Ecclesiastes 5: Few Words Before God

"Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil" (5:1; Hebrew 4:17). Qoheleth turns from the marketplace and the palace to the temple. Watch your step, he says; draw near to listen. Ritual done carelessly is the offering of fools.

"Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few" (v. 2). "For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words" (v. 3).

"When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay" (vv. 4–5). Do not let your mouth make your body sin, "neither say thou before the angel (or messenger), that it was an error" (v. 6). "For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God" (v. 7).

"If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they" (v. 8). Each official watches the one below; complaints climb a ladder that never ends.

"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver" (v. 10). "When goods increase, they are increased that eat them" (v. 11). "The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep" (v. 12). Riches kept "to the hurt thereof" are lost "by evil travail" (literally "in a bad business"), and the son born to the owner has nothing (vv. 13–14). "As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came" (v. 15).

"Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour… for it is his portion" (v. 18). Riches with the power to enjoy them are "the gift of God" (v. 19). Such a person "shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart" (v. 20).

Vows in Israel

A vow (neder) was a promise to God, often made in trouble, to give an offering or dedicate something if God answered (Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:11; Jacob, Genesis 28:20–22; Jephthah, Judges 11:30–31). The Law took vows seriously: Deuteronomy 23:21–23 says "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the LORD thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it… But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee." Numbers 30 regulates the vows of women in a household. Leviticus 27 sets values for redeeming vowed persons and things. Ecclesiastes 5:4 follows Deuteronomy 23:21 closely in Hebrew (ka'asher tiddor neder… al te'acher leshallemo, "when you vow a vow… do not delay to pay it"), so this is a near-quotation of the Torah inside Qoheleth's own teaching.

Officials and taxation

Persian-period Judah (Yehud) was a small province in a vast empire, with a governor, local officials, and imperial tribute paid in silver and produce (Nehemiah 5:4, 15: "we have borrowed money for the king's tribute"). Later, under the Ptolemies of Egypt (3rd century BC), Judea was part of a highly organized tax system run by tax-farmers and officials; the Zenon papyri (c. 260–250 BC) show Ptolemaic agents traveling and trading in Palestine. Ecclesiastes 5:8 fits such layered bureaucracy, but it would also fit many other periods; it does not by itself date the book.

5:1: "foot" or "feet"?

The library's Hebrew (the Leningrad Codex) prints a ketiv and a qere: the consonants written in the text spell raglekha in a form that looks plural ("your feet"), and the vowels and margin tell the reader to say the singular "your foot." The Greek (Giguet: "où tu mets le pied"), the Vulgate (pedem tuum) and the KJV ("thy foot") all have the singular. This is a genuine Masoretic reading note, a small textual question within the Hebrew tradition. It has nothing to do with the different chapter numbering, which is a matter of where printers divided the text. The Leningrad Codex has eleven other ketiv/qere notes in Ecclesiastes (4:8; English 5:9, 11, 18; 6:10; 7:22; 9:4; 10:3, 10, 20; 12:6), by the site's count.

5:6: who is the "messenger"?

Mal'akh means "messenger"; it is the word usually translated "angel." Three readings: (1) a priest or temple official who would collect the vow (Malachi 2:7 calls the priest "the messenger of the LORD of hosts"); (2) an angel recording or judging; (3) God himself, which is how the Greek reads it (Giguet "ne dis pas devant Dieu"). The Vulgate has angelo, the KJV "the angel." The verse warns against excusing a broken vow as an unintentional error (shegagah, the term for unintentional sins in Leviticus 4 and Numbers 15). The identity of the messenger is disputed; the point is not.

5:9: the king and the field

The Hebrew of 5:9 (Hebrew 5:8) reads, very literally, "and the profit of a land in all, it is: a king to a field served." It also carries a ketiv/qere note (written "she," read "he"). Translations differ widely: "the king himself is served by the field" (KJV); "a king who cultivates the field is an advantage to the land" (ESV, similar NRSV); "the abundance of the earth is for all, when under a king the fields are cultivated" (the library's Greek, in Giguet's French); "and moreover the king rules over the whole land that serves him" (the Vulgate, which reads the sentence as a further complaint). The sentence may praise orderly kingship, criticize royal exploitation, or say that even the king depends on agriculture. No reading should be used to build a theory of Persian or Ptolemaic administration.

Wealth without moralizing

Qoheleth does not say that the poor are virtuous or the rich wicked. He observes that desire for money cannot be satisfied (v. 10), that more wealth brings more dependents (v. 11), that anxiety can steal sleep (v. 12), and that wealth can vanish (vv. 13–14). The answer (vv. 18–20) is neither poverty nor accumulation but the God-given capacity to enjoy what one has. Verse 20's "God answereth him" (ma'aneh) can also mean "keeps him busy": the Greek has "God has distracted him by the joy of his heart," the Vulgate "God occupies his heart with delights." Either way, joy absorbs a person so that the brevity of life does not dominate his thoughts.

A note on the library's Greek here

The library's French file of the Greek is incomplete at English 5:11 (Giguet 5:10 breaks off after "il y a plus de gens"). This is a defect of the digital file, not of the Greek tradition. It is recorded as a D-level note; the full Greek should be checked in the Göttingen edition.