2 a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
A man to whom God hath given riches - A man may possess much earthly goods, and yet enjoy nothing of them. Possession and fruition are not necessarily joined together; and this is also among the vanities of life. It is worthy of remark, that it belongs to God as much to give the power to enjoy as it does to give the earthly blessings. A wise heathen saw this: -
Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi.
Hor. Ep. lib. i., ep. 4, ver. 7.
"The gods had given thee riches, and the art to enjoy them."
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he lacketh nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet (a) God giveth him not power to eat of it, but a stranger eateth it: this [is] vanity, and it [is] an evil disease.
(a) He shows that it is the plague of God when the rich man does not have a liberal heart to use his riches.
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour,.... By "riches" may be meant gold and silver, things which a covetous man is never satisfied with; and by "wealth", cattle, with which farms and fields are stocked: the wealth of men, especially in former times, and in the eastern countries, lay very much in these, as did the wealth of Abraham and Job, Genesis 13:2; and all these, as they are reckoned glorious and honourable in themselves; so they create honour and glory among men, and raise to high and honourable places; and these, as they go, they are usually put together, and are called by the name of honour and glory itself; see Proverbs 3:16. And they are all the gifts of God, which he either as blessings bestows upon men, or suffers men to attain unto, though a curse may go along with them; which is the case here, for no man whatever is possessed of them but by the will of God or his divine permission; see 1-Chronicles 29:12; and which a man may, and sometimes has, such a plentiful portion of;
so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth: he has not only for the supply of his wants, what is necessary for his daily use and service, but even what is for delight and pleasure; yea, as much as he could reasonably wish for; nay, more than heart could wish, Psalm 73:7;
yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof; the Targum adds, "because of his sin"; either he takes it away from him, he making no use of it; or his appetite is taken away, that he has no desire to it; or rather he has no heart to enjoy what he has, and scarce any part of it; not to eat and drink, and wear suitably to his circumstances, but grudges whatever he lays out on his back or belly, or in housekeeping in his family; for though God gives him a large substance, yet not a heart to make use of it, without which he cannot enjoy it; and therefore it would have been as good, or better for him, to have been without it; see Ecclesiastes 5:19;
but a stranger eateth it; the Syriac version adds, "after him"; enjoys it, not only a part of it, but the whole; one that is not akin to him, and perhaps was never known by him; and yet, by one means or another, either in a lawful or unlawful way, comes into the possession of all he has; this has been always reckoned a great unhappiness, Lamentations 5:2. Hence it follows,
this is vanity, and it is an evil disease; it is a vain thing to be possessed of great substance, and not enjoy anything of it in a comfortable way, through the sin of covetousness; which is a spiritual disease, and a very bad one; very prejudicial to the soul, and the state of it, and is rarely cured. Juvenal (w) calls it frenzy and madness for a man to live poor, that be may die rich; he is like the ass that Crassus Agelastus saw, loaded with figs, and eating thorns.
(w) "Cum furor dubius", &c. Satyr. 14. v. 136. exposed by Persius, Sat. 6. v. 69, &c. "unge puer caules", &c.
for his soul--that is, his enjoyment.
God giveth him not power to eat--This distinguishes him from the "rich" man in Ecclesiastes 5:19. "God hath given" distinguishes him also from the man who got his wealth by "oppression" (Ecclesiastes 5:8, Ecclesiastes 5:10).
stranger--those not akin, nay, even hostile to him (Jeremiah 51:51; Lamentations 5:2; Hosea 7:9). He seems to have it in his "power" to do as he will with his wealth, but an unseen power gives him up to his own avarice: God wills that he should toil for "a stranger" (Ecclesiastes 2:26), who has found favor in God's sight.
To עשׁר וּנך, as at 2-Chronicles 1:11, וך and honour is added as a third thing. What follows we do not translate: "and there is nothing wanting ;" for that איננּוּ with the pleonastic suff. may mean: "there is not," is not to be proved from Genesis 39:9, thus: and he spares not for his soul (lxx καὶ οὐκ κ.τ.λ) what he always desires. חסר is adj. in the sense of wanting, lacking, as at 1-Samuel 21:1-15 :16; 1-Kings 11:22; Proverbs 12:9. לנפשׁו, "for his soul," i.e., his person, is = the synon. לעצמו found in the later usage of the language; מן (different from the min, Ecclesiastes 4:8) is, as at Genesis 6:2, partitive. The נכרי, to whom this considerable estate, satisfying every wish, finally comes, is certainly not the legal heir (for that he enters into possession, in spite of the uncertainty of his moral character, Ecclesiastes 2:19, would be in itself nothing less than a misfortune, yet perfectly in order, Ecclesiastes 5:13 [14]), but some stranger without any just claim, not directly a foreigner (Heiligst.), but, as Burger explains: talis qui proprie nullum habet jus in bona ejus cui נכרי dicitur (cf. נכריּה of the unmarried wife in the Book of Proverbs).
That wealth without enjoyment is nothing but vanity and an evil disease, the author now shows by introducing another historical figure, and thereby showing that life without enjoyment is worse than never to have come into existence at all:
Riches - All sorts of riches. To eat - Because God gives him up to a base and covetous mind.
*More commentary available at chapter level.