For all this I laid to my heart and [indeed] to investigate all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; man knoweth neither love nor hatred all is before them.
Ecclesiastes 9 opens with the Preacher sitting down to sift everything he has seen. He reaches two conclusions at once. God holds good and wise people, and all they do, in His hand. Yet nothing a person can watch here tells him whether God's love or God's hatred rests on him. So can we read God's dealings in this life like a scoreboard? And must a believer live in doubt?
The verse is not a shrug. One commentator finds two certainties here, set down after the Preacher had tested what present events can prove:
Present events answer to God's government so little that no one can draw a right conclusion from them. Yet the Preacher lays down two truths beyond dispute: the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; yet no man knows either love or hatred — the whole is before them. Outwardly the same end comes to all; one thing happens to bad and good.
Ecclesiastes weighs life from one fixed standpoint. That is why love and hatred stay hidden here. The book looks at man's life from below:
The book describes actions as done "under the sun," with no thought of doing them towards God. It does not present man as being in direct relationship with God, though he is responsible to his Creator. The name of Jehovah does not occur even once.
Being in God's hand does not mean the wise man gets his reward now. One writer notes how soon people drop the wise man they turned to for help, and how little his wisdom can mend:
How often is justice now perverted! The righteous suffer, and the guilty go free... And the wise man, courted for his help in a time of pressing need, is forgotten once the hour of distress has passed. So wisdom may show its owner what is wrong, and make him feel the bitterness of it. All the while he knows he is powerless to correct it.
People have long quoted this sentence to prove that no one can be sure of God's favour. Commentators reject that use. One notes where the verse became a favourite text:
"No man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them" is a favourite verse in the church of Rome. According to Rome, the best of its people are going to purgatory. They are simply wandering in what does not belong to them, and their end is uncertainty.
Another writer answers that misuse directly. He points to the cross, where both love and hatred came into full view:
Your quotation from Ecclesiastes has no application to our Christian place. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us." Do we not know evil in the world's rejection of Him, man's hatred against God? We know perfect love, and, sadly, perfect hatred, in the cross... Ecclesiastes takes up what is done under the sun — whether mortal man can find satisfying happiness here, and learns that all is vanity and frustration of spirit. It is not the revelation of grace in the Son of God.
The Preacher's uncertainty fitted where he stood. What ended it was not sharper observation of life here, but a revelation from above:
Sin has ruined and confused everything here below. The only wisdom and righteousness was to look to One above the ruin, Who stays the same for ever. Now that He has revealed Himself in His Son, this is far plainer. Death is the end of everything here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ.
- Hand — Start where the verse starts: God holds the righteous, the wise and all they do in His hand. That is the first of two points the Preacher lays down as beyond dispute.
- Hidden — The second point is that no one can read that hand from outside. Present events do not measure God's government. The same thing happens to the good and to the bad.
- Horizon — The reason lies in the book's viewpoint. It weighs everything "under the sun." Man is responsible to his Creator, but not in direct relationship with Him, and the name Jehovah never appears.
- Helpless — Within that horizon even wisdom is limited. It shows the wise man what is wrong and lets him feel the bitterness of it. He still cannot put it right, and people forget him once the crisis passes.
- Revealed — The cross ends the uncertainty. Love and hatred both came into full view there. So this verse maps man's search under the sun, not the grace God has now revealed in His Son.
All things [come] alike to all one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good, so is the sinner; he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
The Preacher looks at life and finds that events sort nobody: good and bad, clean and unclean, the man who sacrifices and the man who never bothers all meet the same thing. If life will not mark the difference between godly and godless, does God Himself see no difference?
This verse sounds bleak because of where the whole book stands. It gives us man reasoning about what he can see, leaving out what God has revealed.
Remember that this book gives us the experience of man, and the reasoning of man, about all that happens under the sun. Then the passages that look like unbelief cause no difficulty. Man's experience is bound to be unbelieving. He admits he does not know, because experience can know nothing beyond the things he can see. But the answer to every moral problem lies above and beyond the things we can see.
The phrase "under the sun" marks that boundary, and the writer chose it on purpose.
