Biblion Bible Commentary
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Rejoice, Young Man
Ecclesiastes 11:7-10
7 Truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to see the sun. · WEB
The widest permission in the book and a summons to judgment stand in the same verse, and neither cancels the other.
Verse 7 is the only unguarded pleasure in the book: truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to see the sun. After ten chapters of what happens under the sun, the sun itself is enjoyed.
Verse 8 keeps the balance the book has held throughout. Rejoice in all your years — but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. Both instructions are given to the same person about the same life.
Then verse 9, which does something no other verse in Scripture quite does. It grants the fullest liberty: rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes. That is close to the language elsewhere used as a warning, and here it is an imperative. Youth is not told to wait, to be careful, or to postpone.
And the same sentence ends: but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
The two halves are not a permission followed by its withdrawal. They are one instruction. The joy is commanded and the accounting is certain, and the effect of holding them together is neither a young man afraid to live nor a young man who thinks nothing counts. This is the second of the book's three statements of judgment Ecclesiastes 3:17 Ecclesiastes 12:14, and each lies outside what the investigation can see.
Verse 10 then asks for two removals rather than two additions: remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh. Both are described as things to be taken out.
And the reason given is the book's own word: youth and the dawn of life are vanity. Vapor — which is exactly why it is not to be wasted.
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