Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes 5
1Guard your steps when you go to God’s house; for to draw near to listen is better than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they don’t know that they do evil. 2Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words. 4When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow. 5It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay. 6Don’t allow your mouth to lead you into sin. Don’t protest before the messenger that this was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice, and destroy the work of your hands? 7For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words; but you must fear God.
8If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them. 9Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field.
10He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity. 11When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to its owner, except to feast on them with his eyes?
12The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.
13There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. 14Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand. 15As he came out of his mother’s womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand. 16This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind? 17All his days he also eats in darkness, he is frustrated, and has sickness and wrath.
18Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion. 19Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God. 20For he shall not often reflect on the days of his life; because God occupies him with the joy of his heart.
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 56 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry4
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Solomon's design, in driving us off from the world, by showing us its vanity, is to drive us to God and to our duty, that we may not walk in the way of the world, but by religious rules, nor depend upon the wealth of the world, but on religious advantages…
Four things we are exhorted to in these verses: - I. To be conscientious in paying our vows. 1. A vow is a bond upon the soul (Num 30:2), by which we solemnly oblige ourselves, not only, in general, to do that which we are already bound to do, but, in some…
Solomon had shown the vanity of pleasure, gaiety, and fine works, of honour, power, and royal dignity; and there is many a covetous worldling that will agree with him, and speak as slightly as he does of these things; but money, he thinks, is a substantial…
John Gill20
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
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. The wise man, having observed…
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God,.... In private conversation care should be taken that no rash and unadvised words be spoken in haste, as were by Moses and David; and that no evil, nor even any idle…
For a dream cometh through the multitude of business,.... Or, "for as a dream" (q), so Aben Ezra; as that comes through a multiplicity of business in the daytime, in which the mind has been busied, and the body employed; and this brings on dreams in the night…
Keil & Delitzsch15
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
"Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and to go to hear is better than that fools give a sacrifice; for the want of knowledge leads them to do evil." The "house of God" is like the "house of Jahve," Sa2 12:20; Isa 37:1, the temple; אל…
"Be not hasty with thy mouth, and let not thy heart hasten to speak a word before God: for God is in heaven, and thou art upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. For by much business cometh dreaming, and by much talk the noise of fools." As we say in…
"When thou hast made a vow to God, delay not to fulfil it; for there is no pleasure in fools: that which thou hast vowed fulfil. Better that thou vowest not, than that thou vowest and fulfillest not. Let not thy mouth bring thy body into punishment; and say…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown17
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
rash--opposed to the considerate reverence ("keep thy foot," Ecc 5:1). This verse illustrates Ecc 5:1, as to prayer in the house of God ("before God," Isa 1:12); so Ecc 5:4-6 as to vows. The remedy to such vanities is stated (Ecc 5:6). "Fear thou God." God is…
As much "business," engrossing the mind, gives birth to incoherent "dreams," so many words, uttered inconsiderately in prayer, give birth to and betray "a fool's speech" (Ecc 10:14), [HOLDEN and WEISS]. But Ecc 5:7 implies that the "dream" is not a…
When thou vowest a vow unto God--Hasty words in prayer (Ecc 5:2-3) suggest the subject of hasty vows. A vow should not be hastily made (Jdg 11:35; Sa1 14:24). When made, it must be kept (Psa 76:11), even as God keeps His word to us (Exo 12:41, Exo 12:51; Jos…
World English Bible — Public domain