What is "under the sun" is on the earth. There is also something above the sun — heaven, the heavenly things. So Ecclesiastes deals with earthly things, with what man does apart from God, that is the natural man… In all his searching and describing of the things under the sun, the writer does not lean on divine revelation, on what is above the sun. He reaches his results by the light nature gives; his resources are inside himself… Ecclesiastes is in the Holy Scriptures for one purpose: to show the natural man how hollow and empty everything under the sun is, and so to move him to seek and find what is better, what is above the sun.
Read inside those limits, the verse does not deny that God rules. It denies that present events show us how He rules.
Present events do not reflect God's government closely enough for anyone to draw a right conclusion from them. Yet the Preacher sets down two truths that cannot be disputed: the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; yet no man knows either love or hatred — it all lies before them. On the surface the same end comes to all; one thing happens to bad and good.
The same thing still happens today. One writer traces it to laws that came into the world with sin.
We live in a world where certain laws came in with sin and now work as part of God's government. These laws make no distinction between saint and sinner. Nobody gets special treatment. These laws visit saint and sinner with strict impartiality. An epidemic rages. Christian and unbeliever alike fall victims.
Some have taken the words just before this verse and used them against a believer's confidence. One writer sets out that objection in a conversation between two men:
They will not allow you, James, to have confidence in the love of God, or to be assured. They cite the words — "no man can know love or hatred by all that is before him," to prove that no Christian can be assured.
The answer in that conversation points away from circumstances and back to what God has already done.
Suppose a Christian believes that God gave His only Son for him while he was a poor sinner. Add to that His love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. I do not see how he can doubt that God loves him.
If the way life turns out will not tell us what God thinks of us, something else must.
God's ways in governing this world are past understanding. A soul under discipline understands nothing. "The same event happens to the righteous and the wicked"; it stays a puzzle for them until God judges. These ways we cannot explain will never show us for certain what God is. The sinner, man, needs something; then Jesus appears… Impossible to find more love and grace than in Him.
People in the days of the prophet Malachi made the same complaint: God treats good and evil alike. One writer shows how the prophet answered them.
They had said, "Those who do evil get on well; yes, those who put God to the test escape" — as if God were wiping out every moral distinction. But the prophet now tells them this: when God appears for the weak few who had thought about His name, these same people — the ones who had challenged the rightness of God's ways — will once more see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.
- Under the sun. The verse reports what a man can see without revelation. Past that line, experience knows nothing.
- Sorted alike. Events do not sort the righteous from the wicked. The laws of a sinful world strike saint and sinner alike.
- Held anyway. Yet the righteous and their works are in the hand of God — this is not abandonment, only silence.
- Assured elsewhere. Circumstances cannot show God's love, so no one can use this verse to prove a believer must live unsure of it.
- Settled finally. The puzzle lasts until God judges. Jesus shows what God is, and the coming day will make the distinction plain.
This is an evil among all that is done under the sun, that one thing befalleth all yea, also the heart of the children of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live; and after that, [they have to go] to the dead.
Ecclesiastes 9:3 lands like a verdict. The same end comes to everyone, and meanwhile the human heart is full of evil and madness. Read alone, it sounds bleak. Is this God's final word on man, or an honest report of what a man can see from this side of the grave?
The Preacher has been watching how life actually runs, and what he sees does not sort people out. One writer notes that outward events give no reliable reading of God's dealings.
What happens here does not show God's government clearly enough for anyone to draw a right conclusion from present events. Yet the Preacher lays down two facts beyond dispute. The righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. Yet no one knows either love or hatred — the whole is before them. Outwardly there is the one issue alike to all; one thing happens to bad and good.
This explains why parts of Ecclesiastes can sound like the talk of an unbeliever. The book keeps to what a man can observe and reason out.
This book gives us the experience of man, and the reasonings of man, about all that happens under the sun. Remember that, and the passages that look like unbelief cause no difficulty. By its nature, the experience of man is unbelieving. He confesses his ignorance; for beyond what he can see, experience can know nothing. But the answer to every moral problem lies above and beyond what he can see.
The "evil" here is not that people die guilty. It is that death falls on everyone alike. Ecclesiastes looks at death from an unusual angle.
