Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and draw near to hear, rather than to give the sacrifice of fools for they know not that they do evil.
After four chapters on the emptiness of life under the sun, Ecclesiastes turns to the house of God. The verse is about the feet, the ears and the mouth: where you step, what you come to hear, and how fast you speak.
One writer starts where the verse starts: with what God is owed.
God's rights come first. Everything goes wrong when God is left out, and this is the very root of the misery in man and the world. Yet neither the house of God, nor speaking before Him, nor vows to Him, can rescue anyone from folly or emptiness. Hearing from God comes before speaking to Him. Man's weakness, since he is fallen, follows him everywhere. The wise man's only resource is to fear God. Without this, religious effort only increases the danger.
Why guard the step? Because of the One you are approaching.
He demands respect from man. The folly of the heart is indeed folly in His presence.
The phrase names an offering that costs real effort but takes no account of sin. One writer points to Cain, who brought the fruit of ground God had cursed.
Cain had ears but did not hear. His conscience was untouched about the sin in himself and the ruin around him, and he cared just as little about God's grace and truth... He never took to heart, "Cursed is the ground because of you." He had worked that ground by the sweat of his face, and to his mind that added value to his offering of its fruit. The sin of man was no more to him than the curse of God. Why should God not accept the fruit of the ground, the offering of his own toil and effort? Cain did not know that it was only "the sacrifice of fools," the proof of an unrepentant, unbelieving heart.
That is why the verse says the fools "do not know that they are doing evil." The offering felt sincere to the man giving it. The same charge reaches past Cain to us:
Everything our natural hearts can offer is "the sacrifice of fools." It rests on what fails at the source of any good: the sin of a hard heart. That heart does not recognise our condition — our sin and our separation from our God.
Commentators differ on how the verse lands on a Christian today. One writer says greater freedom of approach calls for more reverence, not less.
If the grace in which we stand has given us greater freedom of access to God than this, surely we are not to use that freedom as an excuse for irreverence and haste. God the Holy Spirit is actually present among us. That should be as strong a motive to reverence and godly fear as the thought that God is in heaven and we are on earth.
Another writer says the distance the verse assumes has now been closed:
The Holy Spirit is permanently present on the earth and lives in the believer. This has bridged the distance between heaven and earth for the believer. So we do not pray today with a sense that God is far off in heaven. We pray with all the confidence and closeness of children, in the immediate presence of God.
One writer draws a line between praying alone and praying where others listen.
It would be a widespread blessing if everyone who prays aloud kept this in mind, whether in the household, the assembly, the prayer meeting, or the preaching room. Long prayers are a mistake, and a sign of weakness, in all these settings. In private, where no eye sees and no ear hears but God's, Scripture appears to set no restriction. But in public, Scripture mentions long prayers only to condemn them.
- Foot — Guard your steps. God asks for respect from the person who comes to Him, and folly stays folly in His presence.
- Ear — Hearing from God comes before speaking to God. Drawing near to listen outranks anything you bring.
- Offering — Cain's offering is the sacrifice of fools: real effort, no account of sin, from a heart that never listened.
- Mouth — Because God is in heaven, keep your words few. In private Scripture sets no limit; in public it mentions long prayers only to condemn them.
- Fear — Without the fear of God, going to His house makes no one safe. Religious effort only raises the risk.
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
Ecclesiastes 5 turns to a subject men treat lightly: how they speak to God. The verse gives a reason — God in heaven, we on earth — and draws one practical conclusion from it about our prayers.
The warning opens a new section of the book, and it opens with what God is owed.
A natural division begins with chapter 5... The first of all rights is that God should have His. Everything is wrong when men leave God out, and this is really the root of the misery in man and in the world. Yet neither the house of God, nor speaking before Him, nor vows made to Him, can rescue anyone from folly or vanity. Hearing from God comes before speaking to Him... The only resource for the wise man is to fear God. Without this, religious effort only increases the danger.
The verse guards the heart as well as the mouth.
He demands respect from man. The folly of the heart is indeed folly in His presence.
Christians stand on different ground, yet one writer argues the lesson presses harder on us, not less.
If the grace in which we stand has given us greater freedom of access to God than this, we must not use that freedom as an excuse for irreverence and haste. God the Holy Spirit is actually present among us. That fact should be as strong a motive for reverence and godly fear as the thought that God is in heaven and we are on the earth.
Awareness of God, one writer argues, makes rambling impossible.
Long prayers may impress the crowd, but they did not impress the Lord! Let us remember this and avoid them ourselves. We dare say this: no one with deep desire, truly conscious of God's presence, can wander about in a maze of words. As Ecclesiastes 5:2 shows, his words must be few.
Prayer is not a way to give God information, and the Lord's own words put long public praying in company nobody would choose.
True prayer is not telling the Lord a host of things, repeating familiar phrases or making statements of doctrine, as if we were trying to explain principles to God and give Him a lot of information... "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words" (Matthew 6:7). Of the scribes He said, "who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers" (Mark 12:40)... So from the Scriptures above we must conclude this: anyone who makes long public prayers puts himself in the same class as the heathen, the scribes, and fools. That is hardly a compliment.
