Ecclesiastes 6:1

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: AN EVIL ... COMMON AMONG MEN - or else, more literally, great upon man, falls heavily upon man. Wealth, which seems, on a superficial look, so great a good, often is found, on closer examination, to be a great evil....

1-6 A man often has all he needs for outward enjoyment; yet the Lord leaves him so to covetousness or evil dispositions, that he makes no good or comfortable use of what he has. By one means or other his possessions come to strangers; this is vanity, and an evil disease. A numerous family was a matter of fond desire and of high honour among the Hebrews; and long life is the desire of mankind in general. Even with these additions a man may not be able to enjoy his riches, family, and life. Such a man, in his passage through life, seems to have been born for no end or use. And he who has entered on life only for one moment, to quit it the next, has a preferable lot to him who has lived long, but only to suffer....

CHAPTER VI _The vanity of riches without use_, 1, 2. _Of children and of old age without riches and enjoyment_, 3-7. _Man does not know what is good for himself_, 8-12. NOTES ON CHAP. VI...

COMMON AMONG - Rather, great (heavy) upon people....

EXPOSITION ECCLESIASTES 6:1 Section 9. Koheleth proceeds to illustrate the fact which he stated at the end of the last chapter, viz. that the possession and enjoyment of wealth are alike the free gift of God. We may see men possessed of all the gifts of fortune, yet denied the faculty of enjoying them. Hence we again conclude that _wealth cannot secure happiness_. ECCLESIASTES 6:1 THERE IS AN EVIL WHICH I HAVE SEEN UNDER THE SUN. The writer presents his personal experience, that which has fallen under his own observation (comp. Ecclesiastes 5:13;...

THERE IS AN EVIL WHICH I HAVE SEEN UNDER THE SUN,.... The Vulgate Latin version reads it, another evil; but wrongly, for the same is considered as before, the evil of covetousness; which is one of the evil things that come out of the heart of man; is abominable to the Lord, contrary to his nature and will, and a breach of his law, which forbids it, and is the root of all evil; this is an evil under the sun, for there is nothing of this kind above it; and it fell under the observation of Solomon in various instances; AND IT [IS] COMMON AMONG MEN; or, "great over men" u; or "over the man", the covetous man: it spreads itself over them; few were free from it, even so long ago, in those early times, and in such times in which silver was made no account of, and was like stones in Jerusalem, as common as they; and yet the sin of covetousness, of hoarding up money and making no use of it, for...

CHAPTER 6 DISHEARTENING CONTRADICTIONS _ 1. Riches--Inability to enjoy them (Ecclesiastes 6:1)_ 2. Having All--Yet no fill of the soul (Ecclesiastes 6:3) 3. The sad ending wail (Ecclesiastes 6:10) Ecclesiastes 6:1. The first evil the wise searcher sees as a discouraging contradiction is, that God giveth a man riches, wealth, and honor so that he does not lack in anything whatever. But God does not give him the power to enjoy it, a stranger instead eats thereof. This makes impossible what he stated in the closing verses of the preceding chapter. The cherished desires of man

ECCLESIASTES 6. FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON WEALTH AND FATE. Parallel with the bitter experience of the avaricious man who loses his wealth is that of the rich and successful man whose cherished desires are unfulfilled. Having no keen satisfaction himself he yet hopes to see his son enjoy his acquisitions, but he is childless, or if he has the blessings of a large family (a hundred is just a round number) and a long life both highly prized by the Jews the children may disappoint him by their conduct and so fill his soul with sorrow instead of satisfying it with good, and he may even yet undergo the supreme dishonour of lacking interment. _Cf._ Jezebel (2 Kings 9:35) and Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:19), and many other references both in biblical and classical literature, especially the Greek legend of Antigone

UNDER THE SUN. See note on Ecclesiastes 1:3. MEN. Hebrew. _adam_ (with Art.). humanity. App-14. See note on Ecclesiastes 1:13....

_There is an evil which I have seen under the sun_ The picture is substantially the same as that of ch. Ecclesiastes 4:7-8. The repetition is characteristic, consciously or unconsciously, of the pessimism from which the writer has not yet emancipated himself. He broods over the same thought, chews, as it were, the "cud of bitter fancies" only, "_semper eandem canens cantilenam_." Here the picture is that of a man who has all outward goods in abundance, but he just lacks that capacity for enjoyment which is (as in ch. Ecclesiastes 5:20) the "gift of God," and he dies childless and a stranger becomes the heir. We are reminded of the aged patriarch's exclamation, "I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus" ...