Death is the wages of sin, but it is not viewed in this aspect in Ecclesiastes. Solomon does not dwell on the reason death entered the world. He dwells on its presence here, like a worm at the root of the tree of pleasure. It spoils pleasure and chills enjoyment. It cuts a man off just when he would sit down, after years of hard work, to reap the fruit of his labour... This book looks at death from this side of the grave.
The strangest part of the verse is the link between the certainty of death and the state of the heart. Men know where everyone is heading, and live as though they did not.
The grave is the one common goal. In that goal there is the end of all human toil and ambition. But man knows that all go one way, and he knows it for certain. Still he does not reckon with it at all; "the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live." They live on with madness in the heart; then comes death.
The description here is not one gloomy man's mood. The same finding about the heart runs through every part of the Bible.
Here I would pause on that solemn thought — the heart of man! The Law says of it, "Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). The Prophets testify, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9). The Psalms bear witness that "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Ps. 14:1). The Gospels — in the words of Jesus — record that "from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit..." (Mark 7:21-22)... It is the one universal testimony of every section of the Word of God.
The verse ends with men going to the dead, and stops. Commentators say this darkness was real for the writer, and that Christ has since answered it.
Sin has ruined and confused all things here below. To look to One above the ruin, who stays the same for ever, was the only wisdom and righteousness. Now that He has revealed Himself in His Son, this is far plainer. Death is the end of all here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ. Before He came, death could only be dreadful, because even for the believer the light beyond was so dim... Now we can call it gain, and much better than the life of this world; for it is to depart and be with Christ.
- One event. The same outward end comes to good and bad alike, so no one can read present circumstances as God's verdict.
- One viewpoint. Ecclesiastes reports the reasonings of man about life under the sun. Experience knows nothing beyond what a man can see.
- One diagnosis. Men know the grave is the common goal and still refuse to reckon with it — evil in the heart, madness while they live.
- One witness. Law, Prophets, Psalms and Gospels agree about the heart. This verse is not pessimism but an accurate report.
- One answer. What death closed in darkness, Christ has opened: in Him is life, and for the believer to die is now gain.
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Ecclesiastes 9 looks at life from ground level. From there, a live animal that everyone despises beats a dead one that everyone admired. Is that bleak verdict God's final word on death? Or is it the best that human reasoning can do without revelation?
Ecclesiastes reports what a man can work out by observation, and the phrase "under the sun" marks the ceiling of that search.
Remember that this book gives us the experience of man, and the reasonings of man, on all that happens under the sun. Then there is no difficulty in those passages that look like unbelief. Man's experience must be unbelieving. He confesses his ignorance, because experience can know nothing beyond what he can see. But the answer to every moral problem lies above and beyond what he can see. There is no question, in this book, of grace or of redemption, but only of the experience of this present life.
The saying comes out of a hard fact: the same end waits for everyone. One writer traces the reasoning and then asks whether it is the truth.
One event is in store for all — the righteous, the wicked, the good, the clean, the unclean. The grave is the one common goal. Dark reason says, "a living dog is better than a dead lion." The dead lion has nothing left of all his majestic awe. But if a man is alive, even if he is like a dog, that is the better thing. Everything here is pessimism gone to seed. Is this the revelation of God? A thousand times, no! It is the verdict of the natural man. But revelation, the life and immortality brought to light by the gospel, tells us something entirely different.
The book keeps to this world. When it speaks of the dead, it speaks of how they stand to the life they have left. Take those words out of that setting, and error follows, as one writer shows.
Mr. Roberts takes verses that describe the relation of the dead to the world they have left. He uses them to try to prove that the soul is not immortal, and that people cease to exist at death. Take one verse only, which Mr. Roberts quotes: "The dead know not anything." How true that is as to this world. It is no statement about the next. Look up the passage, and the meaning is plain.
The verse ties hope to being still among the living. One writer uses that against the hope of a second chance after death.
The whole aim is to put an end to that false hope, so ready to assert itself, that eternity still holds a gospel for those who are unsaved here. "He who is joined with all the living has hope" (Ecclesiastes 9:4), but the dead are beyond recall.
So delay is a gamble on time you do not own.
