Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Tears of the Oppressed
Ecclesiastes 4:1-8
1 Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. · WEB
The absence of a comforter is stated twice in one verse, and the passage that follows prefers non-existence to what it has seen.
Verse 1 is built around a repetition that is not accidental: they had no comforter, and then, after naming where the power sat, they had no comforter. The clause returns because the fact does. Oppression is bad; oppression with nobody on the other side of it is what the verse is about.
And the diagnosis of power is exact — on the side of their oppressors there was power. Not cruelty but leverage, held by the wrong party, which is how the book keeps describing public life Ecclesiastes 5:8.
Verses 2 and 3 then say something the rest of Scripture does not say often. The dead are praised above the living, and better than either is him who has not yet been. Non-existence ranked first, on one stated ground: he has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.
The book will contradict this in six chapters, and the contradiction is deliberate — a living dog is better than a dead lion Ecclesiastes 9:4. What changes between them is not the evidence but the vantage: chapter 4 is looking at the tears, chapter 9 at the hope available to anyone still breathing.
Verse 4 finds the engine under the achievement: all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man's neighbor. Comparison is what drives it.
Verse 5 refuses the obvious escape — the fool folds his hands together and ruins himself — so idleness is not the alternative. Verse 6 gives the alternative instead, and it is a measured portion: better is a handful, with quietness, than two handfuls with labor and chasing after wind.
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