Ver. 1. For all this I considered in mine heart.] He that will rightly consider of anything, had need to consider of many things; all that do concern it, all that do give light unto it, had need to be looked into, or else we fail too short. “ Sis ideo in partes circumspectissimus omnes.” Even to declare all this.] Or, To clear up all this to myself. Symmachus rendered it, Ut ventilarem haec universa, that I might sift and search out all these things by much tossing and turning of the thoughts. Truth lies low and close, and must with much industry be drawn into the open light. That the righteous and the wise.] These are terms convertible. The world’s wizards shall one day cry out, Nos insensati, We fools counted their lives madness, &c. And their works.] Or, Their services, actions, employments, all which together with themselves are “in the hand of God,” who knows them by name, and exerciseth a singular providence over them, so that they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” “The enemy shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him.” (Psalms 89:22) What a sweet providence was it, that when all the males of Israel appeared thrice in the year before the Lord at Jerusalem, none of their neighbour nations, though professed enemies to Israel, should so much as desire their land. (Exodus 34:24) And again, that after the slaughter of Gedaliah, so pleasant a country—left utterly destitute of inhabitants, and compassed about with such warlike nations, as the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines, &c.—was not invaded nor replanted by foreigners for seventy years’ time, but the room kept empty till the return of the naturals. No man knows either love or hatred, &c.] That is, The thing he either loves or hates, say some interpreters, by reason of the fickleness of his easily alterable affections. How soon was Amnon’s heart estranged from his Tamar, and Ahasuerus from his minion Haman, the Jews from John Baptist, the Galatians from Paul, &c.! But I rather approve of those that refer this love and hatred unto God—understanding them, θεοπρεπως, in a divine manner—and make the meaning to be, that by the things of this life, “which come alike to all,” as the next verse hath it, no man can make judgment of God’s love or hatred towards him. The sun of prosperity shines as well upon brambles of the wilderness, as fruit trees of the orchard; the snow and hail of adversity lights upon the best gardens, as well as upon the wild waste. Ahab’s and Josiah’s ends concur in the very circumstances. Saul and Jonathan, though different in their deportments, yet “in their deaths they were not divided.” (2 Samuel 1:23) How far wide then is the Church of Rome, that borrows her marks from the market, plenty or cheapness, &c. And what an odd kind of reasoning was that of her champions with Marsh the martyr, whom they would have persuaded to leave his opinions, because all the bringers up and favourers of that religion, as the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk for instance, had bad luck, and were either put to death, or in prison, and in danger of life. Again, the favourers of the religion then used had wondrous good luck and prosperity in all things, &c. Acts and Mon., fol. 14, 21.
Ver. 2. All things come alike to all.] [See Trapp on “Ec 9:1”] Health, wealth, honours, &c., are cast upon good men and bad men promiscuously. God makes a scatter of them, as it were; good men gather them, bad men scramble for them. The whole Turkish empire, saith Luther, is nothing else but a crust cast by heaven’s great housekeeper to his dogs. And he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.] No surer sign of a profane person, than common and customary swearing. Neither any so good an evidence of a gracious heart, as not only to forbear it, for so one may do by education, and civil conversation, but to “fear an oath” out of an awful regard to the Divine Majesty. Plato and other heathens shall rise up and condemn our common swearers; for they, when they would swear, said no more but Ex animi sententia, or if they would swear by their Jupiter, out of the mere dread and reverence of his name, they forbare to mention him. Clinias the Pythagorean, out of this regard, would rather undergo a mulct of three talents, than swear. The Merindolians, those ancient French Protestants, were known by this through all the country of Provence, that they would not swear, nor easily be brought to take an oath, except it were in judgment, or making some solemn covenant. Nihil est nisi mica panis. Suidas. Acts and Mon., 865.
Ver. 3. This is an evil.] Hoc est pessimum -so Jerome, the Vulgate, and Tremellius render it; this is the worst evil, this is wickedness with a witness, -scil., That since “there is one event to all,” graceless men should thence conclude that it is a bootless business, a course of no profit to serve God. Hence they walk about the world with hearts as full as hell of lewd and lawless lusts. Hence they run a-madding after the pleasures of sin, which with a restless giddiness they earnestly pursue; yea, they live and die in so doing, saith the wise man here, noting their final impenitence, that hate of heaven, and gate to hell.