Many intend to be saved some time before they die; but nobody knows when that will be, for death is busy all around. Besides, the Lord Jesus may come for His own, as He has promised. Then the open door of salvation will be shut forever against all who have refused the gospel!
This preference for bare life made sense while the grave hid everything beyond it. Christ changed that.
Death is the end of all here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ. Before He came, death could only be dreadful. The light beyond was so dim, even to the believer. A live dog is better than the lion when dead, he says. Now we can pronounce it gain, and very much better than the life of this world; for it is to depart and be with Christ.
The proverb has an everyday use too. One writer applies it to the boy with his loaves and fishes.
"A living dog is better than a dead lion." A small boy who is here with his loaves and fishes is better than a whole convoy of provisions ten miles away.
- Standpoint — The book records man's reasoning about life "under the sun." It raises no question "of grace or of redemption," and experience "can know nothing" beyond what a man can see.
- Proverb — Death strips the lion of "all his majestic awe," so bare life beats fallen greatness. This is "the verdict of the natural man," not revelation.
- Limit — Words here about the dead describe the world "they have left." They make "no statement about the next."
- Hope — Hope belongs to the living, because "the dead are beyond recall." That makes today, not some later date you plan on, the time to settle the question.
- Reversal — For those who have life in Christ, death is no longer the worst thing. It is "gain, and very much better than the life of this world."
For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 is quoted often in arguments about life after death, and misused just as often. Does it reveal the state of the dead, or does it only report what a living man sees from the graveside?
The verse does not stop at the words about the dead knowing nothing. It runs on into words that no one applies beyond this world.
You quote, for example, Ecclesiastes 9:5: "the dead know nothing": now how does this go on? "And they have no more reward." Do you believe that applies to anything beyond this world? You know well you do not; you teach the contrary. "For the memory of them is forgotten… and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun." Is it not as clear as the sun that all this applies to this world? So does the whole book, which speaks of what is under the sun in the days of the life of our vanity.
Read within that boundary, each phrase describes the dead man's relation to the world he has left, not the condition of his soul.
He was looking at the scene around him, out of which men departed and left no sign behind to show that they had been. Their memory was forgotten… In relation to that scene they knew nothing; their wisdom and knowledge had departed too. This does not mean that they "lost their memories," or that they became fools. They knew nothing of things taking place after they left, and their wisdom or knowledge could not appear in the scene any more. The closing sentence shows clearly what the earlier part applies to: "and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun."
One everyday example shows how far this ignorance reaches.
A man may have been the watchful head of a large business on earth. Once he leaves this world behind, he knows nothing more of it, or whether it prospers. And so with all departed ones as far as human affairs are concerned.
Commentators differ on how much weight the words themselves carry. Some ask whether verse 5 is God's teaching at all.
But is this the truth? Is this a doctrine of the faith delivered to the saints? Is this the revelation of God? A thousand times, No! It is the verdict which the natural man — pagan or unbelieving philosopher — pronounces.
Others weigh the words by what the writer could not yet know.
Death is the end of all here below; but in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ. Before He came, death could not but be dreadful: so dim, even to the believer, was the light beyond. Now we can call death gain, and very much better than the life of this world; for it is to depart and be with Christ.
Many use this verse to argue that the soul sleeps between death and resurrection. Commentators give two answers. The first weighs the word "sleep," and points to two men who were conscious after death.
Some tell us that men lie passive until the resurrection, and press the word "sleep" in support of their notion. But Scripture says "sleep" only of the body, never of the soul. Lazarus was "comforted." This was conscious blessedness… The rich man, too, was conscious. He was in pain. As he saw the joy of Lazarus, he felt his own loss. His memory was alive, and fear filled him for his five brothers still alive on the earth.
The second is that the same book closes the question itself.
That Solomon himself contradicts such an interpretation of Ecclesiastes 9:5 as soul-sleep is clear. He says, "and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
The living have one thing the dead do not: they know death is coming. Ecclesiastes draws a practical lesson from that.
Then the moral is: be busy now; work ceases in the grave; wisdom for this busy scene is not there; no heart that plans; no planning head. All true in its way. But this was man's musing, not divine revelation about the state of the dead at all. Had you asked this man what he knew of that, he would have said, as he did say, Who knows? "Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward?" He saw the dust laid in the tomb, and that was all he knew. The rest was guesswork, nothing more.
