Ecclesiastes 4:14

For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor. FOR OUT OF PRISON HE (THE POOR AND WISE CHILD) COMETH TO REIGN. Solomon uses this phrase of a supposed case-e.g., Joseph raised from a dungeon to be lord of Egypt. His words are at the same time so framed by the Holy Spirit that they answer virtually to Jeroboam, who fled, to escape a "prison" and death from Solomon, to Shishak of Egypt (). This unconscious presaging of his own doom, and that of Rehoboam, constitutes the irony. David's elevation from poverty and exile, under Saul (which may have been before Solomon's mind), had so far their counterpart in that of Jeroboam. WHEREAS ALSO (HE THAT IS) BORN IN HIS KINGDOM BECOMETH POOR - whereas the old king (in the person of his son. "the second child,...

13-16 People are never long easy and satisfied; they are fond of changes. This is no new thing. Princes see themselves slighted by those they have studied to oblige; this is vanity and vexation of spirit. But the willing servants of the Lord Jesus, our King, rejoice in him alone, and they will love Him more and more to all eternity....

Verse 14. _FOR OUT OF PRISON HE COMETH TO REIGN_] "Then Abraham left the country of the idolaters, where he had been _imprisoned_, and came and _reigned_ over the land of Canaan; and Nimrod became _poor_ in this world." This is the _fact_ to which the ancient rabbins supposed Solomon to allude....

These verses set forth the vanity of earthly prosperity even on a throne. Opinion as to their application is chiefly divided between considering them a parable or fiction like that of the childless man in Ecclesiastes 4:8 : or as setting forth first the vicissitudes of royal life in two proverbial sayings Ecclesiastes 4:13, and then Ecclesiastes 4:15, the vicissitudes or procession of the whole human race, one generation giving place to another, Which in its turn will be forgotten by its successor. On the whole, the first appears to have the better claim. Ecclesiastes 4:13

EXPOSITION ECCLESIASTES 4:1 Section 5. Koheleth proceeds to give further illustrations of _man_'_s inability to be the architect of his own happiness_._ _There are many things which interrupt or destroy it. ECCLESIASTES 4:1 First of all, he adduces the oppression of man by his fellow-man. ECCLESIASTES 4:1 SO I RETURNED, AND CONSIDERED ALL THE OPPRESSIONS THAT ARE DONE UNDER THE SUN. This is equivalent to, "again I saw," as Ecclesiastes 4:7, with a reference to the wickedness i

FOR OUT OF PRISON HE COMETH TO REIGN,.... That is, this is sometimes the case of a poor and wise child; he rises out of a low, mean, abject, obscure state and condition, to the highest dignity; from a prison house, or a place where servants are, to sit among princes, and even to have the supreme authority: so Joseph, to whose case Solomon is thought to have respect, and which is mentioned in the Midrash; who was but a young man, and poor and friendless, but wise; and was even laid in prison, though innocent and guiltless, from whence he was fetched, and became the second man in the kingdom of Egypt; so David, the youngest of Jesse's sons, was taken from the sheepfold, and set upon the throne of Israel: though Gussetius e interprets this of the old and foolish king, who comes out of the house or family, הסודים, of degenerate persons, as he translates the word, with a degenerate genius to...

CHAPTER 4 OBSERVATIONS OF DIFFERENT WRONGS _ 1. Concerning oppressions (Ecclesiastes 4:1)_ 2. Concerning envy of fools and the rich (Ecclesiastes 4:4) 3. Concerning the miser (Ecclesiastes 4:8) 4. Concerning popularity (Ecclesiastes 4:13) Ecclesiastes 4:1. He observes that the world is filled with oppressions. This connects with the statement made in the previous chapter, (verse 16). Criticism declares in connection with this passage that it could not have been written by

ECCLESIASTES 4. A GLOOMY SURVEY. The chapter falls into four parts, which treat respectively of oppression (Ecclesiastes 4:1), rivalry (Ecclesiastes 4:4), isolation amounting to self-torture (Ecclesiastes 4:7), and a paragraph on a young king's popularity (Ecclesiastes 4:13). ECCLESIASTES 4:1. Man's inhumanity to man awakens Qoheleth's compassion; THEY HAD NO COMFORTER must refer in both cases to the oppressed; the words are repeated for the sake of emphasis....

OUT OF PRISON, &C. Compare Joseph (Genesis 41:40); Daniel (Daniel 5:29; Daniel 6:1). BORN, &C. Compare Rehoboam, robbed by Shishak (1 Kings 14:25). POOR. needy, in want. Hebrew. _rush._ See note on "poverty", Proverbs 6:11.Proverbs 6:16; Proverbs 6:16 VEXATION. The same word as in...

_For out of prison he cometh to reign_ The pronouns are ambiguous in the Hebrew as in English, and the clauses have consequently been taken in very different ways, as referring to one and the same person, or to the two who had been named in the preceding verse (1) "FOR ONE COMETH OUT OF PRISON TO REIGN, THOUGH HE (THE YOUNG SUCCESSOR) WAS BORN POOR IN HIS KINGDOM" (that of the old king, or that which was afterwards to be his own); or (2) "FOR ONE COMETH OUT OF PRISON TO REIGN, WHILE A KING BECOMES A BEGGAR IN HIS KINGDOM." Here also a reference has been found to the history of Onias under Ptolemy Euergetes. Josephus describes him (_Ant_. xii. 4) as "of a little soul and a great lover of money" while his nephew Joseph "young in age" was "of great reputation for gravity, wisdom and justice," and obtained from the king permission to farm the revenues of Cœlesyria, Phœnicia, Samaria and Judæ...