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Daily Devotions

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 
Day 
Day 46

"The dead who were already dead"

Text: Ecclesiastes 4:2

THE LANGUAGE EMPLOYED

The language that Solomon employed must be carefully studied. Its meaning can be misunderstood otherwise.

“Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead,
More than the living who are still alive.
Yet, better than both is he who has never existed,
Who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 4:2-3

1. “Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead,
More than the living who are still alive”

a) Praising the dead who were already dead.

i) This expresses how Solomon felt for those who were oppressed.

ii) It does not mean that he had already settled his problem with the fact of death.

iii) He was not praising death itself.

iv) He was glad that the oppressed are no longer suffering.

b) “More than the living who are still alive”

i) “The living”

This is a reference to those who were oppressed.

ii) They were living and suffering terribly.

iii) They had no comforter.

iv) They had no hope of being rescued from their dilemma.

c) The contrast between the living and the dead must be understood contextually.

2. “Yet, better than both is he who has never existed”

a) Solomon posits another suggestion.

b) He wrote about those who had never been born.

c) They were “better”.

i) Better not to be born than to be oppressed severely.

ii) Better not to be born so that death need not be experienced.

3. “Who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun”

a) Solomon was deeply troubled by the existence of evil.

b) There was much evil everywhere under the sun.

i) Oppression was only one problem.

ii) Oppression was an expression of evil.

iii) Evil lurks everywhere and it victimises anyone who is weak.

c) The unborn is “better”.

i) It will not need to see evil.

ii) It will not see oppression.

iii) It will not need to face death.