Ecclesiastes 8:9, 10 All this have I seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun… The enunciation in the preceding verses of a firm conviction in the moral government of the world by God might have been expected to have silenced for ever doubts excited by the inequalities and irregularities so often apparent in human society. The possession of a master key might have been expected to deliver the wanderer from the mazes of the labyrinth. But so great is the power of the actual, so varying is the strength of faith, that at times belief in a God of infinite wisdom and power and love seems a fallacious theory, contradicted and disproved by the facts of everyday life. And so our author, after bidding his readers to wait patiently for the manifestation of God's justice against evil-doers, gives utterance to the perplexity and distress occasioned by his long delay. He thinks of the successful oppressor, prosperous in life and honored in burial, and contrasts with him the righteous driven into exile, and dying in obscurity and forgotten by all his fellows. Such seems to be the meaning of these verses, according to the translation given in the Revised Version, "All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work under the sun: there is a time wherein one man hath power over another to his hurt. And withal I saw the wicked buried, and they came to the grave; and they that had done right went away from the holy place, and were forgotten in the city: this also is vanity." It is just the state of matters described in the first part of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus - the one enjoying in this life good things, the other evil - and because the Preacher is not able to draw aside the veil that divides the temporal from the eternal, he cannot be sure that the inequality of the lots of the wicked and the righteous is ever remedied. He describes (1) the prosperity of the wicked; and (2) the adversity of the righteous. I. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED. It is still the despot whom he has in his mind's eye. He sees him ruling over others to their hurt, and at last receiving honorable burial, and finding rest in the grave. No insurrection of oppressed and pillaged subjects cuts short his tyrannous rule; he is undisturbed by enemies from without; he escapes the dagger of the assassin, and dies peacefully in his bed. And even then, when the fear he inspired in his lifetime is relaxed, no outbreak of popular indignation interferes with the stately ceremonial with which he is laid in the tomb. "There is not wanting the long procession of the funeral solemnities through the streets of Jerusalem, the crowd of hired mourners, the spices and ointment very precious, wrapping the body; nor yet the costly sepulcher, with its adulatory inscription." He might have been the greatest benefactor his subjects had known, the holiest of his generation, so completely has he received the portion of those who have lived prosperous and honored lives (cf. 2 Chronicles 16:14; 2 Chronicles 26:23; 2 Chronicles 28:27). The punishment merited by an evil life has not fallen upon him; the Divine Judge has delayed his coming until it is too late, as far as this life is concerned, for justice to be done, and therefore the faith of those who wait patiently upon God is subjected to a severe strain. II. THE ADVERSITY OF THE RIGHTEOUS. While the wicked flourish in undisturbed peace, the righteous have often to endure hardships. The decree of banishment goes out against them; with slow and lingering steps they are compelled against their will to depart from the place which they love. They must go forth, and only too soon are they forgotten in the city, i.e. the holy city; a younger generation knows nothing more of them, and not even a gravestone brings them back to the memory of their people. This also is vanity, like the many others already registered - this, viz., that the wicked while living, and also in their death, possess the sacred soil; while, on the contrary, the upright are constrained to depart from it and are soon forgotten (Delitzsch). It seems a stain upon the Divine righteousness that this should be so; that so long an interval should elapse between the commission of the offence and the dawning of the day of retribution, and that in so many cases it would appear as if retribution never came. This is calculated to try our faith, and happy are we if the trial strengthens our faith. But one thing must not be left out of account - the Preacher dwells upon it in a subsequent verse - and that is that external circumstances of prosperity or adversity are not of supreme importance; that righteousness even with misfortunes is infinitely preferable to wickedness, whatever measure of external prosperity it may enjoy. Whether happiness or misery in this life be their outward lot, in the end "it shall be well with them that fear God" (ver. 12). - J.W. Parallel Verses KJV: All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. |
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