Ecclesiastes 9:4 - Meaning and Application

Solomon had once, in a troubled mood, said that the dead were better off than the living (Ecclesiastes 4:2). But here he looks at the value of life differently. He sees life as the time to prepare for death and to secure hope for a better life. In that light, he shows the advantages the living have over the dead (Ecclesiastes 9:4-6).

As long as there is life, there is hope. While a person is still alive, there is room for change, help, and improvement. If someone’s life is full of evil and even madness, there is still hope that God’s grace may bring a blessed change. But once people go to the dead (Ecclesiastes 9:3), it is too late. The one who is filthy then will remain filthy forever. Even if a person seems useless, while he is still among the living, there is hope that he may yet take root and bear fruit again. A living person can still be useful in this world, but a dead person can no longer serve here. That is why a living dog is better than a dead lion, even the humblest living person has some comfort and use in this world, while the greatest prince can do nothing after death.

As long as there is life, there is also time to prepare for death. The living know what the dead do not know, especially that they themselves must die. That knowledge should move them to get ready for the great change that is sure to come and may come suddenly. This is a necessary and useful truth, because our whole work in life is to prepare for death. The living know that death is ahead, so they still have time to make provision for it. The dead know they are dead, but by then it is too late. They are beyond the great gulf that has been fixed.

When life ends, this world ends for us as well. The dead no longer know anything about the world they once lived in. They do not appear to know what is done by those they leave behind. Abraham is ignorant of us; they have been removed into darkness (Job 10:22). Their pleasures here also end. They get no more reward from their work in this world, and all they gathered must be left to others. They may have a reward for holy actions, but not for worldly labor. The body and its appetites will pass away together (John 6:27; 1 Corinthians 6:13).

The dead also leave behind their share in this world. They no longer have any lasting portion in the things they worked for under the sun. Earthly things cannot be a true portion for the soul, because they do not last forever. Those who choose this world as their good portion have only a temporary share in it, for this life alone (Psalm 17:14). The world is only a life-long allowance, not a portion forever.

Their name ends too. Very few people are remembered for long after they die. The grave is a land of forgetfulness, because those who are laid there are soon forgotten. Their place knows them no more, and neither do the lands named after them.

Their feelings also come to an end, their loves, hatreds, and envies. The good things they loved, the bad things they hated, and the success of others they envied are all over with them. Death separates friends and ends friendships, and it also ends quarrels between enemies. The person and his actions die together. In that place, we will gain nothing from our friends, because their love can no longer help us. We will also suffer no harm from our enemies, because their hatred and envy can no longer hurt us. There the wicked stop troubling. The things that now move us so deeply, and that we are so eager to defend or protect, will all be finished there.

From this, Solomon draws a wise lesson: we should make the best use of life while it lasts. We should manage the little time left to us carefully. One part of that wisdom is to enjoy the comforts of life while we live, and to take our share of its good things cheerfully. Solomon knew from his own sad experience how dangerous it is to abuse pleasant things, so he does not forbid them entirely. Instead, he teaches moderate and sober use. We may use the world, but we must not misuse it. We should take what can rightly be had from it, and expect no more.

He begins with the state of mind we should have. We should not be gloomy and crushed, but let the spirit be easy and pleasant. Let there be joy and a merry heart, a good heart, which is different from empty pleasure or sinful delight. Those kinds of joy are often both a sign of evil within and a cause of more evil. We should enjoy ourselves, our friends, and our God, while keeping a clear conscience that will not disturb that joy. We should serve God gladly in the use of what he gives us, share freely with others, and not let ourselves be weighed down by anxious care or grief about the world. We should eat our bread as people of God, not in sorrow, but with gladness and a generous heart (Deuteronomy 26:14; Acts 2:46).

We should not make our happiness rest in the pleasures of this world or set our hearts on them. Still, we should use what God gives us as well as we can, with self-control and wisdom, and without forgetting the poor.

Make yourself pleasant to those close to you. “Live joyfully with the wife whom you love.” Do not keep all your comfort for yourself and ignore the people around you. Let them share in your gladness and find ease with you. Have a wife, since even in paradise it was not good for man to be alone. Stay faithful to your wife, to one wife, and do not multiply wives, as Solomon had seen the harm of that practice. Keep to her alone and have nothing to do with any other. How can a man live joyfully with one person if he does not live honestly with her? If you love your wife, you are more likely to live joyfully with her. When we do our duty in our relationships, we may expect comfort from them. See (Proverbs 5:19).

Live with your wife and enjoy her company. Be cheerful when you are with her. Take pleasure in your family, your vine, and your olive plants. The cheerfulness spoken of here also has a condition: “Rejoice and have a merry heart, if God now accepts your works.” If you are reconciled to God and approved by him, then you have reason to be cheerful. If not, you do not. “Do not rejoice, O Israel, like other people, for you have gone astray from your God” (Hosea 9:1). Our first care must be to make peace with God and gain his favor, by doing what he will accept. Then we may “eat our bread with joy.”

Those whose works God has accepted have good reason to be cheerful, and they ought to be cheerful. When you eat the bread of your sacrifices with joy and drink the wine of your drink offerings with a glad heart, then God accepts your works. Religious service, when done with holy joy, pleases God. He loves to have his servants sing while they work, because that shows he is a good master.

There are good reasons for this joy. First, it is all too little to make our way through this world pleasant and bearable. The days of our life are days of vanity, full of trouble and disappointment. We will have enough time for sorrow when we cannot avoid it, so we should live cheerfully while we can. We should not wear ourselves out with worries about tomorrow, since each day has enough trouble of its own. A calm and gracious spirit is a strong remedy against the emptiness of the world.

Second, this is all we can get from this world. This is your share in the things of this life. In God and in the life to come, you will have a better share and a better reward for your labor in religion. But for all your work among the things under the sun, this is all you can expect, so do not refuse it to yourself.

We should also give ourselves to the work of life while life lasts, and use its joys to fit us for our duties. “Eat with joy and a merry heart,” not so that your soul may take its ease, as the rich fool said (Luke 12:19), but so that your soul may take more effort, and the joy of the Lord may give it strength and momentum (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your strength. In this life there is not only something to enjoy, but something to do. The main good we should seek here is the good we do (Ecclesiastes 2:3). This world is for service, while the world to come is for reward. This is the time of testing and preparation for eternity. We are here on business, and we must mind our conduct.

Opportunity should guide and urge duty. Do what your hand finds to do, what the moment calls for. An active person will always find useful work to do. What must be done, even by necessity, will find a place for us to do it. What good we have a chance to do, we must do while the chance remains, and do it with all our strength, with care, energy, and determination, even when work is hard or discouraging. Harvest days are busy days, and we must make hay while the sun shines.

Serving God and working out our salvation must be done with all we have, and all that is little enough. There is strong reason to work the works of him who sent us while it is day, because night is coming, when no one can work (John 9:4). We must get up and be at it now, with all possible care, because our time for labor will soon be over, and we do not know how soon. But we do know this, if the work of life is not finished when our time is done, we are ruined forever.

There is no work, no planning, no knowledge for thinking, and no wisdom for acting, in the grave where you are going. We are all moving toward the grave, and each day takes us one step nearer. Once we are there, it will be too late to fix the mistakes of life, too late to repent and make peace with God, and too late to store up anything for eternal life. It must be done now, or never. The grave is a land of darkness and silence, and nothing can be done there for our souls.