Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed… Many different phases of human misery are depicted in this book, many different moods of depression recorded; some springing from the disquietude of the writer's mind, others from the disorders he witnessed in the world about him. Sensuous pleasure he had declared (Ecclesiastes 3:12, 13, 22) to be the only good for man, but now he finds that even that is not always to be secured. There are evils and miseries that afflict his fellows, against which he cannot shut his eyes. A vulgar sensualist might drown sorrow in the wine-cup, but he cannot, "His merriment is spoiled by the thought of the misery of others, and he can find nothing 'under the sun 'but violence and oppression. In utter despair, he pronounces the dead happier than the living" (Cheyne). If he does not actually deny the immortality of the soul, and is therefore without the consolation of believing that in a life to come the evils of the present may be reversed and compensated for, he ignores it as something of which we cannot be sure. We may see in this passage the germ of a higher character than is to be formed by the most elaborate self-culture; the spontaneous and deep compassion for the sufferings of others which the writer manifests tells us that a nobler emotion than the desire of personal enjoyment fills his mind. He tells us what he saw in his survey of society, and the feelings which were excited within him by the sight. I. THE WIDESPREAD MISERY CAUSED BY INJUSTICE AND CRUELTY. (Ver. 1.) His description has been only too frequently verified in one generation after another of the world's history. "Man's inhumanity to man Hakes countless thousands mourn." The barbarities of savage life, the wars and crusades carried on in the name of religion, the cruelties perpetrated by despotic rulers to secure their thrones, the hardships of the slave, the pariah, and the down-trodden, fill out the picture suggested by the words, "I considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun." They all spring from the abuse of power (ver. 1), which might and should have been used for the protection and comfort of men. The husband and father, the king, the priest, the magistrate, are all invested with rights and authority of a greater or less extent over others, and the abuse of this power leads to hardships and suffering on the part of those subject to them which it is almost impossible to remedy. For many of the evils that may afflict a community a revolution may seem the only way of deliverance; and yet that in the vast majority of cases means, in the first instance, multiplying disorders and inflicting fresh sufferings. Anarchy is a worse evil than bad government, and the fact that this is so, is calculated to make the most ardent patriot hesitate before attempting to set wrong right with a strong hand. II. THE FEELINGS EXCITED BY A CONTEMPLATION OF HUMAN MISERY. (Vers. 2, 3.) One good point in the character of the speaker we have already noticed, and that is that he cannot banish the thought of the distresses of others by attending to his own ease and self-enjoyment. He is not like the rich man in the parable, who fared sumptuously every day, and took no notice of the hungry, naked beggar covered with sores that lay at his gate (Luke 16:19-21). On the contrary, a deep compassion fills his heart at the thought of the oppressed who have no comforter, and the fact that he cannot deliver them or ameliorate their lot does not lead him to consider it unnecessary for him to distress himself about them; it rather tends to deepen the despondency he feels, and to make him think those happy who have done with life, and rest in the place where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest" (Job 3:17). Yea, better, he thinks, never to have been than to see the evil work that is done under the sun (ver. 3). The distress which the sight of the sufferings of the oppressed produces is unrelieved by any consolatory thought. The writer does not, as I have said, anticipate a future life in which the righteous are happy, and the wicked receive the due reward of their deeds; he does not invoke the Divine interposition on behalf of the oppressed in the present life, or speak of the salutary discipline of sufferings meekly borne. In short, we do not find here any light cast upon the problem of evil in a world governed by a God of infinite power, wisdom, and love, such as is given in other passages of Holy Scripture (Job, passim; Psalm 73.; Hebrews 12:5-11). But we may freely admit that the depth and intensity of feeling with which our author speaks of human misery is infinitely preferable to a superficial optimism founded, not upon Christian faith, but upon an imperfect appreciation of moral an-d spiritual truth, and generally accompanied by a selfish indifference to the welfare of others. A striking parallel to the thought in this passage is to be found in the teaching of Buddhism. The spectacle of miseries of old age, disease, and death, drove the Indian prince, Cakya Mouni, to find in Nirvana (annihilation, or unconscious existence) a solution of the great problem. But both are superseded by the teaching of Christ, who gives us to understand that "not to have been born" is not a blessing which the more spiritually minded might covet, but a state better only than that exceptional misery which is the doom of exceptional guilt (Matthew 26:24). - J.W. Parallel Verses KJV: So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. |
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