Ecclesiastes 8:9 - Meaning and Application

Solomon had already warned us at the start of this chapter not to get caught up with rebellious people. Here he turns to a different danger, the harm done by tyrannical and oppressive rulers, like the ones he spoke of earlier (Ecclesiastes 3:16; 4:1).

He had seen many such rulers in his careful study of human life. Often one person rules over another to that person’s hurt. Some read this as meaning the ruled are hurt, because rulers are supposed to be God’s servants for the people’s good (Romans 13:14), keeping justice and peace. Instead, they use power to take property, limit freedom, and support wrongdoing. It is a sad thing when those who should protect a people’s faith and rights work to destroy both.

Others take the verse to mean the rulers are hurting themselves, and that also fits. Their cruelty feeds pride, greed, anger, and revenge, and so adds to their guilt and speeds their ruin. What a person does to others often comes back on his own head.

Solomon also saw such rulers prospering while they abused their power (Ecclesiastes 8:10). He saw wicked rulers coming and going from the place of the holy, the place of judgment. It is called holy because judgment belongs to the Lord (Deuteronomy 1:17), he judges among the gods, or rulers (Psalm 82:1), and he is with them in judgment (2 Chronicles 19:6). They stayed in office all their lives, as if no one would ever call them to account. They died with honor and were buried with great ceremony, as if their commissions lasted for life, not only while they behaved well.

Yet they were forgotten in the city where they had done such things. Their wicked deeds did not remain in public memory to shame them after they were gone. Or perhaps this verse mainly shows how empty their dignity was. They were proud of wealth, power, and honor because they sat in the place of judgment, but none of it could keep their bodies out of the grave. Their pomp went with them only to the tomb, not beyond it (Psalm 49:17). It also could not preserve their names, for they were forgotten as if they had never been. This too is vanity, empty and fleeting.

Solomon also noticed that their success made them bolder in evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11). This is true of sinners in general, and especially of wicked rulers. Because punishment does not come quickly, they think it will never come at all. So they throw off all restraint, set the law aside, and fill their minds with more and more plans for evil. They grow fearless and keep sinning with a high hand.

The lesson is clear. God has already passed sentence on evil deeds and on evil people, including princes and the great as well as ordinary people. Yet he often delays carrying out that sentence for a long time, and the sinner goes on not only unpunished but successful. That delay hardens the sinner, because God’s patience is shamefully abused. Instead of leading people to repent, it often makes them more stubborn. But sinners deceive themselves, because delayed judgment is not canceled judgment. Vengeance comes slowly, but it surely comes, and wrath is being stored up for the day of wrath.

Still, Solomon saw enough of the end of these things to keep us from arguing with God’s providence. He pictures a wicked ruler committing injustice a hundred times, and yet punishment is delayed. God’s patience lasts longer than people expect, and his power is stretched out while the oppressor continues. Even so, we should not lose heart.

God’s people are truly happy, even when they are oppressed. “It shall be well with those who fear God,” that is, with all who stand in awe of him and live with care before him. That is the mark of God’s people, they fear him, they keep his eye before them, and they want to please him. When they are at the mercy of proud oppressors, they fear God more than they fear man. They do not quarrel with God’s providence, but submit to it.

This is also their comfort, that in the worst times it shall still be well with them. Their trouble cannot take away God’s favor, and it cannot break their fellowship with him. They are in a good condition, because they are kept in a right spirit under suffering. In the end, they will receive both a full rescue from their troubles and a rich reward for them. So Solomon says, in effect, “I know for certain, from God’s promise and from what all the saints have found, that whatever happens to others, it will go well with them.” All is well that ends well.

The wicked, however, are truly miserable, even if they prosper for a time. What God has assigned to them is as sure as the blessing of the righteous. “It shall not be well with the wicked,” though others may think it is, looking only at outward success, and though the wicked themselves may expect it. No, judgment is coming on them for all the evil they have done. Nothing that happens to them will truly be good for them. Nothing can happen to the wicked that will ultimately help them, and nothing that will not somehow harm them.

A wicked person’s days are like a shadow. They are not only uncertain and fading, as all human days are, but also empty and useless. A good person’s days have some real substance, because he lives for a worthy purpose. A wicked person’s days are all shadow, hollow and worthless. And those days will not last as long as he expects. He will not live out half his days (Psalm 55:23). Even if his life is longer than other people thought it would be (Ecclesiastes 8:12), his end will still come. He will fall short of everlasting life, and then a long earthly life will mean very little.

In the end, God’s great charge against wicked people is that they do not fear him. That lies at the heart of their sin, and it shuts them out of all true happiness.