Ecclesiastes 4:2

Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) I praised the dead.—Job 3:11; Exodus 32:32; 1Kings 19:4; Jeremiah 20:14; Jonah 4:3. The word which is translated “yet” in this verse belongs to later Hebrew, and does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament,

Benson Commentary

Ecclesiastes 4:2-3. Wherefore I praised the dead, &c. — I judged them less miserable. For this is certain, that setting aside the future life, which Solomon doth not meddle with in the present debate, and considering the uncertainty, and vanity, and manifold calamities of the present life, a wise man would not account it worth his while to live. Yea, better is he than both they — “Much more desirable than either of these is it not to have come into the world at all; and so to have had no sense of the miseries which the dead have formerly felt, and which the living now undergo.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:1-3 It grieved Solomon to see might prevail against right. Wherever we turn, we see melancholy proofs of the wickedness and misery of mankind, who try to create trouble to themselves and to each other. Being thus hardly used, men are tempted to hate and despise life. But a good man, though badly off while in this world, cannot have cause to wish he had never been born, since he is glorifying the Lord, even in the fires, and will be happy at last, for ever happy. Ungodly men have most cause to wish the continuance of life with all its vexations, as a far more miserable condition awaits them if they die in their sins. If human and worldly things were our chief good, not to exist would be preferable to life, considering the various oppressions here below.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So I returned, and considered - Rather, And I returned and saw. He turns to look upon other phenomena, and to test his previous conclusion by them.

Oppressed - See the introduction to Ecclesiastes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. A profane sentiment if severed from its connection; but just in its bearing on Solomon's scope. If religion were not taken into account (Ec 3:17, 19), to die as soon as possible would be desirable, so as not to suffer or witness "oppressions"; and still more so, not to be born at all (Ec 7:1). Job (Job 3:12; 21:7), David (Ps 73:3, &c.), Jeremiah (Jer 12:1), Habakkuk (Hab 1:13), all passed through the same perplexity, until they went into the sanctuary, and looked beyond the present to the "judgment" (Ps 73:17; Hab 2:20; 3:17, 18). Then they saw the need of delay, before completely punishing the wicked, to give space for repentance, or else for accumulation of wrath (Ro 2:15); and before completely rewarding the godly, to give room for faith and perseverance in tribulation (Ps 92:7-12). Earnests, however, are often even now given, by partial judgments of the future, to assure us, in spite of difficulties, that God governs the earth.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I praised; I judged them more happy, or less miserable; which he seems to deliver not only as the judgment of the flesh, or of the sense, or of men in misery, as this is commonly understood, but as his own judgment. For this is most true and certain, that setting aside the advantage which this life gives him for the concerns of the future life, which Solomon doth not meddle with in the present debate, and considering the uncertainty, and vanity, and manifold vexations of mind, and outward calamities of the present life, a wise man would not account it worth his while to live, and would choose death rather than life. The dead which are already dead; those which are quite dead; who possibly are here opposed to them that, in respect of their deplorable and desperate condition, are even whilst they live called dead men, Isaiah 26:19, and said to die daily, 1 Corinthians 15:31.

The living which are yet alive; which languish under their pressures, of whom we can only say, as we use to speak of dying men, They are alive, and that is all.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Wherefore I praised the dead, which are already dead,.... Truly and properly so; not in a figurative sense, as dead sinners, men dead in trespasses and sins; nor carnal professors, that have a name to live, and are dead; nor in a civil sense, such as are in calamity and distress, as the Jews in captivity, or in any affliction, which is sometimes called death: but such who are dead in a literal and natural sense, really and thoroughly dead; not who may and will certainly die, but who are dead already and in their graves, and not all these; not the wicked dead, who are in hell, in everlasting torments; but the righteous dead, who are taken away from the evil to come, and are free from all the oppressions of their enemies, sin, Satan, and the world. The Targum is,

"I praised those that lie down or are asleep, who, behold, are now dead;''

a figure by which death is often expressed, both in the Old and New Testament; sleep being, as the poet (a) says, the image of death; and a great likeness there is between them; Homer (b) calls sleep and death twins. The same paraphrase adds,

"and see not the vengeance which comes upon the world after their death;''

see Isaiah 57:1. The wise man did not make panegyrics or encomiums on those persons, but he pronounced them happy; he judged them in his own mind to be so; and to be much

more happy

than the living which are yet alive: that live under the oppression of others; that live in this world in trouble until now, as the Targum; of whom it is as much as it can be said that they are alive; they are just alive, and that is all; they are as it were between life and death. This is generally understood as spoken according to human sense, and the judgment of the flesh, without any regard to the glory and happiness of the future state; that the dead must be preferred to the living, when the quiet of the one, and the misery of the other, are observed; and which sense receives confirmation from Ecclesiastes 4:3, otherwise it is a great truth, that the righteous dead, who die in Christ and are with him, are much more happy than living saints; since they are freed from sin; are out of the reach of Satan's temptations; are no more liable to darkness and desertions; are freed from all doubts and fears; cease from all their labours, toil, and trouble; and are delivered from all afflictions, persecutions, and oppressions; which is not the case of living saints: and besides, the joys which they possess, the company they are always in, and the work they are employed about, give them infinitely the preference to all on earth; see Revelation 14:13.