One writer gives a measure for length, and a warning against turning prayer into teaching.
The longest prayer recorded in the Bible is King Solomon's, at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, a very special occasion (2 Chronicles 6:14-42). It takes only six or seven minutes to read. Lengthy prayers often kill a prayer meeting. Prayers made up of explaining Scripture are surely out of place. God does not need anyone to tell Him the meaning of His own inspired word.
One writer points to Peter, who asked the Lord one short question.
Peter was heeding this counsel as he simply says to the Lord, "Explain the parable to us." How refreshing is the brevity and directness of his prayer. Notice, too, that he gets what he asks for at once.
Commentators differ on how far the verse's reasoning still applies. One writer says the Spirit has closed that gap for the believer.
The Holy Spirit is permanently present on the earth, and He lives in the believer. This has bridged the distance between heaven and earth for the believer. So we do not pray today with the sense that God is far off in heaven. We pray with all the confidence and familiarity of children in the immediate presence of God.
That nearness makes prayer shorter, not longer. One man put it like this:
He said, with reverence and earnestness, "I never knew He was so near before." It is a happy thing when the soul knows it is this near to God. It is so near that it only seems necessary to whisper its petitions into the ear of a listening and sympathetic Father, with all the confidence and familiarity of a child.
- God's rights first. The chapter opens with what belongs to God, and everything goes wrong when men leave Him out.
- Hear before speaking. Hearing from God comes before speaking to Him. Without the fear of God, religious effort only raises the danger.
- Reverence, not distance, is the point. Freer access is no excuse for haste. The Spirit's presence should stir the same awe as the thought of God in heaven.
- Few words prove real desire. Someone who knows God is present cannot ramble. Long prayers impress crowds, not the Lord.
- Nearness shortens prayer. Solomon's longest recorded prayer reads in six minutes. A child near his Father only whispers, and the Lord answered Peter's short question at once.
For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice through a multitude of words.
This verse backs up a call for slow steps and few words in the house of God. Why does a crowded day breed restless dreams, and why does a flood of words mark a fool?
One writer sums up this part of Ecclesiastes as a matter of order: who listens first, and who speaks.
God's rights come first: He must have what is His. Everything is wrong when God is left out, and this is really the root of the misery in man and the world. Yet neither the house of God, nor speech before Him, nor vows to Him, can rescue anyone from folly or vanity. Hearing from God comes before speaking to Him... The only resource for the wise man is to fear God. Without this, religious effort simply increases the danger.
So going to God's house is no protection in itself. Careless words there do not cover folly; they display it.
The first half of the proverb explains the origin of most dreams. Scripture allows two sources, and only one of them is God.
Dreams have two sources: either God sends them, or they come from much business. In them God may reveal His mind, or they may simply be "many vanities," the fruit of our own passions or needs.
The verse points to the second kind. A crowded life keeps running after the body lies down, and the mind makes pictures out of its own busyness. One writer draws out what this means now that God's revelation is complete.
God often used this way to make His mind known, or to reveal coming events, in the ages before Moses, when there was no written revelation of His will. Now we have His written revelation, the completed Bible. Only in very rare and exceptional cases can we recognise a dream as having come from God. "A dream comes with much business" — that is, from purely natural causes, Scripture says. This may be said of most dreams.
The two halves of the verse belong together. A crowded life breeds hollow dreams, and crowded speech breeds hollow worship.
The speaker knows man's careless, easy-going ways and his enslaving superstitions, his rash vows and wordy prayers, his shallow reverence and dreamy worship. That worship is dreamy and unreal because it is full of pleading vanities and worldly business. So he presses the crowd going to the house of God to use few words and to take slow, solemn steps in their worship and their vows.
The clearest test of this verse is the prayer meeting. Length is not the measure of earnestness, and the Bible's own record proves it.
How many prayers we have listened to which were only a weariness to the flesh. We have heard prayers where we wondered when the man praying would ever finish. The longest prayer in the Bible is Solomon's at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, a very special occasion (2 Chronicles 6:14-42). It takes only six or seven minutes to read. Lengthy prayers often kill a prayer meeting. Prayers made up of explanations of Scripture are surely out of place. We do not need to tell God the meaning of His own inspired word.
Ecclesiastes gives one reason for few words: God is in heaven, and we are on earth. One writer turns to those who now come nearer than that.
The grace in which we stand has given us greater freedom of access to God than this. Surely we are not to use that freedom as an excuse for irreverence and haste. God the Holy Spirit is actually present among us. That should be as strong a motive for reverence and godly fear as the thought that God is in heaven and we are on earth.
- Overflow. What fills a life comes out of it. Much business overflows into restless dreams. Many words overflow into a fool's voice.
- Origin. Dreams have two sources — God, or a crowded mind. Now that the Bible is complete, a dream from God is a rare exception.
- Unreality. Wordy prayers and rash vows make worship as unreal as the dream itself.
- Brevity. God does not need our explanations of His own word. Solomon's own greatest prayer reads in six or seven minutes; length is no proof of earnestness.
- Fear. Hearing from God comes before speaking to Him. The fear of God is the only safeguard; without it, religion only adds to the danger.