24. There is nothing better for a man] The Hebrew, as it stands, gives a meaning which is partly represented by the LXX., “There is no good for a man which he shall eat and drink,” as though the simplest form of bodily pleasure were condemned. Almost all interpreters however are agreed in adopting a conjectural emendation, which again in its turn has given rise to two different renderings: (1) “Is it not better (or “Is it not good”) for a man to eat and drink …?” or (2) “there is nothing good for a man but to eat and drink.…” The two last are of course substantially the same in their teaching, and both express what we may call the higher type of Epicureanism which forms one element of the book. The pursuit of riches, state, luxury, is abandoned for the simple joys that lie within every man’s reach, the “fallentis semita vitae” of one who has learnt the lesson of regulating his desires. The words “to eat and drink” are closely connected with “enjoying good in his labour.” What is praised is not the life of slothful self-indulgence or æsthetic refinement, but that of a man who, though with higher culture, is content to live as simply as the ploughman, or the vinedresser, or artificer. Λάθε βιώσας, “live in the shade,” was the Epicurean rule of wisdom. Pleasure was not found in feasts and sensual excess but in sobriety of mind, and the conquest of prejudice and superstition (Diog. Laert. x. 1. 132). The real wants of such a life are few, and there is a joy in working for them. Here again the thought finds multiform echoes in the utterances of men who have found the cares and pleasures and pursuits of a more ambitious life unsatisfying. It is significant that the very words “eat and drink” had been used by Jeremiah in describing the pattern life of a righteous king (Jeremiah 22:15). The type of life described is altogether different from that of the lower Epicureans who said “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32).

So we have one Epicurean poet singing

“Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes

Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,

Lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur,

Nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet

Nec citharae reboant laqueata aurataque templa,

Cum tamen inter se prostrati in gramine molli

Propter aquae rivum sub ramis arboris altae

Non magnis opibus iucunde corpora curant,

Praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni

Tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas.”

“What though no golden statues of fair boys

With lamp in hand illumine all the house

And cast their lustre on the nightly feast;

Nor does their home with silver or with gold

Dazzle the eye; nor through the ceilèd roof,

Bedecked with gold, the harps re-echo loud.

Yet, while reclining on the soft sweet grass

They lie in groups along the river’s bank,

Beneath the branches of some lofty tree,

And at small cost find sweet refreshment there,

What time the season smiles, and spring-tide weeks

Re-gem the herbage green with many a flower.”

Lucret. De Rer. Nat. ii. 24–33.

So Virgil sang:

“O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,

Agricolas,”

and of these good things dwelt chiefly on

“At secura quies et nescia fallere vita.

Dives opum variarum, at latis otia fundis,

Speluncae, vivique lacus, et frigida Tempe,

Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni

Non absunt; illic saltus ac lustra ferarum,

Et patiens operum exiguoque adsueta juventus,

Sacra deum, sanctique patres; extrema per illos

Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit.”

“Ah! but too happy, did they know their bliss

The tillers of the soil!…

Their’s the calm peace, and life that knows no fraud,

Rich in its varied wealth; and leisure their’s

In the broad meadows; caves and living lakes

And Tempe cool, and lowing of the kine;

Nor want they slumber sweet beneath the trees;

There are the thickets and the wild beasts’ haunts,

And youth enduring toil and trained to thrift;

There Gods are worshipped, fathers held in awe,

And Justice, when she parted from the earth

Left there her latest foot-prints.”

Georg. ii. 467–474.

So Horace, in the same strain:

“Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,

Ut prisca gens mortalium,

Paterna rura bubus exercet suis,

Solutus omni foenore.”

“Thrice blest is he who free from care

Lives now, as lived our fathers old,

And free from weight of honoured gold,

With his own oxen drives the share

O’er fields he owns as rightful heir.”

Horace, Epod. ii. 1.

So Shakespeare once more makes a king echo the teaching of Ecclesiastes:

“And to conclude: the shepherd’s homely curds,

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,

All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

His body couched in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.”

Henry VI., Part III. Act ii. 5.

This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God] In the thought which is thus expressed, we find, however, something more than an echo of Greek Epicureanism. The Debater recognises a Divine Will in this apportionment of happiness, just as he had before recognised that Will in the toil and travail with which the sons of man were exercised (ch. Ecclesiastes 1:13). The apparent inequalities are thus, in part at least, redressed, and it is shewn as the teaching of experience no less than of the Divine Master, that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).

