The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 122

22) to be the only good for man, but now he finds that even that is not always to be secure~. '!'here are evils and miseries that afflict his fellows, against which he cannot shut hie eyes. A vulgar sensualist might drown sorrow in the wine-cup, but he cannot. "Hie merriment is spoiled by the thought of the misery of others, and he can find nothing 'under the sun' but violence and oppression. Jn utter despair, he pronounces th~ dead happier than the living" (Cheyne), If he does not actually deny the immor- tality of the soul, and is therefore without the consolation of believing that in a life to come the evils of the present may be reversed and compensated for, he ignores it as something of which we cannot be sure. We may see in this passage the germ of a higher character than is to be formed by the most elaborate self-culture; the spontaneous and deep compassion for the sufferings of others which the writer manifests tells us that a nobler emotion than the desire of personal enjoyment fills his mind. He tells us what be saw in his survey of society, and the feelings which were excited within him by the sight. I. THE WIDESPREAD MISERY CAUSED BY INJUSTICE AND CRUELTY. (Ver. 1.) His description has been only too frequently verified in one generation after another of the world's history. "Man's 'inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." The barbarities of savage life, the wars and crusades carried on in the name of religion, the cruelties perpetrated by despotic rulers to secure their thrones, the hardships of the slave, the pariah, and the down-trodden, fill out the picture suggested by the words, "I considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun." They all spring from the abuse of power (ver. 1), which might and should have been used for the protection nnd comfort of men. The husband and father, the king, the priest, the magistrate, are all invested with rights and authority of a greater or less extent over others, and the abuse of this power leads to hardships and suffering on the part of those subject to them which it is almost impossible to remedy. For many of the evils that may afll.ict a community a revolution may seem the only way of deliverance; and yet that in the vast majority of ea.see means, in the first instance, multiplying disorders nnd inflicting fresh sufferings. .Anarchy is a worse evil than bad government, and the fact that this is so, is calculated to make the most ardent patriot hesitate before attempting to set wrong right with a strong band. II. THE FEELINGS EXCITED BY A CONTEMPLATION OF HUMAN MISERY. (Vers. 2, 3.) One good point in the character of the speaker we have already noticed, and that is that he cannot banish the thought of the distresses of others by attending to his own ease and self-enjoyment. He is not like the rich man in the parable, who fared sumptuously every day, and took no notice of the hungry, naked beggar covered with sores that lay at his gate (Luke xvi. 19-21). On the contrary, a deep compassion fills his heart at the thought of the oppressed who have no comforter, and the fact that he cannot deliver them or ameliorate their lot does not lead him to consider it unnecessary for him to distress himself about them; it rather tends to deepen the despondency he feels, and to make him think those happy who have done with liie, and rest in the place where" the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest" (Job iii. 17). Yea, better, he thinks, 11ever to have been than to see the evil work that is clone under the sun (ver. 3). The distress which the sight of the suffer- ings of the oppressed produces is unrelieved by any consolatory thought. '!'he writer does not, as I have said, anticipate a future lifo in which the righteous are happy, aucl the wicked receive the duo reward of their deeds; he does not invoke the Divine interposition on behalf of the oppressed in the present life, or speak of the_ salutary discipline of sufferings meekly borne. In short, we do not find here any light cast upon the problem of evil in a world governed by a Go~ of infinite powe_r, wisdom, ~~d love, such as is given in other passages of Holy Scripture (Job, passi'"!; Ps. lxx1!1.; Heh. xii. 5-11). But we may freely admit that the depth and mtens1ty of feelmg with which our author speaks of human misery is infinitely preferable to a superficial optimism founded, not upon Christian faith, b_ut upon an im~rfe~t appreciation of moral nnd spiritual truth, and generally accompanied ~y a ~elfish rnd1~erence to the '!elfarc of others. A striking parallel to the thought m thlS passage 1s to be found m the lJG ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. [on. IV. 1-10.