Ecclesiastes 5
Big idea: Two things people reach for when the accounting fails, examined in turn. First religion, and the counsel is almost entirely about the mouth: draw near to LISTEN, keep your words few, and if you vow, pay. Then money, and the observations are economic rather than moral — more income brings more people to feed, wealth can be lost in a bad venture, and a labourer sleeps better than the man who owns the field. The chapter ends on the fourth 'eat and drink', and adds something the others did not: God occupies him with joy so that he does not brood.
Chapter 5 examines worship and wealth. Chapter 6 takes the wealth case to its worst outcome — a man who has everything and no capacity to enjoy it.
5:1–7 — Let your words be few
Advice for the temple, and nearly all of it is about saying less. Draw near to LISTEN; do not be rash with your mouth; let your words be few. The reason given is spatial rather than moral — God is in heaven and you are on earth — and then vows, where the book's counsel is bluntly practical: better not to vow at all than to vow and not pay.
1 Guard 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. 2 Don’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. 3 For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words. 4 When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Don’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? 7 For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words; but you must fear God.
5:8–17 — The sleep of a laboring man is sweet
Money, examined as an economist would. The observations are not that wealth is wicked but that it does not do what it promises: silver does not satisfy the man who loves it, more goods bring more people to consume them, and the owner's remaining benefit is to LOOK at it. Then the comparison the passage is remembered for — the labourer sleeps, and the rich man does not.
8 If 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. 9 Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field. 10 He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to its owner, except to feast on them with his eyes? 12 The 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. 13 There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. 14 Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand. 15 As 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. 16 This 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? 17 All his days he also eats in darkness, he is frustrated, and has sickness and wrath.
5:18–20 — God occupies him with the joy of his heart
The fourth 'eat and drink', and it adds two things the earlier ones did not. The capacity to enjoy what you own is itself described as a separate gift — riches are one thing, and POWER TO EAT of them is another. And the final verse gives the mechanism: a man occupied with joy does not spend his days brooding over how few they are.
18 Behold, 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. 19 Every 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. 20 For he shall not often reflect on the days of his life, because God occupies him with the joy of his heart.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).