Christ. Straightway do, say, give, suffer, at the word of Christ, and in living consecration to Him, and the greatest and most beneficent force that can issue from one human soul to another will go out from you to other souls around. A. R.

No man ever shapes his own destiny or the destinies of others, wisely and well, who deals much in presentlies. Nature never postpones. When the time arrives for the buds to open, they open—for the leaves to fall, they fall. Look upward. The shining worlds never put off their risings or their settings. The comets even, erratic as they are, keep their appointments; and eclipses are always punctual to the minute. There are no delays in any of the movements of the universe which have been predetermined by the absolute will of the Creator. Procrastination among the stars might involve the destruction of innumerable systems; procrastination in the operations of nature on this earth might result in famine, pestilence, and the blotting out of the human race. Man, however, being a free agent, can postpone the performance of his duty; and he does so, too, frequently to his own destruction. The drafts drawn by indolence upon the future are pretty sure to be dishonored. Make now your banker. Do not say you will economize presently, for presently you may be bankrupt; nor that you will repent and make atonement presently, for presently you may be judged. Bear in mind the important fact, taught alike by the history of nations, rulers, and private individuals, that in at least three cases out of five, presently is too late. Anon.

What do the Scriptures show us, but that God has a particular care for every man, a personal interest in him, and a sympathy with him and his trials, watching for the uses of his one talent as attentively and kindly, and approving him as heartily, in the right employment of it, as if he had given him ten; and, what is the giving out of the talent itself, but an exhibition of the fact that God has a definite purpose, charge, and work, be it this or that, for every man? H. B.—Every man has given him of God much more than he has any idea of, and that he can help on the world’s work more than he knows of. What we want is the single eye that will see what our work is, the humility to accept it however lowly, the faith to do it for God, the perseverance to go on till death. N. Macleod.

There is to be no curbing of our energies, no surrender of our natural talents. Far from it: use them all; heartily, bravely, lovingly, use them all; only let us beware that we use them, first, in entire dependence upon God; secondly, in entire submission to His will; thirdly, without using, or allowing others to use, any unlawful means; and, once more, remembering always the true end which, in exercising them, should be always in our view. The necessaries of life must, indeed, be sought through them, as the very condition of our continuing to employ them; but beyond this we may not go; this end gained, the true end of all talents, health, wealth, intellectual ability, influence, from whatever source derived, comes into view—namely, the glory of God and the good of our fellow men, not our own abundance and the luxurious enjoyment (as we are apt to speak) of life. Karslake.

To do as well as ever you can what happens to be the only thing within your power to do, is the best and surest preparation for higher service. Should things go against you, never give way to debilitating depression, but be hopeful, brave, courageous, careful not to waste in vain and unavailing regret the power you will need for endurance and endeavor. Binney.—Every position, great or small, may be made almost as great or as little as we desire to make it, according as we make the most of it or the least of it. To do the necessary duties of any station, that is easy enough; but to gather up all its outlying opportunities; to be ready to lend a helping hand here, to give a kind word there, and a wise counsel there; “to fill,” as we say, “our place in life,” instead of leaving it half empty; to be entirely in our work for the time being, this is what makes all the difference between a useful and a useless man. Stanley.—True work is to be done by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are, is God’s providential arrangement, God’s doing, though it may be man’s misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made out of them. F. W. R.

For most of us, our service has to be unnoticed and unknown, and the memory of our work will live perhaps for a year or two in the hearts of some few who loved us, but will fade wholly when they follow us into the silent land. Well, be it so; we shall sleep none the less sweetly though none be talking about us over our heads. All that matters very little. The notoriety of our work is of no consequence. The earnestness and accuracy with which we strike our blow is all important; but it matters nothing how far it echoes. It is not the heaven of heavens to be talked about, nor does a man’s life consist in the abundance of newspaper or other paragraphs about him. We shall do our work best, and be saved from much festering anxiety, which corrupts our purest service and fevers our serenest thoughts, if we once fairly make up our minds to working unnoticed and unknown, and determine that whether our post be a conspicuous or an obscure one we shall fill it to the utmost of our power; careless of praise or censure because our judgment is with our God; careless whether we are unknown or well known, because we are known altogether to Him. “Small service is true service while it lasts,” and the unnoticed, insignificant servants may do work every whit as good and noble as the most widely known, to whom have been entrusted by Christ tasks that mould the ages. A. M.—In an employment however commonplace, and in a corner however inconspicuous, if you take up the task which your hand finds to do, and throw into it the might which God gives, the result will be genuine, solid, enduring. Let each do his own work in his own way, and as all good work is God’s, you will soon see a more beautiful Church and a better world. Hamilton.

