Matthew Poole Commentary - Ecclesiastes 11:10 - 11:10

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Matthew Poole Commentary - Ecclesiastes 11:10 - 11:10


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:





Sorrow, i.e. sensual and disorderly lusts, which he elegantly and emphatically calls sorrow, with respect to the foregoing words, to intimate, that although such practices do at present gratify and delight men’s senses and vain minds, yet they will shortly and certainly bring a man to intolerable and eternal sorrows, which it is thy wisdom to prevent. Sorrow; or, as it is rendered in the margin, and by divers others, anger; a passion to which men are most prone in the heat of youth; whereby he may understand either anger against him for this sharp admonition; or rather against God, who hath laid such severe restraints upon them, and threatens such punishments to them for following their own natural inclinations. So the sense is, Do not quarrel with thy Judge, but submit and make thy peace with him by declaring war against all thy sins.



Evil; all evil concupiscences or lusts, which though now they seem good to thee, will another day appear to be very evil and bitter things.



From thy flesh; from thy bodily members; which he mentions not exclusively, as if he would allow them their spiritual evils; but emphatically, because young men, to whom be is here speaking, are most given to fleshly or bodily lusts.



Childhood and youth are vanity, i.e. most vain, either,



1. In their temper and dispositions. Young men are frothy, and foolish, and inconsiderate, whereby they run into manifold dangers, and therefore they shall do well to hearken to the counsels of those who by their greater wisdom and experience are more capable judges of these matters. Or,



2. In their condition. The time of youth is vanishing and transitory, and old age and death will speedily come, against which every man in his wits will take care to lay in solid provisions and comforts.