Ecclesiastes 6:3

If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. BEGET AN HUNDRED (I:E., VERY MANY) CHILDREN (thus not having a "stranger" as his heir, ), AND LIVE MANY YEARS, SO THAT THE DAYS OF HIS YEARS BE MANY (the phrase hints that at best man's years are but days, short and soon gone, ), AND (YET) HIS SOUL BE NOT FILLED WITH GOOD ... (; ); ... UNTIMELY BIRTH (AN EMBRYO) (IS) BETTER THAN HE - for, though it enjoy...

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....

Verse Ecclesiastes 6:3. _IF A MAN BEGET A HUNDRED_ CHILDREN] If he have the most numerous family and the largest possessions, and is so much attached to his riches that he grudges himself a monument; an _abortion_ in the eye of reason is to be preferred to such a man; _himself_ is contemptible, and his _life_ worthless. The abortion _comes in with vanity_ - baulks expectation, _departs in_ _darkness_ - never opened its eyes upon the light, and _its name is_ _covered with darkness_ - it has no place in the family register, or in the chronicles of Israel. This, that hath neither _seen the sun,_ _nor known any thing_ is preferable to the _miser_ who has his coffers and granaries well furnished, should he have _lived a thousand_ _years_, and had _a hundred children_. He _has seen_ - possessed, no good;...

NO BURIAL - For a corpse to lie unburied was a circumstance in itself of special ignominy and dishonor (compare the marginal references)....

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;...

IF A MAN BEGET AN HUNDRED [CHILDREN],.... Sons and daughters, a certain number for an uncertain. Some have had many children, and almost this number; Rehoboam had twenty eight sons and threescore daughters; and Ahab had seventy sons, how many daughters is not said, 2 Chronicles 11:21; this was reckoned a great honour and happiness to have many children; happy was the man that had his quiver full of them, Psalms 127:3; such a case is here supposed; AND LIVE MANY YEARS, SO THAT THE DAYS OF HIS YEARS BE MANY; or "sufficient", as Jarchi interprets it; he lives as long as life is desirable; lives to a good old age, to the full age of men, threescore years and ten; yea, supposing he was to live to be as old as Methuselah, and his soul be no

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

FILLED. satisfied....

_If a man beget an hundred children_ A case is put, the very opposite of that described in the preceding verse. Instead of being childless the rich man may have children, and children's children; may live out all his days. What then? Unless his "soul be filled with good," unless there is the capacity for enjoyment, life is not worth living. Still, as before, "it were good never to have been born." We may probably trace an allusive reference to Artaxerxes Mnemon, who is reported to have had 115 children, and who died of grief at the age of 94, at the suicide of one of his sons, and the murder of another, both caused by a third son, Ochus, who succeeded him (Justin, x. 1). _and also that he have no burial_ The sequence of thought seems at first strange. Why should this be, from the writer's standpoint, as the climax of sorrow? Why should he who had noted so keenly the vanities of life put...