Ecclesiastes 4:9

Two are better than one The strain of moralising which follows indicates at least the revived capacity for a better feeling. As the Debater had turned from the restless strivings of the seeker after wealth to the simple enjoyment of the labouring man or even the sensuous pleasure of the indolent, so now he turns from the isolation of the avaricious to the blessings of companionship. Here at least, in that which carries a man out of himself, there is a real good, a point scored as "gain." Here also, over and above his own experience the Seeker may have been helped by the current thought of his Greek teachers, the κοινά τὰ φίλων of the proverb, or the lines of Homer,

Σύν τε δύʼ ἐρχομένω, καὶ τε πρὸ ὃ τοῦ ἐνόησεν

Ὅππως κέρδος ἔῃ• μοῦνος δʼ εἴπερ τε νοήσῃ,

Ἀλλά τε οἱ βράσσων τε νόυς λεπτὴ δέ τε μῆτις.

"When two together go, each for the other

Is first to think what best will help his brother;

But one who walks alone, though wise in mind,

Of purpose slow and counsel weak we find."

Iliad, x. 224 6.

So the Greek proverb ran as to friends

χεὶρ χεῖρα νίπτει, δακτυλός τε δάκτυλον.

"Hand cleanseth hand, and finger finger helps."

The "good reward" is more than the mere money result of partnership, and implies the joy of

"United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard."

The literature of well-nigh all ages and races abound in expressions of the same thought. Aristotle dedicates two whole books (viii. ix.) of his Ethics to the subject of Friendship, and Cicero made it the theme of one of his most finished essays. Commonly, however, men rested it, as the writer does here, mainly on the basis of utility. "The wise man," says Seneca (Epist. ix. 8) from his higher Stoic standpoint, "needs a friend, not as Epicurus taught, that he may have one to sit by his bed when he is ill, or to help him when he is poor or in prison, but that he may have one by whose bed he may sit, whom he may rescue when he is attacked by foes." We may point also to Proverbs 17:17; Proverbs 27:17, and the Jewish proverb "a man without friends is like a left hand without the right" (Pirke Aboth, f. 30. 2) as utterances of a like nature. It is, however to be noted, in connexion with the line of thought that has been hitherto followed in these notes as to the date and authorship of the book, that the preciousness of friendship as one of the joys of life was specially characteristic of the school of Epicurus (Zeller, Stoics and Epicureans, c. xx.). It was with them the highest of human goods, and the wise would value it as the chief element of security (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 148). The principle thus asserted finds, it may be added, its highest sanction in the wisdom of Him who sent out His disciples "two and two together" (Luke 10:1).

if they fall The special illustration appears to be drawn from the experience of two travellers. If one slip or stumble on a steep or rocky path the other is at hand to raise him, while, if left to himself, he might have perished.