Ver. 1. So I returned, and considered.] Here is a second instance of corruption in civil state, added to that of Ecclesiastes 3:16, to fill up the nest of vanities. And behold the tears of such, &c.] Heb., Tear; as if they had wept their utmost, et vix unicam lachrymulam extorquere possent, and could hardly squeeze out one poor tear more for their own ease. For as “hinds by calving,” so men by weeping “cast out their sorrows.” (Job 39:3) Now tears are of many sorts: Lachrymas angustiae exprimit crux; lachrymas poenitentiae, peccatum; lachrymas sympathiae, affectus; lachrymas letitiae, excellentia gaudii; denique lachrymas nequitiae, vel hypocrisis, vel vindictae, cupiditas. Oppression draws tears of grief; sin, tears of repentance; affection, tears of compassion; good success, tears of joy; hypocrisy or spite, tears of wickedness. And they had no comforter.] This was Job’s doleful case, and David’s, (Psalms 69:21) and the Church’s in the Lamentations. (Lamentations 1:2) Affert solarium lugentibus suspiriorum societas, saith Basil Pity allays misery; but incompassionateness of others increaseth it. This was one of Sodom’s sins, (Ezekiel 16:49) and of those epicures in Amos. (Amos 6:6) The king and Haman sat drinking in the gate; but the whole city of Shushan was in heaviness. (Esther 3:15) And on the side of their oppressors, &c.] The oppressed Romans sighed out to Pompey, Nostra miseria tu es magnus. You, our misery, is great. The world hath almost as many wild beasts and monsters as it hath landlords in various places. It is a woeful thing, surely, to see how great ones quaff the tears of the oppressed, and to hear them make music of shrieks. Expletur lachrymis egeriturque dolor. -Ovid. Alsted.
Ver. 2. Wherefore I praised the dead.] Because they are out of the reach of wrong doers; and if dead in the Lord, they have “entered into peace, they do rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.” (Isaiah 57:2) But if otherwise, men had better do anything, suffer anything here than die; since by death, as by a trap door, they enter into those terrors and torments that shall never either mend or end. Men, like silly fishes, see one another caught and jerked out of the pond of life but they see not, alas! the fire and pan into the which they are cast that die in their sins. Oh it had been better, surely, for such if they had never been born, as Christ said of Judas, than thus to be “brought forth to the murderer” (Hosea 9:14) -to the old manslayer—to be hurled into hell, there to suffer such things as they shall never be able to avoid or abide.
Ver. 3. Yea, better is he than both they.] The heathen could say, Optimum non nasci: proximum mori. Life is certainly a blessing of God, though never so calamitous. Why is living man sorrowful? saith the prophet: (Lamentations 3:39) and it is as if he should say, Man, if alive, hath some cause of comfort amidst all his miseries; if he may escape though but “with the skin of his teeth,” (Job 19:20) and have his life for a prey, he should see matter of thankfulness, and say, “It is the Lord’s mercy that I am not consumed” (Lamentations 3:22) -that I am yet on this side hell. But those that have set their hearts upon earthly things, if ever they lose them, they are filled almost with unmedicineable sorrows; so as they will praise the dead above the living, and wish they had never been born. These are they whom Solomon in this sentence is by some thought to personate.
Ver. 4. That for this a man is envied of his neighbour.] This is another piece of life’s vanity; that, as greater men will lie heavy upon you and oppress you, so meaner men will be envying at you and oppose you: as Cain did Abel, Saul’s courtiers did David; the peers of Persia, Daniel; the Scribes and Pharisees, our Saviour. Every Zopyrus shall be sure to have his Zoilus. The garment of righteousness, parti-coloured with all variety of graces, is a great eyesore to the wicked, and makes the saints maligned. See Proverbs 27:4. [See Trapp on “Pr 27:4”]
Ver. 5. The fool foldeth his hands together.] A graphical and lively description of a sluggard, fitly called a fool (φαυλος), a naughty person. “Thou idle and evil servant.” (Matthew 25:26) God puts no difference between nequaquam and nequam, a drone and a naughty pack, seem he never so “wise in his own eyes,” (Proverbs 26:16) and have he never so much reason to allege for himself—as in the verse here next following; a fool he is, and so he will soon prove himself; for “he folds up his hands and hides them in his own bosom.” (Proverbs 26:15) A great many chares he is likely to do the while: [See Trapp on “Pr 19:24”] And as (Neque mola, neque farina -nothing do, nothing have) “he eateth his own flesh”—he maketh many a hungry meal, he hath a dog’s life, as we say. “Ease slayeth this fool”; (Proverbs 1:32, marg.) poverty comes upon him as an armed man; grief also slays him; (Proverbs 21:25) envy consumes his flesh, and he is vexed at the plenty of painful persons, and, because he cannot come at, or rather pull out their hearts, he feeds upon his own.