| Chapter 5: Religion
There are three parts to this chapter. The first part is to do with the
worship of God. This is in verses 1-7. Then verses 8-17 are about riches
and the things that we have in this life. All these things are empty,
says the Teacher. In verses 18-20 we have again his answer to the question
which he asked.
Verses 1-7: The worship of God
God gives us so many good things (2:24-25; 3:13). Perhaps we should at
least give something to God in return. Then in chapter 4 we saw pictures
of men who were alone. Even the loneliest man can go to God in prayer.
So (verse 1) the Teacher says: ‘Go to God’s House’. This most likely means
the Jerusalem temple. We know almost nothing of any other meeting places
for prayer or worship in Old Testament times (Psalm 74:8). ‘Watch your
step’. We are to take great care how we behave when we go to God’s house.
We want to talk to God, but it is better to listen to Him. We must listen
to Him and we must do what He says. God’s word does us no good unless
we obey it (1 Samuel 15:22).
Still, even to listen is better than what the ‘fool’ does. He wants to
give something to God. In those days, that meant that you gave an animal.
It was a ‘sacrifice’. The priest killed it in worship to God. With this
kind of ‘sacrifice’ the priest gave most of the meat back. Then the man
who had brought the sacrifice had a good meal with some of his friends.
They had such a good time that in the end ‘they did wrong’. They quite
forgot that they were in God’s house. Those who listen to what God says
to them will not sin like this.
Verse 2 seems to be ‘proverbs’. If we speak too quickly, it is because
our heart too is ‘hasty’ or too quick. ‘God is in heaven’. He is great.
He is above us and sees everything. We are ‘on earth’. We are small. We
cannot see very much. We shall not say very much. We shall think with
care before we speak.
Now we can find much teaching like this in the Bible. Jesus in Matthew
5:33-37 teaches us not to talk too much. James 5:12 is like this. Indeed
in James 5:1-20 we can find many good uses for speaking. There is lots
more teaching like this all through James. We may say: ‘I did not do anything.
I only said such and such’. But if you look at Colossians 3:17, you will
see that what we say is a part of what we do.
Still, Christians know that God is their Father in heaven. They will always
feel free to pray to Him.
Verse 3 is again a proverb. It has two parts to it, but it is not easy
to see how they fit together. Perhaps it means this. If you dream a lot,
it is because you worry about your work. If you hear a lot of talk, you
can be sure that you have met a ‘fool’. See Matthew 6:7.
Now in verses 4-6 the Teacher gives us teaching about our promises or
‘vows’ or ‘oaths’ to God. All this is rather like Deuteronomy 23:22-24.
The teaching of Jesus and of the Letter of James goes even further than
this. We should not ‘swear’, that is take vows or oaths, at all. This
is still today very important teaching for us. It is wrong for people
to promise to God that they will never marry. It is quite wrong to join
‘clubs’ or societies and to make promises that you will not give away
their secrets. See also the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 23:16-22.
So in verse 4, it seems that a man goes up to the Temple. He sees one
of the priests. He says: ‘I will bring an animal for sacrifice. I will
do it by such-and-such a day. I promise before God that I will do it’.
The priest makes a note of this. But the man does not keep his promise.
Each day that goes by, he finds it harder to keep his promise. We are
all like that. (Verse 5) It is better not to make a promise to God in
the first place than not to keep it. (Verse 6) So on the last day, the
priest says: ‘That man has not kept his promise to God yet’. So the priest
sends someone with a message. We should not think of an angel here, although
some Bibles may have ‘angel’ rather than ‘messenger’. The person who has
come from the Temple finds the man who made the promise. But he just says
to the messenger ‘Oh, I should never have made that promise to God’.
Verse 7 is not easy. But we can see that ‘dreaming’ is empty. The Teacher
says that when we talk a lot, that is empty too. But the ‘fear of God’
is not empty at all. When we have the fear of God in our hearts, that
is ‘full’. It is full of God’s blessing.
Verses 8-17 Rich and poor
The meaning of verses 8 and 9 is not very clear to us. Yet we can see
that in verse 8, the Teacher talks about government. There is more than
one level. There are men who work in the bottom level. The men in the
next level up watch the ones below them. Then there are more people at
another level who watch them.
