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Scriptural Text [& Editorial]
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Commentary & Explanation
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Footnotes ~ References ~ JST
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CHAPTER 6
Unless a man's soul is filled with good, his riches, wealth, honor, and posterity are
vanity.
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1 THERE is an evil which I have seen under the
sun, and it is common among men:
2 A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth,
and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth,
yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this
is vanity, and it is an evil adisease.
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2a
OR affliction, sadness
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3 ¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and
live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not
filled with good, and also that he have no aburial;
I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
4 For he cometh in awith vanity, and departeth in
darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
5 Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known
any thing: this hath more rest than the other.
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3a
Isa. 14:20;
Jer. 22:19
4a
OR in transitoriness
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6 ¶ Yea, though he live a thousand years
twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?
7 All the labour of man is for his mouth,
and yet the appetite is not filled.
8 For what hath the wise more than the
fool?a
what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
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8a what hath the wise more than the fool?
It would seem that in his old age, 'Wise' Solomon has lost his way. He questions in a number
of places as 'the preacher' is life is of any worth to the wise or the fool. When one turns
and the light of truth has become obscured unto darkness, it mattereth not how wise one once
was. And this is Solomon's situation in his mature years. The truth is that to be learned is
good if it is accompanied by the guidance and company of the Spirit of God. Since Solomon has
lost that he stumbles to find the value of life, particularly his own. The truth of course is
that life has great value as a progression step to eternal life and the attainment of the
principles of intelligence, that light of truth and wisdom, are raised with man in the life
hereafter and more to the advance of that man. Thus in short life is of great worth to those
who live in righteousness and in Christ. Others, like Solomon, often find a sense of a useless
life in the end when there is found no purpose in it without God.
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9 ¶ Better is the asight of the eyes
than the wandering of the desire: this is also bvanity and
cvexation of spirit.
10 That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it
is man: neither may he acontend with him that is mightier than he.
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9a
TG
Sight
b
TG
Vanity
c
Eccl. 1:14
10a
Job 9:3 (1-4);
Isa. 45:9
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11 ¶ Seeing there be many things that increase
avanity, what is man the bbetter?
12 For who knoweth what is good for man
in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a
shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
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11a
TG
Vanity
b
Eccl. 2:15
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