Bird's-eye view
The Preacher, having observed the oppressions of this life (4:1-3), now turns his attention to the motivations that drive men in their work. What makes the world go 'round? Under the sun, it is not a noble pursuit of excellence, but rather a sour and corrosive envy. Solomon identifies the engine of the world's economy as the rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This is the rat race, and the Preacher dismisses it as pure vanity, a chasing of the wind. He then presents two opposite errors that flow from this observation. The first is the fool, who, seeing the futility of envious toil, gives up entirely and consumes himself in his laziness. The second is the man who cannot stop, whose two fists are always full of labor and vexation. The wise man, by contrast, finds the godly mean: one hand full of quietness is better than the frenetic, grasping hustle that is driven by envy.
This passage is a sharp critique of two perennial temptations for men: the envy that drives worldly ambition and the sloth that leads to self-destruction. Both are forms of foolishness because they fail to reckon with God. The envious man thinks he can secure his meaning by outdoing his neighbor, while the fool thinks he can find it by doing nothing at all. Both are chasing the wind. The solution, implied here and stated elsewhere, is to fear God and keep His commandments. It is to work heartily as unto the Lord, not as unto men, and to receive rest and contentment as a gift from His hand.
Outline
- 1. The Problem of Envious Toil (v. 4)
- a. The Observation of Labor and Success (v. 4a)
- b. The Root Cause: Jealousy (v. 4b)
- c. The Verdict: Vanity and Striving After Wind (v. 4c)
- 2. The Reaction of the Fool (v. 5)
- a. The Posture of Sloth (v. 5a)
- b. The Consequence of Sloth: Self-Consumption (v. 5b)
- 3. The Wisdom of Contentment (v. 6)
- a. The Better Way: One Handful with Quietness (v. 6a)
- b. The Inferior Way: Two Handfuls with Toil (v. 6b)
Verse by Verse
4 I have seen that every labor and every success of the work is the result of jealousy between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind.
I have seen that every labor and every success of the work... Solomon is not a detached philosopher in an ivory tower; he is an observer of life as it is actually lived "under the sun." He has considered all the striving, all the promotions, all the craftsmanship, all the entrepreneurial success. He is looking at the machinery of human productivity and asking what makes it all run. This is a comprehensive statement, covering the whole range of human enterprise.
is the result of jealousy between a man and his neighbor. This is a devastating diagnosis. The driving force behind all this "success" is not a love for the work, or a desire to serve God, or a passion for excellence. It is raw, unadulterated envy. The word here is jealousy or rivalry. It's the desire to have what the other guy has, or better yet, to have more than him so that he is the one who is envious. This is keeping up with the Joneses, and it is the fuel that our entire modern advertising industry runs on. It creates a culture of perpetual discontent. Your neighbor gets a new chariot, so you must get a better one. He builds a deck, so you must build a bigger one with a hot tub. This is the very heart of worldly competition.
This too is vanity and striving after wind. And here is the verdict. All this effort, all this one-upmanship, is utterly futile. It is hebel, a puff of smoke, a chasing after the wind. Why? Because envy is a bottomless pit. You can never satisfy it. The moment you "catch up" to your neighbor, someone else moves in on the other side with something even better. You can't catch the wind, and you can't satisfy the gnawing hunger of envy. It is to labor on a treadmill that is powered by your own discontent. It is a miserable way to live, and it produces nothing of eternal value.
5 The fool folds his hands in embrace and consumes his own flesh.
The fool folds his hands in embrace... Here is the opposite error. The fool sees the rat race for what it is, vanity, and his response is to quit the race entirely. He sees the striving driven by envy and concludes that all effort is pointless. So he folds his hands, the classic posture of the sluggard. He will not work. He is the man who says, "If it's all meaningless anyway, why bother?" This is the cynicism that masquerades as wisdom. But it is not wisdom; it is folly. The Preacher does not commend this response.
and consumes his own flesh. The consequence of this foolish idleness is not peaceful tranquility, but self-destruction. He eats his own flesh. This is a graphic metaphor for ruin. Through his laziness, his capital is depleted, his house falls into disrepair, his relationships wither, and his body wastes away. He is a parasite on himself. Sloth is not a neutral state of rest; it is an active process of decay. The fool thinks he is escaping the vanity of the world, but he is simply embracing a different, and more direct, form of it. He becomes his own taskmaster, and the wages of his idleness is death.
6 One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.
One hand full of rest is better... The Preacher now presents the godly alternative, the path of wisdom. It is a proverb that contrasts two ways of living. The first is a life of contentment and peace. "One hand full" suggests moderation. It is not grasping, not hoarding. It is enough. And it is accompanied by "rest" or "quietness." This is not the idleness of the fool, but rather the peaceful fruit of trusting God. It is the ability to enjoy what you have without being consumed by the desire for more. This is the man who works diligently, but knows when to stop. He can enjoy his Sabbath. He has the "can opener" that God gives, which is the ability to enjoy the peaches.
than two fists full of labor and striving after wind. Here is the other man, the man from verse 4. His hands are not just full; he has "two fists full." He is grasping, clutching, holding on with all his might. His life is characterized by "labor," toil, and vexation. And what is the result of all this frantic, two-fisted effort? It is nothing more than "striving after wind." He is the man who gains the whole world but loses his own soul. He has a thousand cans of peaches but no can opener. He has success, but no satisfaction. He has a full portfolio, but an empty heart. The Preacher's wisdom is clear: it is better to have less with peace and contentment from God than to have much with the constant anxiety and vexation that comes from envious toil.
Application
We are presented here with three men, and we must ask which one we are. Are we the man of verse 4, whose ambition is secretly (or not so secretly) fueled by what others have and what others think? Do we measure our success by the envy we can induce in others? This is the way of the world, and it is a chasing of the wind. The gospel frees us from this by giving us our identity in Christ. We are accepted in the Beloved, and therefore we do not need to scrabble for acceptance from our neighbors.
Or are we the fool of verse 5? Have we become so cynical about the world that we have withdrawn into a cocoon of sloth and inactivity? Do we despise work and seek a life of ease, slowly consuming our own substance? This is a denial of our created purpose. God made us to work, to exercise dominion. The gospel redeems our work, transforming it from a cursed toil to a joyful service rendered to God.
The path of wisdom is that of verse 6. It is the path of diligent, faithful work coupled with a contented heart that receives every good thing as a gift from God. This is the man who can say with Paul that he has learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. He is not lazy, but he is not a workaholic. He works with one hand, as it were, keeping the other hand open to receive the rest and peace that God gives. This balance is not something we can achieve on our own. It is a fruit of the Spirit, a gift of grace to those who have ceased striving in their own strength and have learned to rest in the finished work of Christ.