A heart warmed with the love of God, sensible of its obligations to redeeming mercy, emptied of self, its enmity or repugnance toward the holy and the pure expelled or overcome, taught to hate not only the presence but “the appearance of evil,” “filled with unfeigned love of the brethren,” in charity with all men, and with its “affections fixed on those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God”—a heart in this condition is fitted to supply impulse and energy for “whatever the hand findeth to do.” It is a central heat, whose glow and fervor animate and inspire the active faculties of the soul, prompting them to aim at the accomplishment, and instrumentally imparting the competency to accomplish, those things which come in the form of Christian obligation. Binney.

Christian life is action; not a speculating, not a debating, but a doing. One thing, and only one, in this world has eternity stamped upon it. Feelings pass; resolves and thoughts pass; opinions change. What you have done lasts—lasts in you. Through ages, through eternity, what you have done for Christ, that, and only that, you are. “They rest from their labors,” saith the Spirit, “and their works do follow them.” J. W. R.—Look at the energy around us. Life goes swiftly in all regions. Men seem to be burning away faster than ever before, in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Do we work as hard for God as the world does for itself? Look at the energy beneath us; how evil in every form is active; how lies and half-truths propagate themselves quick as the blight on a rose-tree; how profligacy and crime and all the devil’s angels are busy on his errands. If we are sitting drowsy by our camp-fires, the enemy is on the alert. You can hear the tramp of their legions and the rumble of their artillery through the night, as they march to their posts on the field. Do we work as hard for God as the emissaries of evil do for their master? Look at the energy above us. On the throne of the universe is the immortal Power who slumbereth not nor sleepeth. Before the altar of the heavens is the Priest of the world, the Lord of His Church, “who ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Round Him stand perfected spirits, the watchmen on the walls of the New Jerusalem, who “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.” From His presence come, filling the air with the rustle of their swift wings and the light of their flame-faces, the ministering spirits who evermore do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His Word. And we, where are we in all this magnificent concurrence of activity, for purposes which ought to be dear to our hearts as they are to the heart of God? Do we work for Him as He and all that are with Him do? Is His will done by us on earth, as it is in heaven? A. M.

We perceive in the world around a connection in which none can work for himself without working for all others; or work for others without at the same time working for himself; since the happy progress of one member is the happy progress of all; a view which cheers the heart and powerfully excites the spirit, by the harmony which we perceive in the midst of the greatest variety. How one’s sense of interest rises when he views himself as a member of this great and close connection! How the feeling of dignity and of power rises when one says to himself, as each justly may: “All that was ever great and wise and noble among men—those benefactors of the human race, whose names I find noted in the history of the world, and the larger number whose merits abide without their names—they have all wrought for me; I have come into their harvest, on the earth which they inhabited. I follow their footsteps spreading blessing. I can lay upon myself the sublime task which they had imposed upon themselves, of making our brotherly race always wiser and happier; I can build on where they must cease; I can bring nearer to its completion the magnificent temple which they must leave unfinished.” Here one may say, “As they cease, so must I.” But it is the sublimest thought of all; if I undertake the great task that I can never finish, I shall yet never cease to act and to live in my work. What we call death shall not break off my undertaking; it shall be finished. Fichte.

Let it be our ambition in life to make ourselves unnecessary, to anticipate our departure hence by reduplicating in others such energies of holy purpose and such graces of heavenly tenderness, as by the renewing Spirit of God we may have had wrought within us, so that when our single life is done, our multiplied life may survive; and then, when the last tear shed for us has been dried, and the last memory of us has been erased by time, the energies that issued from us, at any rate, shall leap along the years, and our unconscious selves go scattering multiplying blessings along the broadening furrows of the generations. C. H. P.

Stay in this world, into which Christ came, in which He stayed, as long as God wills. Pray not to go, pray to stay, pray to be a faithful son, pray to be kept from the evil, pray not to be kept from the world. Into the world go, as Christ went. Stand so close to the world that the buffets and blows of the world shall not hurt you. Under the world go, as Christ went, to lift it. Above the world go, as Christ went, to draw it up. C. F. Thwing.

After all, there is a weariness that cannot be prevented. It will come on. The work brings it on. The cross brings it on. Sometimes the very walk with God brings it on, for the flesh is weak; and at such moments we hear, soft and sweet, the sound of that immortal requiem: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors.” Or, as Dr. Preston, a man much given to holy meditation, said when dying: “I change my place, but not my company. While here I have sometimes walked with God, and now I go to rest with Him.” Hamilton.

