Ecclesiastes 11:8

11:7-10 Life is sweet to bad men, because they have their portion in this life; it is sweet to good men, because it is the time of preparation for a better; it is sweet to all. Here is a caution to think of death, even when life is most sweet. Solomon makes an effecting address to young persons. They would desire opportunity to pursue every pleasure. Then follow your desires, but be assured that God will call you into judgment. How many give loose to every appetite, and rush into every vicious pleasure! But God registers every one of their sinful thoughts and desires, their idle words and wicked words. If they would avoid remorse and terror, if they would have hope and comfort on a dying bed, if they would escape misery here and hereafter, let them remember the vanity of youthful pleasures. That Solomon means to condemn the pleasures of sin is evident. His object is to draw the young to purer and more lasting joys. This is not the language of one grudging youthful pleasures, because he can no longer partake of them; but of one who has, by a miracle of mercy, been brought back in safety. He would persuade the young from trying a course whence so few return. If the young would live a life of true happiness, if they would secure happiness hereafter, let them remember their Creator in the days of their youth.

8. But while man thankfully enjoys life, "let him remember" it will not last for ever. The "many days of darkness," that is, the unseen world (Job 10:21, 22; Ps 88:12), also days of "evil" in this world (Ec 11:2), are coming; therefore sow the good seed while life and good days last, which are not too long for accomplishing life's duties. All that cometh—that is, All that followeth in the evil and dark days is vain, as far as work for God is concerned (Ec 9:10).

Live many years; which is a privilege granted but to few persons comparatively. And rejoice in them all; and suppose he enjoy all the comforts, and escape all the embitterments, of human life, all his days; which also is a great rarity. Let him remember, it is his duty and interest seriously to consider, the days of darkness; of death, or of the state of the dead, which is oft expressed by darkness, as Job 10:21 Psalm 88:12 , &c., and here is opposed to the foregoing light . They shall be many, i.e. far more than the days of this short life, especially if to the time of lying in the grave be added that greater and utter darkness which is reserved for impenitent sinners, and which is everlasting, Matthew 22:13 25:30 2 Peter 2:17 Judges 1:13 . And this is added for the caution of mankind, that they may not rejoice excessively in, nor content themselves with, the happiness of the present life, but may seek for something more durable, and more satisfactory. All that cometh; all things which befall any man belonging only to this life, whether they be comfortable or vexatious, they are but vain and inconsiderable, because they are short and transitory.

8 . But if a man live many years …] Better, For if a man … The relation is one of connexion rather than contrast. In the calm, enjoyable because beneficent, life which the thinker now contemplates as within his reach, the remembrance of the darkness which lies beyond is to be a motive, not for a fretful pessimism, but for a deliberate effort to enjoy rightly. The figure of a corpse which was carried about in the banquets of the Egyptians was intended not to destroy or damp the joy, but to make it more lasting by making it more controlled (Herod. ii. 78). The teaching now is something more than the “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” of the sensualist ( Wis 2:1-6 ; 1 Corinthians 15:32 ). “ Respice finem; Memento mori ,” these rules teach us to use life wisely and therefore well. let him remember the days of darkness ] These are clearly not the days of sorrow or adversity (though the phrase as such might admit that meaning), but those of the darkness which is contrasted with the light of the sun, with the light of life, the land that lies behind the veil, in the unseen world of Hades or of Sheol, the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. As the Greeks spoke of the dead as οἱ πλείονες “the many,” so does the writer speak of the days after death as “many.” The night will be long and dreary, therefore it is well to make the most of the day.

The teaching of the whole verse finds, as might be expected, an echo in that of the Epicurean poet, when he greets his friend on the return of spring, but the echo is in a lower key. Nunc decet aut viridi nitidum caput impedire myrto Aut flore, terræ quem ferunt solutæ, Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. O beate Sexti, Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam, Jam te premet nox, fabulæque Manes Et domus exilis Plutonia. “Now is it meet to crown bright brow With wreaths of fresh green myrtle; now. With flowers that owe their timely birth To spring’s soft influence o’er the earth. With equal foot the pauper’s cell Death visits, and where emperors dwell, Wherefore my Sextus, good and dear, Life’s little span forbids us here To start, if we indeed are wise, On some far-reaching enterprise: Soon Night and fabled forms of dread, Where Pluto lords it o’er the dead, Shall meet thee in thy narrow bed.” Hor. Od. i. 4. All that cometh is vanity ] There is a significance in the new form of the burden of the Debater’s song. The sentence of “vanity,” i.e. of shadowy transitoriness, is passed not only on the years in which he is, in a measure, capable of enjoyment, and on the days of darkness, but even on that which lies beyond them. The unknown future—the undiscovered country—it was, from the point of view from which, for the time, he looked at it, “vanity” to build too much even on that.

Verse 8. - But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all . The conjunction ki at the commencement of the verse is causal rather than adversative, and should be rendered "for." The insertion of "and" before "rejoice" mars the sentence. The apodosis begins with "rejoice," and the translation is, For if a man live many years, he ought to rejoice in them all . Koheleth has said (ver. 7) that life is sweet and precious; now he adds that it is therefore man's duty to enjoy it; God has ordained that he should do so, whether his days on earth be many or few. Yet let him remember the days of darkness. The apodosis is continued, and the clause should run, And remember , etc. "The days of darkness ' do not mean times of calamity as contrasted with the light of prosperity, as though the writer were bidding one to be mindful of the prospect of disastrous change in the midst of happiness; nor, again, the period of old age distinguished from the glowing light of youth (Virgil, 'AEneid,' L 590, 591). The days of darkness signify the life in Hades, far from the light of the sun, gloomy, uncheered.

The thought of this state should not make us hopeless and reckless, like the sensualists whose creed is to "eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" ( 1 Corinthians 15 :82; Wisd. 2:1, etc.), but rouse us to make the best of life, to be contented and cheerful, doing our daily duties with the consciousness that this is our day of labor and joy, and that "the night cometh when no man can work ' ( John 9:4 ). Wisely says Beu-Sira, "Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss" (Ecclus. 7:36). We are reminded of the Egyptian custom, mentioned by Herodotus (2. 78), of carrying a figure of a corpse among the guests at a banquet, not in order to damp pleasure, but to give zest to the enjoyment of the present and to keep it under proper control. "Look on this!" it was cried; "drink, and enjoy thyself; for when thou diest thou shalt he such." The Roman poet has many a passage like this, though, of course, of lower tendency. Thus Horace, 'Carm.,' 2:3 - "Preserve, O my Dellius, whatever thy fortunes,A mind undisturbed, 'midst life's changes and ills;Not cast down by its sorrows, nor too much elatedIf sudden good fortune thy cup overfills," etc. ( Stanley. ) (See also 'Carm.,' 1:4.) For they shall be many ; rather, that they shall be many . This is one of the things to remember. The time in Sheol will be long.