Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Ecclesiastes 4:16 - 4:16
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
There is no end of all the people: the sense is either,
1. The people which have this humour are without end, or innumerable, as this phrase signifies, Job_22:5 Isa_2:7 9:7. Or,
2. This humour of the common people hath no end, but passeth from one generation to another; they ever were, and are, and will be unstable and restless, and given to change; which sense the following words seem to favour.
Before them; either,
1. Before the two kings above mentioned, the father and the son, or the predecessor and successor. All those who stood or desired to stand in their presence, and waited upon them, as this phrase is used, 2Sa_16:19 1Ki_10:8. Or rather,
2. Before the present generation of subjects, who earnestly desired and promoted the change of government here expressed; for these are evidently opposed to them that come after, which all interpreters understand of the people, not of the kings. And so here are three generations of people noted, the authors of the present change, and their parents, and their children, and all are observed to have the same inclinations in these matters.
Shall not rejoice in him; they shall be as weary of the successor, though a wise and worthy prince, as their parents were of his foolish predecessor; the reason whereof is partly from that itch of novelty and curiosity which is natural and common to mankind, and partly from their vain and foolish hopes of advantage from such changes.