Let us, then, not desecrate that wondrous faculty of looking before as well as after, which God has given to us. Let one solemn, blessed thought more and more fill with its substance and its light the else dim and questionable and insufficient future, and walk evermore as seeing him who is invisible, and as hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord. The harvest is great, the toil is heavy, the sun is drawing to the west, the evening shadows are very long with some of us, the reckoning is at hand, and the Master waits to count your sheaves. There is no time to lose, brother; set about it as you have never done before, and say, “This one thing I do.” And so let us not fill our minds with vain hopes which, whether they be fulfilled or not, will not satisfy us; but lift our eyes to and stay our anticipations on those glories beyond, as real as God is real, and as certain as His Word is true. Let these hopes concentrate and define for us the aims of our life; and let the aims, clearly accepted and recognized, be pursued with earnestness, with “diligence,” with haste, with the enthusiasm with which they, and they only, are worthy. A. M.

11,12. Taking still another and a new view of human labor (“I turned and saw”), I observed that even the most assiduous and well-directed efforts of men sometimes fail. The swiftest do not always win the race; the strongest lose the battle; the wisest miss their bread; “time and chance” seem more potent over human destiny than man’s own best endeavors. Casualties will happen; no man knows his hour of death; the snare sometimes falls suddenly on men, as fishes are caught in a net; so that we must admit there is an overruling power higher than human that shapes the destiny of men. H. C.—Chance. This word means properly “incident,” that which comes to us from without, one of those external events of God’s ordering, which Solomon describes in chap. 3. W. T. B.

A sovereign providence breaks men’s measures and blasts their hopes, and teaches them that the way of man is not in himself, but subject to the Divine will. We must use means, but not trust to them; if we succeed, we must give God the praise; if we be crossed, we must acquiesce in His will, and take our lot. H.—The future is ever in the hand of God. No man can say with confidence that any one scheme he is pursuing shall be attended with success—any one hope or fear which he entertains be realized. Every period of our life is opening some fresh page, the contents of which no human sagacity can determine; nor is there a single event that may take place under the sun which can be known with certainty until it is actually accomplished. R. Hall.

16. Wisdom is better than strength, and the more that wisdom spreads, the more human strength is saved, and the more is comfort enhanced. Even should there be no invader at the gates, when a beneficent ingenuity is exerted to enhance the pleasures of peace; when discovery chemical or dynamical floods our streets with midnight radiance, and bids clear water spring up in the poorest attic; when it mitigates disease or multiplies the loaves of bread; when by making them nearer neighbors, it forces nations to be better friends, and by diminishing life’s interruptions lengthens our span of probation and our power of usefulness—surely the “poor man,” whose “wisdom” thus enriches the species, deserves to sit among the princes of the people; and while religion should render praise to that Wonderful Counsellor who teacheth man such knowledge, patriotism and philanthropy must enroll the discoverers among the benefactors of mankind. Hamilton.

17. It has been supposed that there is a contradiction between this verse and the preceding. But the inconsistency is not in the writer, but in mankind, who sometimes follow wise advice to their profit, and at other times neglect it. Vs. 16 and 17 are merely comments on the two facts—the deliverance of the city and its forgetfulness of him who delivered it—stated in v. 15. W. T. B.

How forcible are right words! What is spoken wisely should be spoken calmly, and then it will be heard in quiet, and calmly considered. But passion will lessen the force even of reason, instead of adding any force to it. H.

18. Lord Bacon said: “Knowledge is power,” and during the last hundred years no aphorism has been so often quoted. But six-and-twenty centuries before the days of Lord Verulam, King Solomon had said: “A wise man is strong.” “Wisdom is better than strength.” “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” Hamilton.—It is so in every department of life. The man of tact, the man who sees at once what is to be done and promptly does it, in passing through life escapes perils and masters difficulties which involve men of larger capacities and attainments in ruin. Hence it turns out that to every influential post—in the market, the Church, and the government—the men of tact for the most part, not the men of intellect and genius, occupy the most prominent and remunerative positions. Anon.

One sinner destroyeth much good. The wider signification given by Solomon to the terms wise and unwise is our warrant to apply this expression, in the broadest sense, to the moral and spiritual conduct of men. Beyond all question it is true, in reference both to things temporal and spiritual. One unwise man, every one acting unwisely, wrongly, does actual damage to every interest, his own or that of others, temporal or spiritual; inflicts damage upon every interest affected by his acting, damage tending to the destruction of that interest. As every wise, right act produces good, so every unwise, evil act prevents the doing of good, or destroys good that is proposed or sought to be done. And manifestly, if every act has its effect of good done, or of good prevented or destroyed, every actor, by hourly multiplying acts, as he must in merely living, either accumulates or prevents and destroys much good. And the evil effect, the good prevented or destroyed, is the same, whether the unwise and hurtful act proceeds from criminal heedlessness or from more criminal purpose and intent. B.