This means that when things go wrong, there is always an excuse. It may
be the man below. It may be the next man up. There is always someone else
to blame. Poor people cannot wait for what is theirs by right. They cannot
even pay to make things happen. Questions that need an answer just get
lost on the way up or down. Now of course government is not always like
this. Christian men who work for the Government will only do what is right.
They will not make people give them more money than is right. (See Luke
3:12-14; 19:8.) Christian men should always ask themselves: ‘Is there
some way to give more help to people’?
Verse 9 says something about the land and about the king. Perhaps the
point is that it is better to have a king and land which people farm.
This is better than no government at all. It is a better life than that
of people who wander and hunt and have no real homes. Perhaps, also, the
king can do something about the bad officials in verse 8.
Verses 10 to 12 are proverbs. Verse 10 teaches us that it is wrong to
love riches. It is not wrong to be rich. If a rich man loves people, he
will use his riches to help them. If a rich man loves riches he will want
more riches. (See 1 Timothy 6:9 and 10.) ‘Money’ here is really ‘silver’.
[4.2]
No one had made money or coins at this time. People weighed lumps of silver
instead. What the Teacher says is this: ‘We like to have money. We feel
safer if we have money. Yet it cannot give us safety’. Really, it has
no meaning in life.
Verse 11 says that the more goods we have, the more mouths we have to
feed. People gather round a rich man. They are ‘hangers-on’. (See Isaiah
22:23-25!) The rich man watches as other people eat what he had worked
to gain. It does not do him any good.
Verse 12 gives us two pictures. There is the poor man. He has worked hard
all day. He really is tired. Even if he has a good meal at the end of
the day, he goes to bed. He sleeps well. He knows nothing until the next
morning. Then there is the rich man. He has been busy but not with hard
work. He eats too much ‘good’ food. He goes to bed and lies awake. He
has so much. He worries about all that he owns. And that ‘good’ food will
not let him sleep either. Really the poor man is better off than the rich
man is!
In verses 13 and 14, the Teacher tells us about a bad thing, which he
has seen. It is so bad, he says, that it makes you feel quite sick. There
is a man who tried to get more out of this life than it can give. He spoils
his life twice over. First, he works and works and makes himself rich.
Then he uses all his money in a way that is not wise. This is a ‘risky
business’. It is not wrong. He loses the lot. His wife has a son, but
the father has nothing to give to his son.
Verse 15 seems to come from Job 1:21. A man may work all his life. You
cannot carry anything with you in your hand when you die! The answer to
the question: ‘How much did he leave!’ is always the same: ‘Everything!’
You cannot take it with you and what you leave behind when you die often
causes trouble.
In verse 16, we have something else which is so bad that it makes the
Teacher feel quite sick. A man is born. He works hard all his life. He
dies. All he has gained is the air he breathes!
Verse 17 gives a very dark picture of this man. He does not forgive other
people. He is often ill. He is usually angry.
Verses 18-20: Another answer to the question
It seems that the Teacher gets tired of talk like this. We must look at
things in a different way. The secret is this. Right through verses 8-17,
there has been no place for God. In verses 18-20, the Teacher speaks of
God four times. In this way, the Teacher gives to us the answer to his
own question. God must have the right place in life. Then life will not
be empty. We shall gain from life.
So in verse 18, the Teacher says: ‘Look! Here is a good thing that is
beautiful!’ It is for a man ‘to eat and drink’. That means that he leads
a happy life. Then we do not need to get away from work. We do not need
to be ‘idle’. People who have no work to do will not be happy. We are
to enjoy hard work ‘under the sun’. We may feel that life is short. It
is ‘a few days’. But still life is the gift to us of God’s grace.
In verse 19, there is another very special gift from God. There is the
picture of a man. One gift God has given to him is riches. The other gift
God gives this man is the power over riches. His riches do not master
him. He masters his riches. He knows how to use and to enjoy all that
God has given to him. (Verse 20) He is busy with the work that God has
given to him. He does not have time to think much about the past. The
years pass, but he does not think: ‘It might all have turned out so much
better’.
Sadly, the Teacher seems to talk about other people all the time. He does
not say: ‘This is true of me. This is what my life is like’. We shall
find the opposite of this happy life in the next chapter.
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