Ecclesiastes 4:1 - Exposition

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun. This is equivalent to, "again I saw," as Ecclesiastes 4:7 , with a reference to the wickedness in the place of judgment which he had noticed in Ecclesiastes 3:16 . Ashukim , "oppressions," is found in Job 35:9 and Amos 3:9 , and, being properly a participle passive, denotes oppressed persons or things, and so abstractedly "oppressions." τὰς συκοφαντίας ; calumnias (Vulgate). The verb is used of high-handed injustice, of offensive selfishness, of the hindrances to his neighbor's well-being caused by a man's careless disregard of aught but his own interests. Beheld the tears of such as were oppressed ; τῶν συκοφαντουμένων ; innocentium (Vulgate). He notes now not merely the fact of wrong being done, but its effect on the victim, and intimates his own pity for the sorrow. And they had no comforter. A sad refrain, echoed again at the end of the verse with touching pathos. οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῖς παρακαλῶν ; they had no earthly friends to visit them in their affliction, and they as yet knew not the soothing of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter ( παράκλητος ). There was no one to wipe away their tears ( Isaiah 25:8 ) or to redress their wrongs. The point is the powerlessness of man in the face of these disorders, his inability to right himself, the incompetence of others to aid him. On the side of their oppressors there was power (koach), in a bad sense, like the Greek βία equivalent to "violence." Thus the ungodly say, in the Book of Wisdom Amos 2:11 , "Let our strength be the law of justice." Vulgate, Nec posse resistere eorun violentiae, cunctorum auxilio destitutes . It is difficult to suppose that the state of things revealed by this verse existed in the days of King Solomon, or that so powerful a monarch, and one admired for "judgment and justice" ( 1 Kings 10:9 ), would be content with complaining of such disorders instead of checking them. There is no token of remorse for past unprofitableness or anguish of heart at the thought of failure in duty. If we take the words as the utterance of the real Solomon, we do violence to history, and must correct the existing chronicles of his reign. The picture here presented is one of later times, and it may be of other countries. Persian rule, or the tyranny of the Ptolemies, might afford an original from which it might be taken.