(a) "Stulte, quid est semnus gelidae nisi mortis imago?" Ovid. Plato in Ciceron. Tuscul. Quaest. l. 1. c. 58. (b) Iliad. 16. v. 672, 682. Vid. Pausan. Laconica, sive l. 3. p. 195.

Geneva Study Bible

Wherefore I praised the {b} dead who are already dead more than the living who are yet alive.

(b) Because they are no longer subject to these oppressions.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - In view of these patent wrongs Koheleth loses all enjoyment of life. Wherefore (and) I praised the dead which are already dead; or, who died long ago, and thus have escaped the miseries which they would have had to endure. It must, indeed, have been a bitter experience which elicited such an avowal. To die and be forgotten an Oriental would look upon as the most calamitous of destinies. More than the living which are yet alive. For these have before them the prospect of a long endurance of oppression and suffering (comp. Ecclesiastes 7:1; Job 3:13, etc.). The Greek gnome says -

Κρεῖσσον τὸ μὴ ζῇν ἐστὶν η} ζῇν ἀθλίως

"Better to die than lead a wretched life." The Septuagint version is scarcely a rendering of our present text: "Above the living, as many as are living until now." Ecclesiastes 4:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And I praised the dead who were long ago dead, more than the living who are yet in life; and as happier than both, him who has not yet come into existence, who hath not seen the evil work which is done under the sun." ושׁבּח is hardly thought of as part., like יוּקשׁים equals מיקּשׁים, Ecclesiastes 9:12; the m of the part. Pih. is not usually thrown away, only מהר, Zephaniah 1:14, is perhaps equals ממהר, but for the same reason as בּית־אל, 2 Kings 2:3, is equals בּבית - אל. Thus ושׁבּח, like ונתון, Ecclesiastes 8:9, is inf. absol., which is used to continue, in an adverbially subord. manner, the preceding finite with the same subject,

(Note: Also 1 Chronicles 5:20, the subject remains virtually the same: et ita quidem ut exaudirentur.)

Genesis 41:43; Leviticus 25:14; Judges 7:19, etc.; cf. especially Exodus 8:11 : "Pharaoh saw ... and hardened (והכבּד) his heart;" just in the same manner as ושׁבּח here connects itself with ושׁ אני וא. Only the annexed designation of the subject is peculiar; the syntactic possibility of this connection is established by Psalm 15:5, Job 40:2, and, in the second rank, by Genesis 17:10; Ezekiel 5:14. Yet אני might well enough have been omitted had וש אני וא not stood too remote. Regarding עדנה

(Note: Thus punctuated with Segol under Daleth, and ,נ raphatum, in F. H. J. P. Thus also Kimchi in W.B. under עד.)

and עדן. The circumstantial form of the expression: prae vivis qui vivi sunt adhuc, is intentional: they who are as yet living must be witnesses of the manifold and comfortless human miseries.

It is a question whether Ecclesiastes 4:3 begins a new clause (lxx, Syr., and Venet.) or not. That את, like the Arab. aiya, sometimes serves to give prominence to the subject, cannot be denied (vid., Bttcher, 516, and Mhlau's remarks thereto). The Mishnic expressions היּום אותו, that day, הארץ אותהּ, that land, and the like (Geiger, 14. 2), presuppose a certain preparation in the older language; and we might, with Weiss (Stud. ueber d. Spr. der Mishna, p. 112), interpret אשׁר את in the sense of אותי אשר, is qui. But the accus. rendering is more natural. Certainly the expression טוב שׁבּח, "to praise," "to pronounce happy," is not used; but to טוב it is natural to suppose וקראתי added. Jerome accordingly translates: et feliciorem utroque judicavi qui necdum natus est. הרע has the double Kametz, as is generally the case, except at Psalm 54:7 and Micah 7:3.

(Note: Vid., Heidenheim, Meor Enajim, under Deuteronomy 17:7.)

Better than he who is born is the unborn, who does not become conscious of the wicked actions that are done under the sun. A similar thought, with many variations in its expression, is found in Greek writers; see regarding these shrill discordances, which run through all the joy of the beauty and splendour of Hellenic life, my Apologetick, p. 116. Buddhism accordingly gives to nirvna the place of the highest good. That we find Koheleth on the same path (cf. Ecclesiastes 6:3; Ecclesiastes 7:1), has its reason in this, that so long as the central point of man's existence lies in the present life, and this is not viewed as the fore-court of eternity, there is no enduring consolation to lift us above the miseries of this present world.