The Preacher has just attained for a moment to higher ground, from which he may get a wider view of life with all its changes and anomalies (vers. 12, 13). His hope revives, his faith comes back. "For a moment he has pierced through the ring which has confined him to the interests of common life, and risen also above his own dark misgivings; and there has flashed across his soul for a moment the certainty that there is a power in the world that 'makes for righteousness,' a Divine and supreme law behind all the puzzles and anomalies of life, which will solve them all. He lays his hand on this, but he cannot grasp it" (Bradley.). The inequalities in human lot, the just suffering as though they had been wicked, the wicked prospering as though they had been righteous, afflict his heart once more (ver. 13). His recurrence so often to this perplexing phenomenon is almost painful; it reveals a distress so deep that no arguments can diminish it, no exercise of faith can charm it away. Nothing but fresh light upon the mysteries of life and death can give relief, and this is denied him. He is one of those of whom the Savior spoke (Luke 10:24) who desired to see and hear the things seen and heard by those who were privileged to receive a revelation of God in Christ, but whose longings were doomed never to be satisfied on earth. In the mean time to what conclusion did the Preacher come? To that which he has already expressed four times over (Ecclesiastes 2:24; Ecclesiastes 3:12, 22; Ecclesiastes 5:18) - that it is better to enjoy the good things of life than to pine after an impossible ideal; to eat the fruit of one's toil in spite of all that is calculated to sadden and perplex (ver. 14). Yet we must be fair to him. He does not recommend riot and excess, or a life of mere epicurean enjoyment. There is work to be done in life before enjoyment is won; there is a God from whom the blessings come as a gift, and the remembrance of this fact will prevent mere brutish self, indulgence. The fear of God gives a dignity to his counsel which is wanting in the somewhat similar words of heathen poets, in which we have Epicureanism pure and simple - in the songs of Anacreon and Horace and Omar Khayyam. It would indeed be a mistake to imagine that the advice he gives, however often it is repeated, is the best that can be given, or even the best that he has to give. It prescribes but a temporary relief from sorrow and care and perplexity. And even when he makes the most of the satisfaction gained by "eating and drinking and being merry," we remember his own words, that "it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting" (Ecclesiastes 7:2). - J.W.

There is doubtless a law for everything in heaven and on earth; a systematic connection between cause and effect, alike in the physical, moral and spiritual existences. Our wise men acknowledge this, and find in the heavens above and the earth beneath, as far as their intellects can penetrate, a sequence and an irrevocable destiny in everything they study. But as for the laws that morally govern the world, that give rise to its convulsions and preserve its peace, that dismay us now and overjoy us then, that frustrate our plans or help us to attain our desires, from the dismemberment of a kingdom to the trivialities of existence — these laws are unwritten. The Almighty has set the machinery of nature in motion, and its action is unchangeable till its destiny is attained. But He sits with the sceptre of His moral government in His hands, and the rules by which He governs, and the ends He means to attain, we know not; and it is this ignorance of the Almighty's plans which baffles our little hopes. It is with this dissimilitude of events as they occur with those we had hoped and striven for, and by probability led ourselves to expect, that our text has to do. It deals with the apparent reversal in many cases of an ordinary law, and shows the utter impossibility of human minds gaining any clue to the moral events which happen, or may happen, around us. Men make use of their limited wisdom to produce a desired effect. If that effect is not gained they abandon their attempts. The initiative is their own, and they abandon it as they please. Far otherwise is it, however, in matters of moral or spiritual import. The initiative is not man's, but the Almighty's. Eternal life is not a bait held out for our greed to clutch at, but rather a spontaneous reward for our obedience and love. That this is clearly a principle, our text teaches, and everyday life verifies. The good man in this world often meets with the treatment, and is placed in the circumstances, which attend the career of the vilest; while the wicked man oft sits in the highest place, and mockingly sways his prostrate courtiers with the arrogant pretentiousness of a usurped power. He thinks his position is the reward of his genius, and scoffs at the idea of anything having to do with his elevation but himself. These reversed positions clearly show that the reward or punishment of the good or wicked does not necessarily begin, and clearly does not end, with this mortal life. This, to a good man, is a source of joy. He forgets his present ignominy in his future hopes: the present calamity he takes as an earnest for his future bliss. The wicked man, however, often has somewhat of his own way in the world. He takes the present as his all, and is satisfied therewith. He wants no future reward: his enjoyment now is ample, and instead of taking warning from the position of the good man as indicative of what his position ought possibly to be, his gratified senses and pampered vanity stifle his reason and destroy his conscience, and he descends to the grave in a false position to open his appalled eyes in the one belonging to him.

(Homilist.)