Ecclesiastes 4:5 - Exposition

The connection of this verse with the preceding is this: activity, diligence, and skill indeed bring success, but success is accompanied by sad results. Should we, then, sink into apathy, relinquish work, let things slide? Nay, none but the fool ( kesil ), the insensate, half-brutish man, doth this. The fool foldeth his hands together . The attitude expresses laziness and disinclination for active labor, like that of the sluggard in Proverbs 6:10 . And eateth his own flesh . Ginsburg, Plumptre, and others take these words to mean "and yet eats his meat," i . e . gets that enjoyment from his sluggishness which is denied to active diligence. They refer, in proof of this interpretation, to Exodus 16:8 ; Exodus 21:28 ; Isaiah 22:13 ; Ezekiel 39:17 , in which passages, however, the phrase is never equivalent to "eating his food." The expression is really equivalent to "destroys himself," "brings ruin upon himself." Thus we have in Psalms 27:2 , "Evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh;" and in Micah 3:3 , "Who eat the flesh of my people" (comp. Isaiah 49:26 ). The sluggard is guilty of moral suicide; he takes no trouble to provide for his necessities, and suffers extremities in consequence. Some see in this verse and the following an objection and its answer. There is no occasion for this view, and it is not in keeping with the context; but it contains an intimation of the true exposition, which makes Micah 3:6 a proverbial statement of the sluggard's position. The verbs in the text are participial in form, so that the Vulgate rendering, which supplies a verb, is quite admissible: Stultus complicat manna suas, et comedit carnes suas, dicens: Melior est , etc.