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Ecc_4:3 Yea, better [is he] than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.
Ver. 3. Yea, better is he than both they.] The heathen could say, Optimum non nasci: proximum mori. Life is certainly a blessing of God, though never so calamitous. Why is living man sorrowful? saith the prophet: {Lam_3:39} and it is as if he should say, Man, if alive, hath some cause of comfort amidst all his miseries; if he may escape though but "with the skin of his teeth," {Job_19:20} and have his life for a prey, he should see matter of thankfulness, and say, "It is the Lord’s mercy that I am not consumed" {Lam_3:22} - that I am yet on this side hell. But those that have set their hearts upon earthly things, if ever they lose them, they are filled almost with unmedicineable sorrows; so as they will praise the dead above the living, and wish they had never been born. These are they whom Solomon in this sentence is by some thought to personate.