Ecclesiastes 4:3

Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. WHO HATH NOT SEEN - nor experienced....

1-3 It grieved Solomon to see might prevail against right. Wherever we turn, we see melancholy proofs of the wickedness and misery of mankind, who try to create trouble to themselves and to each other. Being thus hardly used, men are tempted to hate and despise life. But a good man, though badly off while in this world, cannot have cause to wish he had never been born, since he is glorifying the Lord, even in the fires, and will be happy at last, for ever happy. Ungodly men have most cause to wish the continuance of life with all its vexations, as a far more miserable condition awaits them if they die in their sins. If human and worldly things were our chief good, not to exist would be preferable to life, considering the various oppressions here below....

Verse Ecclesiastes 4:3. _WHICH HATH NOT YET BEEN_] Better never to have been born into the world, than to have _seen_ and _suffered_ so many miseries....

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

YEA, BETTER [IS HE] THAN BOTH THEY WHICH HATH NOT YET BEEN,.... That is, an unborn person; who is preferred both to the dead that have seen oppression, and to the living that are under it; see Job 3:10. This supposes a person to be that never was, a mere nonentity; and the judgment made is according to sense, and regards the dead purely as such, and so as free from evils and sorrows, without any respect to their future state and condition; for otherwise an unborn person is not happier than the dead that die in Christ, and live with him: and it can only be true of those that perish, of whom indeed it might be said, that it would have been better for them if they had never been born, according to those words of Christ, Matthew 26:24; and is opposed to the maxim of some philosophers, that a miserable bei

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....

BETTER. See note on Ecclesiastes 2:24....

_Yea, better is he than both they_ As the utterance of a personal feeling of despair we have a parallel in the words of Job (Ecclesiastes 3:11-16). As expressing a more generalised view of life we have multiform echoes of the thought in the Greek writers, of whose influence, direct or indirect, the book presents so many traces. Thus we have in Theognis: Πάντων μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον, μηδʼ ἐσιδεῖν αὐγὰς ὀξέος ἠελίου· φύντα δʼ ὄπως ὤκιστα πύλας Ἀΐδαο περῆσαι, καὶ κεῖσθαι πολλὴν γῆν ἐπαμησάμενον. "Best lot for men is never to be born, Nor ever see the bright rays of the morn: Next best, when born, to haste with quickest tread Where Hades" gates are open for the dead, And rest with much earth gathered for our bed." 425 428. Or in Sophocles: μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἄπαντα νικᾷ λόγον• τὸ δʼ, ἐπεὶ φανῇ,

YEA, BETTER IS HE THAN BOTH THEY— _Nay, I say, he is happier than either, who is not yet come to life, who hath not seen the misery that prevaileth under the sun._ Desvoeux. _ECCLESIASTES 4:4. AGAIN, I CONSIDERED ALL TRAVAIL_— _I observed again all the labour, nay, all the most successful work, that for this,_ &c....