Ecclesiastes 4:3 - Exposition

Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been. Thus we have Job's passionate appeal ( Job 3:11 ), "Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came forth," etc.? And in the Greek poets the sentiment of the text is re-echoed. Thus Theognis, 'Paroen.,' 425—

πάντων μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον

΄ηδ ἐσιδεῖν αὐγὰς ὀξέος ἠελίου

φύντα δ ὅπως ὤκιστα πύλας ἀΐ́δαο περῆσαι

καὶ κεῖσθαι πολλὴν γῆν ἐπαμησάμενον

"'Tis best for mortals never to be born,

Nor ever see the swift sun's burning rays;

Next best, when born, to pass the gates of death

Right speedily, and rest beneath the earth."

Cicero, 'Tusc. Disp.,' 1.48, renders some lines from a lost play of Euripides to the same effect—

"Nam nos decebat, caetus celebrantes, domum

Lugere, ubi esset aliquis in lucern editus,

Humanae vitae varia reputantes mala;

At qui labores metre finisset graves,

Hunc omni amicos lauds et laetitia exsequi ."

Herodotus (5. 4) relates how some of the Thracians had a custom of bemoaning a birth and rejoicing at a death. In our own Burial Service we thank God for delivering the departed "out of the miseries of this sinful world." Keble alludes to this barbarian custom in his poem on' The Third Sunday after Easter.' Speaking of a Christian mother's joy at a child's birth, he says—

"No need for her to weep

Like Thracian wives of yore,

Save when in rapture still and deep

Her thankful heart runs o'er.

They mourned to trust their treasure on the main,

Sure of the storm, unknowing of their guide:

Welcome to her the peril and the pain,

For well she knows the home where they may safely hide."

, sqq .; 'Gorgias,' p. 512, A.) The Buddhist religion does not recommend suicide as an escape from the evils of life. It indeed regards man as master of his own life; but it considers suicide foolish, as it merely transfers a man's position, the thread of life having to be taken up again under less favorable circumstances. See 'A Buddhist Catechism,' by Subhadra Bhikshu. Who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. He repeats the words, "under the sun," from verse 1, in order to show that he is speaking of facts that came under his own regard—outward phenomena which any thoughtful observer might notice (so again verse 7).