Reflections on Ecclesiastes 4

 Ecclesiastes 04 (Contemporary English Version)

1. I looked again and saw people being mistreated everywhere on earth. They were crying, but no one was there to offer comfort, and those who mistreated them were powerful.
   
2. I said to myself, "The dead are better off than the living.
   
3. But those who have never been born are better off than anyone else, because they have never seen the terrible things that happen on this earth."
   
4. Then I realized that we work and do wonderful things just because we are jealous of others. This makes no more sense than chasing the wind.
   
5. Fools will fold their hands and starve to death.
   
6. Yet a very little food eaten in peace is better than twice as much earned from overwork and chasing the wind.
   
7. Once again I saw that nothing on earth makes sense.
   
8. For example, some people don't have friends or family. But they are never satisfied with what they own, and they never stop working to get more. They should ask themselves, "Why am I always working to have more? Who will get what I leave behind?" What a senseless and miserable life!
   
9. You are better off to have a friend than to be all alone, because then you will get more enjoyment out of what you earn.
   
10. If you fall, your friend can help you up. But if you fall without having a friend nearby, you are really in trouble.
    
11. If you sleep alone, you won't have anyone to keep you warm on a cold night.
    
12. Someone might be able to beat up one of you, but not both of you. As the saying goes, "A rope made from three strands of cord is hard to break."
    
13. You may be poor and young. But if you are wise, you are better off than a foolish old king who won't listen to advice.
    
14. Even if you were not born into the royal family and have been a prisoner and poor, you can still be king.
    
15. I once saw everyone in the world follow a young leader who came to power after the king was gone.
    
16. His followers could not even be counted. But years from now, no one will praise him--this makes no more sense than chasing the wind.

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Solomon concludes in chapter 3 that, "there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities, because that is his reward. For who can enable him to see what will happen after he dies?" (3:22) But now he says there is an unpleasant alternative to enjoying one's own activities and that is to suffer under an oppressor. And the one being oppressed is powerless to do anything for the power is with the oppressor. He said it is better to die than to be oppressed, but better still not yet to have been born.

He goes, then, into various incentives for one's labor:

• The first is envy. Envy, or rather competitiveness, is the incentive of the majority of people, he says. But it is a futile pursuit. One is better to be content with a little and have tranquility, than to strive for a lot accompanied by hard work and anxiety. But being motivated by envy is evidently better than being a fool who "folds his arms," making no effort to have anything and "consumes his own flesh."
  
• A second incentive for labor is selfish greed. This person pursues riches and then hoards it to himself. He has isolated himself from a companion, wife, or children and keeps it all to himself. This, too, is futile. In the end this person asks himself, "'So who am I struggling for . . . and depriving myself from good?'" (4:8) All his effort and wealth is meaningless. A better alternative is to have a partner to work alongside you, and even better is to have two partners. Two can have a good reward for their efforts, but with three there is an overpowering strength. This companionship is good not only for business but also for personal reasons. There is someone to help when you fall, or to keep you warm when it is cold.
  
• A third incentive for one's labor is the desire for advancement and prestige. What is the problem with this? It is short-lived, a futile pursuit. There is no lasting pleasure with prestige. Solomon says one is better to be poor but wise.