Ecclesiastes 4:2 Commentary and Bible Study

Solomon has put himself in the position of a man who does not know God in order to describe the world of the one who has no faith: this is how we are to understand these words. He does this in order to expose that world for the hopeless existence that it is. He had himself inhabited that world for a time, so that these observations were not foreign to him, but although he has now come back to the Lord, he furnishes the gospel preacher with powerful arguments to put before the unbeliever to show him what a sorry choice he has made.It is a world that takes away all purpose for living, so that a man might well conclude that he is better off dead. He commends the dead as better off than the living. This is such a shocking and pessimistic attitude to life that it startles us. On what basis could he possibly make this evaluation? Surely virtually all men have come to the opposite conclusion; in fact, doesn’t Solomon himself say the opposite later in this very book, ^‘But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion’ (Ecclesiastes 9:4)? Indeed, this verse recognises the enormous value of life and the potential and promise that it holds out to us. But the present verse makes a different point: it tells us that such is the misery of life and the anguish of injustice and oppression that, even though life is precious, one could conclude that it is better for it to have ended or never to have happened in the first place. It is not only that there is a vast amount of suffering caused by oppression, but this oppression is sanctioned at the highest level. It reduces the world to a place of cruelty and all pretence to a just and caring society collapses. Some simplistically think that they can banish oppression and injustice from the world and yet it persists in spite of all they do. Though death brings an end to all opportunity and all hope, Solomon came to the point where he even rated death more highly that life, for it seemed to bring an end to the injustice of the world. In saying this, he speaks as if he were a natural man, who has no insight into the eternal punishment of God that follows death for those who have rejected him in this life.