Ecclesiastes 5:3

5:1-3 Address thyself to the worship of God, and take time to compose thyself for it. Keep thy thoughts from roving and wandering: keep thy affections from running out toward wrong objects. We should avoid vain repetitions; copious prayers are not here condemned, but those that are unmeaning. How often our wandering thoughts render attendance on Divine ordinances little better than the sacrifice of fools! Many words and hasty ones, used in prayer, show folly in the heart, low thoughts of God, and careless thoughts of our own souls.

For a dream cometh through the multitude of business,.... Or, "for as a dream" (q), so Aben Ezra; as that comes through a multiplicity of business in the daytime, in which the mind has been busied, and the body employed; and this brings on dreams in the night season, which are confused and incoherent; sometimes the fancy is employed about one thing, and sometimes another, and all unprofitable and useless, as well as vain and foolish; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words; either his voice in conversation, for a fool is full of words, and pours out his foolishness in a large profusion of them; or his voice in prayer, being like a man's dream, confused, incoherent, and rambling. The supplement, "is known", may be left out. (q) "ut prodit somnium", Junius & Tremellius; "nam ut venit", Piscator; "quia sicut venit", Mercerus, Ramabachius, so Broughton.

Ecclesiastes 5:3 . For a dream cometh, &c. — When men’s minds are distracted and oppressed with too much business in the day, they are frequently disturbed with confused and perplexed dreams in the night. And as such dreams proceed from, and are the evidence of, a hurry of business filling the head, so many and hasty words flow from, and are a proof of, folly reigning in the heart.

Keep thy foot - i. e., Give thy mind to what thou art going to do. The house of God - It has been said that here an ordinary devout Hebrew writer might have been expected to call it "the house of Yahweh;" but to those who accept this book as the work of Solomon after his fall into idolatry, it will appear a natural sign of the writer's self-humiliation, an acknowledgment of his unworthiness of the privileges of a son of the covenant, that he avoids the name of the Lord of the covenant (see Ecclesiastes 1:13 note). Be more ready to hear - Perhaps in the sense that, "to draw near for the purpose of hearing (and obeying) is better than etc."

3. As much "business," engrossing the mind, gives birth to incoherent "dreams," so many words, uttered inconsiderately in prayer, give birth to and betray "a fool's speech" (Ec 10:14), [Holden and Weiss]. But Ec 5:7 implies that the "dream" is not a comparison, but the vain thoughts of the fool (sinner, Ps 73:20), arising from multiplicity of (worldly) "business." His "dream" is that God hears him for his much speaking (Mt 6:7), independently of the frame of mind [English Version and Maurer]. fool's voice—answers to "dream" in the parallel; it comes by the many "words" flowing from the fool's "dream."

When men’s minds are distracted and oppressed with too much business in the day, they dream of it in the night. A fool’s voice is known; it discovers the man to be a foolish, and rash, and inconsiderate man. By multitude of words; either, 1. In prayer. Or, 2. In vowing, i.e. by making many rash vows, of which he speaks in Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 , and then returns to the mention of multitude of dreams and many words , Ecclesiastes 5:7 , which verse may be a comment upon this, and which makes it probable that both that and this verse are to be understood of vows rather than of prayers.

3 . For a dream cometh through the multitude of business ] The one psychological fact is meant to illustrate the other. The mind that has lost the power to re-collect itself, haunted and harassed by the cares of many things, cannot enjoy the sweet and calm repose of a dreamless slumber, and that fevered state with its hot thoughts and wild fancies is but too faithful a picture of the worshipper who pours out a multitude of wishes in a “multitude of words.” His very prayers are those of a dreamer. It seems obvious, from the particle that connects this with the preceding verse, that the maxim refers specially to these utterances of the fool and not merely to the folly of his speech in general. The words “is known,” as the italics shew, have nothing answering to them in the Hebrew. The same verb was meant to serve for both the clauses.

Verse 3. - The first clause illustrates the second, the mark of comparison being simply the copula, mere juxtaposition being deemed sufficient to denote the similitude, as in Ecclesiastes 7:1 ; Proverbs 17:3 ; Proverbs 27:21 . For a dream cometh through ( in consequence of ) the multitude of business. The verse is meant to confirm the injunction against vain babbling in prayer. Cares and anxieties in business or other matters occasion disturbed sleep, murder the dreamless repose of the healthy laborer, and produce all kinds of sick fancies and imaginations. Septuagint, "A dream cometh in abundance of trial ( πειρασμοῦ );" Vulgate, Multas curas sequuntur somnia . And a fool's voice is known by multitude of words . The verb should be supplied from the first clause, and not a new one introduced, as in the Authorized Version, "And the voice of a fool (cometh) in consequence of many words." As surely as excess of business produces fevered dreams, so excess of words, especially in addresses to God, produces a fool's voice, i . e . foolish speech. St. Gregory points out the many ways in which the mind is affected by images from dreams. "Sometimes," he says, "dreams are engendered of fullness or emptiness of the belly, sometimes of illusion, sometimes of illusion and thought combined, sometimes of revelation, while sometimes they are engendered of imagination, thought, and revelation together" ('Moral.,' 8:42). Ecclesiastes 5:3

"Be not hasty with thy mouth, and let not thy heart hasten to speak a word before God: for God is in heaven, and thou art upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. For by much business cometh dreaming, and by much talk the noise of fools." As we say in German: auf Flgeln fliegen [to flee on wings], auf Einem Auge nicht sehen [not to see with one eye], auf der Flte blasen [to blow on the flute], so in Heb. we say that one slandereth with (auf) his tongue ( Psalm 15:3 ), or, as here, that he hasteth with his mouth, i.e., is forward with his mouth, inasmuch as the word goes before the thought. It is the same usage as when the post-bibl. Heb., in contradistinction to התורה שׁבּכתב, the law given in the Scripture, calls the oral law הת שׁבּעל־פּה, i.e., the law mediated על־פה, oraliter equals oralis traditio (Shabbath 31a; cf. Gittin 60b). The instrument and means is here regarded as the substratum of the action - as that which this lays as a foundation. The phrase: "to take on the lips," Psalm 16:4 , which needs no explanation, is different. Regarding בּהל, festinare, which is, like מהר, the intens. of Kal, vid., once it occurs quite like our "sich beeilen" to hasten, with reflex. accus. suff., 2 Chronicles 35:21 .

Man, when he prays, should not give the reins to his tongue, and multiply words as one begins and repeats over a form which he has learnt, knowing certainly that it is God of whom and to whom he speaks, but without being conscious that God is an infinitely exalted Being, to whom one may not carelessly approach without collecting his thoughts, and irreverently, without lifting up his soul. As the heavens, God's throne, are exalted above the earth, the dwelling-place of man, so exalted is the heavenly God above earthly man, standing far beneath him; therefore ought the words of a man before God to be few, - few, well-chosen reverential words, in which one expresses his whole soul. The older language forms no plur. from the subst. מעט (fewness) used as an adv.; but the more recent treats it as an adj., and forms from it the plur. מעטּים (here and in Psalm 109:8 , which bears the superscription le-david, but has the marks of Jeremiah's style); the post-bibl. places in the room of the apparent adj. the particip. adj. מועט with the plur. מוּעטים (מוּעטין), e.g., Berachoth 61a: "always let the words of a man before the Holy One (blessed be His name!) be few" (מוע). Few ought the words to be; for where they are many, it is not without folly. This is what is to be understood, Ecclesiastes 5:2 , by the comparison; the two parts of the verse stand here in closer mutual relation than Ecclesiastes 7:1 , - the proverb is not merely synthetical, but, like Job 5:7 , parabolical.