Ecclesiastes 5
v.1
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
We seek his guidance and listen to his words. The alternative is to suppose that offerings can be a substitute for a God-ordered life. Sometimes extreme concern over one issue is an unconscious screen against facing other issues. It is as though we call God’s attention to the sacrifice we are making while being blind to some essential command that he makes.
v.2
Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
The emphasis in v.2 is on rashness and haste. Prayer is not reciting a list as quickly as possible so as to rush once more into the round of daily life (cf. Mt 6:7-8).
Knowing, then, how widely the divine nature differs from our own, let us quietly remain within our proper limits. For it is both safer and more reverent to believe the majesty of God to be greater than we can understand, than, after circumscribing his glory by our misconceptions, to suppose there is nothing beyond our conception of it.
v.3
As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.
As personal and business cares produce dreams, which are unsubstantial things, so many words produce foolish and empty prayer. When we come before God, our minds are full of our own business rather than with the worship of God. When we talk too much, we usually talk like fools. This can especially bad in the house of God.
I had personally wrestled with the part of my nature that talks a lot. I seem to say whatever comes to my mind. I reasoned that if God created me this way, He would not deem something inherent as sinful. Yet, as I comb through Scriptures (esp. Proverbs), I am realizing that speaking many words is dangerous. I am learning to die to self so I can speak words that brings wisdom, healing, and most importantly, glory to God.
jj 11/18/2022
v.4
When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.
God takes no pleasure in fools.
v.5
It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.
See also cost of discipleship in v.29-30.
v.6
Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the [temple] messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands?
v.7
Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
v.11
As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?
The person who has an abundance of material possessions may become a miser (4:7-8) or may never know real friendship because of the numbers of acquaintances who want to share in the wealth.
v.12
The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep.
On the other hand, assuming that one has a living wage, the honest worker can sleep peacefully at night. But the anxieties on money-grubbers drive them to sleeping pills and tranquilizers.
If you are desirous of treasure, take the invisible and the intangible which is to be found in the heavens on high, not that which is in the deepest veins of the earth. Be poor in spirit and you will be rich, no matter what your worldly goods are. “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,” but in his virtue and in his faith. This richness will enrich you if you are rich in your relations to God. #ambrose
Why does he add, “whether he eat little or much”? Both these things usually bring sleeplessness, namely, indigence and excess of food; the one drying up the body, stiffening the eyelids and not suffering them to be closed; the other straitening and oppressing the breath and inducing many pains. But at the same time so powerful a persuasive is labor, that though both these things should befall them, servants are able to sleep. For since throughout the whole day, they are running about everywhere, ministering to their masters, being knocked about and hard pressed, and having but little time to take breath, they receive a sufficient recompense for their toils and labors in the pleasure of sleeping. And thus it has happened through the goodness of God toward humanity, that these pleasures are not to be purchased with gold and silver but with labor, with hard toil, with necessity, and every kind of discipline. Not so the rich. On the contrary, while lying on their beds, they are frequently without sleep through the whole night; and though they devise many schemes, they do not obtain such pleasure. But the poor person, when released from his daily labors, having his limbs completely tired, falls almost before he can lie down into a slumber that is sound, and sweet, and genuine, enjoying this reward, which is not a small one, of his fair day’s toils. Since therefore the poor person sleeps, and drinks, and eats with more pleasure than the rich person, what further value is left to riches, now deprived of the one advantage they seemed to have over poverty?
v.18
Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot.
The Teacher has described those who aim for money and lose real life. Can we then have life first and secondarily find a place for money? The refrain says yes, if we take life day by day from God and seek to know his plan, so far as it may be known. We must be willing to work.
v.19
Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.
We must also look for constructive uses of leisure—activity that may not bring much money but will bring the added enjoyment that the Teacher has in mind. Therefore, it is right to pray and to look for work that will produce enough to live on and possessions we can enjoy with a good conscience, because they are things God has given us to enjoy (1Ti 6:17).
This is the literal interpretation. If someone has much money, if he has lots of good food and many wines, he still cannot eat and drink all of it. But he doubtless has a gift: whatever he can consume, if he has enough food to satisfy him and enough drink, this is a gift from God. But when someone eats and drinks more than necessary, then it is not a gift from God but a gift from desire. Regarding the spiritual interpretation: God gives wisdom along with the riches and capabilities inherent in wisdom, that is, wisdom’s insights, so that people eat and drink from the things they have received: the bread of wisdom, its water, the wine, which he mingled into a cup. This is a gift from God. If one takes the spiritual in the right way, it is, finally, the grace of his lot.
v.20
He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.
In summary, the ideal for those devoted to God is that they not brood over the past or worry about the future; for God fills their hearts with joy (cf. Mt 6:25-34; Php 4:4-7).