Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ecclesiastes · About this commentary
He Who Loves Silver
Ecclesiastes 5:8-20
8 If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them. · WEB
Wealth is examined as a mechanism rather than condemned as a sin, and four of its failures are stated as plain economics.
Verse 8 explains why oppression is so hard to address: one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them. Layers, and no single desk where the wrong can be laid. The instruction is don't marvel at the matter — not acceptance, but the removal of surprise.
Then the money, and the observations are mechanical.
First, appetite: he who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver. The failure is in the loving rather than in the amount, which is why more cannot fix it. It is the eye and ear of the first chapter again Ecclesiastes 1:8.
Second, scale: when goods increase, those who eat them are increased. A larger estate attracts a larger household, and the owner's remaining advantage is to feast on them with his eyes — he watches other people eat.
Third, sleep: the sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep. The thing wealth was supposed to buy is the thing it takes.
Fourth, exit: naked shall he go again as he came, taking nothing, with the labor described as done for the wind.
Against all four, verses 18 and 19 set the third commendation, and it adds something the earlier ones did not have. Riches are not the problem; power to eat of it is the gift, and both are the gift of God.
And verse 20 gives the mechanism of contentment, which is absorption rather than reflection: he shall not often reflect on the days of his life, because God occupies him with the joy of his heart. The despair of chapter 2 began the moment a man stopped working and looked back over the works Ecclesiastes 2:11.
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