- Boundary. "Under the sun" rules the whole book. Every clause here describes the dead man's link with this world, and the verse's last line says so.
- Loss. Death ends a person's share, reward, memory and influence here. It does not end the person.
- Viewpoint. The words report what a man sees from the graveside. Commentators call this either the natural man's verdict or the dim light people had before Christ came.
- Correction. Scripture speaks of sleep for the body, never for the soul. Ecclesiastes itself sends the spirit back to God who gave it.
- Urgency. Work and planning stop at the grave. So knowing that you will die is a call to act now.
Their love also, and their hatred, and their envy is already perished; neither have they any more for ever a portion in all that is done under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 9:6 closes a bleak paragraph about the dead. Their feelings are gone, and they hold no stake in the world they left. Writers ask one question above all others. Is this about the state of the soul after death, or about what death takes from a man here?
The verse ends by naming its own limit. One writer answers an objector who quotes verse 5 and stops one line too soon.
You quote, for example, Ecclesiastes 9:5: "the dead know nothing." Now how does it go on? "They have no more reward." Do you believe that applies to anything beyond this world? You know well you do not; you teach the opposite. "For the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun." Is it not as clear as the sun that all this applies to this world? So does the whole book, which speaks of what is under the sun in the days of our vain life.
The phrase is not limited to this chapter:
This expression "under the sun" appears twenty-eight times in the twelve chapters, and it gives the book its character. It describes life "in Adam." It asks what is best for man, and how he should spend his life to be happy on earth. The writer speaks as a human philosopher wandering in his search. Sometimes he gets near the truth. At other times he is far from it.
Love, hate and envy once made a man stand out among his neighbours. The verse says they have "perished." One writer shows where they perished.
He was looking at the scene around him. Men left it and gave no sign that they had ever been there. Their memory was forgotten. Their love, hatred and envy, which had once made them stand out as actors on that stage, had vanished. As far as this scene goes, they knew nothing, and their wisdom and knowledge had gone too. This does not mean... that they "lost their memories," or that they became fools. They knew nothing of what happened after they left, and their wisdom and knowledge could show itself here no longer. The closing sentence shows plainly what the earlier part is about: "forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun."
Many use this passage to argue that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection. One writer answers with a plain example.
Take texts away from their context, and you can make them prove any false teaching you please. The writer of Ecclesiastes is dealing with things "under the sun," and these are the things he means when he says, "the dead know nothing." A man may have been the watchful head of a large business on earth. Once he leaves this world, he knows nothing more about it, whether it prospers or not. The same is true of all who have died, as far as human affairs go.
This book records what human wisdom found, so we read it differently from the rest of Scripture.
Ecclesiastes is a deeply interesting and helpful book. But we must not come to it as divine revelation. It is the inspired record of how human wisdom sums up the problems of life and death. Here and there Solomon shows a faint light of what lies beyond, God-given light of course.
Another writer asks plainly whether the words of verses 5 and 6 are doctrine:
But is this the truth? Is this a doctrine of the faith delivered to the saints? Is this the revelation of God? A thousand times, no! It is the verdict of the natural man, the pagan or unbelieving philosopher. But revelation — the life and immortality that the gospel brought to light — tells us something completely different.
Death itself has not changed. The light on it has.
Death is the end of everything here below. But in Him is life, and those who believe have it in Christ. Before He came, death could only be dreadful, because even for the believer the light beyond was so dim. A living dog is better than a dead lion, the writer says. Now we can call death gain, and far better than the life of this world, for it means to depart and be with Christ.
- Limit. The verse sets its own scope in its last words. All that it denies the dead, it denies them "under the sun," not beyond it.
- Loss. Death ends the man's stake in this scene. His loves, his quarrels, his rivalries and any further part in what happens here are gone.
- Misuse. Quote verse 5 without verse 6, and a statement about this world becomes a teaching about soul sleep that the text never makes.
- Method. Ecclesiastes records a search made by human wisdom. Weigh its conclusions; do not just adopt them.
- Light. The same death that closed the search in darkness became gain once Christ brought life to light.