Ecclesiastes 6:5

Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other. THIS - yet it. HATH MORE REST THAN THE OTHER - than the toiling, gloomy miser. The more unenviable is the state of the embryo, the worse is the misery of the covetous rich man. It has "rest" from suffering: he has no rest. He is to be pitied, not envied....

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....

Rather, it hath not seen nor known the sun: this (the untimely birth) hath rest rather than the other....

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;...

MOREOVER, HE HATH NOT SEEN THE SUN,.... This must be spoken of the abortive, and seems to confirm the sense of the former text, as belonging to it; and whereas it has never seen the light of the sun, nor enjoyed the pleasure and comfort of it, it is no ways distressing to it to be without it. The Targum is, "the light of the law he seeth not; and knoweth not between good and evil, to judge between this world and that to come:'' so the Vulgate Latin version, "neither knows the difference of good and evil"; NOR KNOWN [ANYTHING]; not the sun, nor anything else: or "experienced" z and "felt" the heat of the sun, and its comfortable influences; which a man may, who is blind, and has never seen it, but an abortive has not; and indeed has known no man, nor any creature nor thing in this world, and therefore it is no concern to it to be without them; and besides, has never had any knowledge o...

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

NOR KNOWN ANY THING: THIS HATH, &C.— _Nor known the difference of one thing from another:_ Ecclesiastes 6:6. _Nay, though he had lived twice a thousand years, without enjoying happiness, do not both go to one place?_ Desvoeux. Houbigant renders the clause in the 16th verse, _Yet hath he seen no good,_ by _enjoying good._ From the instances mentioned in the first and second proof, the sacred orator infers, from the third to the present verses, by way of _corollary,_ that the fate of an abortive is preferable to that of many men, and especially of those whose condition he had described, and to whose case he refers again. To have come into the world in vain; that is to say, so as to have nothing remaining of what one might imagine you came for; to depart without being taken notice of; to be soon forgotten; is the common fate of the abortive, and of the man who

2. It is possible to possess riches which cannot be enjoyed. Ecclesiastes 6:1-6 TEXT 6:1-6 1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is prevalent among men 2 a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires, but God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a sore affliction. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however they may be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things, and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, Better the miscarriage than he, 4 for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. 5 It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he. 6 Even if the other man lives a thou

LIFE AN ENIGMA 1-6. Riches will not secure happiness....