Verse 24. - There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink. The Vulgate makes the sentence interrogative, which the Hebrew does not sanction, Nonne melius est comedere et bibere? Septuagint Οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπῳ ο{ φάγεται καὶ ο{ πίεται, "There is naught good to a man to eat or drink;" St. Jerome and others insert misi, "except for a man to eat," etc. This and the Authorized Version, which are more or less approved by most critics, make the writer enunciate a kind of modified Epicureanism, quotations in confirmation of which will be found set forth by Plumptre. It is not pretended that the present Hebrew text admits this exposition, and critics have agreed to modify the original in order to express the sense which they give to the passage. As it stands, the sentence runs, "It is not good in (בָּ) man that he should eat," etc. This is supposed to clash with later statements; e.g. Ecclesiastes 3:12, 13; Ecclesiastes 8:15; and to condemn all bodily pleasure even in its simplest form. Hence commentators insert מ ("than") before שֶׁיּלֺאכַל, supposing that the initial mere has dropped out after the terminal of the preceding word, adam (comp. Ecclesiastes 3:22). This solution of a difficulty might be allowed were the Hebrew otherwise incapable of explanation without doing violence to the sentiments elsewhere expressed. But this is not the case. As Metals has seen, the great point lies in the preposition ב, and what is stated is that it does not depend on man, it is not in his power, he is not at liberty to eat and drink and enjoy himself simply at his own will; his power and ability proceed wholly from God. A higher authority than his decides the matter. The phrase, "to eat and drink," is merely a periphrasis for living in comfort, peace, and affluence. St. Gregory, who holds that here and in other places Koheleth seems to contradict himself, makes a remark which is of general application, "He who looks to the text, and does not acquaint himself with the sense of the Holy Word, is not so much furnishing himself with instruction as bewildering himself in uncertainty, in that the literal words sometimes contradict themselves; but whilst by their oppositeness they stand at variance with themselves, they direct the reader to a truth that is to be understood" ('Moral.,' 4:1). They who read Epicureanism into the text fall into the error here denounced. They take the expression, "eat and drink," in the narrowest sense of bodily pleasure, whereas it was by no means so confined in the mind of a Hebrew. To eat bread in the kingdom of God, to take a place at the heavenly banquet, represents the highest bliss of glorified man (Luke 14:15; Revelation 19:9, etc.). In a lower degree it signifies earthly prosperity, as in Jeremiah 22:15, "Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice? then it was well with him." So in our passage we find only the humiliating truth that man in himself is powerless to make his life happy or his labors successful. There is no Epicurean-ism, even in a modified form, in the Hebrew text as it has come down to us. With other supposed traces of this philosophy we shall have to deal subsequently (see on Ecclesiastes 3:12; 6:2). And that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor; i.e. taste the enjoyment of his labor, get pleasure as the reward of all his exertions, or find it in the actual pursuit. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. This is the point - the power of enjoyment depends on the will of God. The next verse substantiates this assertion. Ecclesiastes 2:24"There is nothing better among men, than that one eat and drink, and that he should pamper his soul by his labour: this also have I seen, that it is in the hand of God." The lxx, as well as the other Greek transl., and Jerome, had before them the words באדם שיאכל. The former translates: "Man has not the good which he shall eat and drink," i.e., also this that he eats ... is for him no true good; but the direct contrary of this is what Koheleth says. Jerome seeks to bring the thought which the text presents into the right track, by using the form of a question: nonne melius est comedere ...; against this Ecclesiastes 3:12, Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 8:15, are not to be cited where טוב אין stands in the dependent sentence; the thought is not thus to be improved; its form is not this, for טוב rof ,siht, beginning a sentence, is never interrog., but affirm.; thus טוב אין is not equals הלא טוב, but is a negative statement. It is above all doubt, that instead of שׁיּ בּאדם we must read בּאדם משּׁיּ, after Ecclesiastes 3:12, Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 8:15; for, as at Job 33:17, the initial letter mem after the terminal mem has dropped out. Codd. of the lxx have accordingly corrected ὃ into πλὴν ὃ or εἰ μὴ ὃ (thus the Compl. Ald.), and the Syr. and Targ. render ש here by אלא דּ and אלהן דּ unless that he eat; Jerome also has non est bonum homini nisi quod in his Comm.; only the Venet. seeks to accommodate itself to the traditional text. Besides, only מ is to be inserted, not אם כי; for the phrase לאכל אם כי is used, but not כי אם ס. Instead of ba-a-da-m, the form la-a-da-m would be more agreeable, as at Ecclesiastes 6:12; Ecclesiastes 8:15. Hitzig remarks, without proof, that bāādām is in accordance with later grammatical forms, which admit ב equals "for" before the object. ב, Ecclesiastes 10:17, is neither prep. of the object, nor is ἐν, Sir. 3:7, the exponent of the dative (vid., Grimm). bāādām signifies, as at 2 Samuel 23:3, and as ἐν ἀνθ, Sir. 11:14, inter homines; also Ecclesiastes 3:12 designates by טוב טוב what among them (men) has to be regarded as good.

It is interesting to see how here the ancient and the modern forms of the language run together, without the former wholly passing over into the latter; משׁי, quam ut edat, is followed by norm. perfects, in accordance with that comprehensive peculiarity of the old syntax which Ewald, by an excellent figure, calls the dissolution of that which is coloured into grey. טוב ... הד is equivalent to לו הי, Psalm 49:19, the causative rendering of the phrase טוב ראה, Ecclesiastes 3:13, or ר טובה, Ecclesiastes 5:17; Ecclesiastes 6:6. It is well to attend to בּעמלו by his labour, which forms an essential component part of that which is approved of as good. Not a useless sluggard-life, but a life which connects together enjoyment and labour, is that which Koheleth thinks the best in the world. But this enjoyment, lightening, embellishing, seasoning labour, has also its But: etiam hoc vidi e manu Dei esse (pendere). The order of the words harmonizes with this Lat.; it follows the scheme referred to at Genesis 1:4; cf. on the contrary, Ecclesiastes 3:6. Instead of גּם־זה, neut. by attraction, there is here the immediately neut. גּם־זה; the book uniformly makes use of this fem. form instead of זאת. This or that is "in the hand of God," i.e., it is His gift, Ecclesiastes 3:13, Ecclesiastes 3:18, and it is thus conditioned by Him, since man cannot give it to himself; cf. minni, Isaiah 30:1; mimmenni, Hosea 8:4; mimmennu, 1 Kings 20:33.

This dependence of the enjoyment of life on God is established.

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