Commentary - Ecclesiastes 7:15-18

Bird's-eye view

In this challenging passage, the Preacher, Solomon, continues his exploration of life "under the sun." He confronts us with a series of observations that seem to turn our neat and tidy categories of piety and wickedness on their head. These are not cynical musings, but rather hard-won wisdom from a man who has seen it all. The central point is a warning against two kinds of extremism that both miss the central point of biblical faith. The first is a self-righteous, priggish moralism that is more concerned with its own performance than with God. The second is a foolhardy embrace of wickedness. The safe path, the path of wisdom, is found only in the fear of God, which enables a man to navigate the paradoxes of this life without falling into either the ditch of legalism or the ditch of license.

Solomon is setting us up for the conclusion of the whole matter, which is to fear God and keep His commandments. But before we can get there, we have to be disabused of our simplistic formulas. Life is not a straightforward equation where x amount of righteousness always equals y amount of blessing in this life. Solomon forces us to look at the exceptions, the strange providences, and the moral complexities of a fallen world. The answer is not to abandon the categories of righteous and wicked, but to hold them with a humble dependence on the God who alone is truly righteous and wise.

Outline

Context In Ecclesiastes

This passage sits within a larger section of the book (chapters 7-8) where Solomon is dealing with the practical application of wisdom in a world that is often unjust and unpredictable. He has already established that all is vanity, that human wisdom has its limits, and that God is sovereign over all things. Now he is applying these truths to the moral life. How does a wise man live when he sees the righteous suffer and the wicked thrive? This was the great problem that vexed Asaph in Psalm 73, and Solomon tackles it head-on. He is stripping away all false grounds of assurance. Your assurance cannot be in your own performance, because even the righteous perish. And you certainly cannot find it in wickedness, for that is the path to premature death. The only stable place to stand is in a right relationship with the sovereign God, which is what he means by "the one who fears God."

Verse by Verse Commentary

v. 15 I have seen everything during my days of vanity; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.

Solomon begins with his customary experiential authority. "I have seen everything," he says, during his "days of vanity." This vanity, this hebel, is the smoke, the vapor, the frustrating transience of life under the sun. And what has he seen in this misty reality? He has seen a great and troubling paradox. He has seen a righteous man perish in his righteousness. Notice the phrasing. It is not just that a righteous man dies, for all men die. It is that his righteousness does not save him from an untimely end. Think of Abel, slain by his brother. Think of Uriah the Hittite, a good man sent to his death by a wicked king. Think of John the Baptist, beheaded for his faithful preaching. The world is not a fair place, and righteousness is no guarantee of a long and prosperous life. This is a hard truth, and it shatters any simplistic karma-like theology.

On the other hand, he has seen "a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing." The scoundrel lives to a ripe old age. The tyrant dies in his bed. The swindler enjoys his ill-gotten gains for decades. This is the reality that makes the saints cry out, "How long, O Lord?" Solomon is not denying the ultimate judgment. The end of the book makes that clear. But he is forcing us to deal with the world as it is, not as we think it ought to be. God's providences are mysterious, and His timeline is not our own. To build your faith on the expectation that God will always make things "fair" in this life is to build your house on the sand.

v. 16 Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you make yourself desolate?

Now this is a verse that has thrown many people for a loop. Is the Bible telling us to be moderately righteous? Is God against wholehearted devotion? Not at all. To understand this, we must understand what Solomon means by being "excessively righteous." He is not talking about true, God-given, Spirit-wrought righteousness. You cannot have too much of that. He is talking about a particular kind of man-made, self-conscious, priggish righteousness. This is the righteousness of the Pharisee who polishes the outside of the cup while the inside is full of filth. This is the person who is always taking everyone else's spiritual temperature, who has a rule for everything, and whose piety is a performance for others to see. This is the "doctrinally-correct-but-insufferable" Christian. He is so focused on his own spiritual resume that he becomes brittle, harsh, and judgmental.

This kind of "righteousness" is often paired with being "overly wise." This is the know-it-all who has an answer for everything, who has mastered the system, and who looks down on those who are not as clever. This wisdom is not the humble fear of the Lord; it is intellectual pride. And what is the result of this lifestyle? "Why should you make yourself desolate?" The word means to be stunned, appalled, or ruined. The man who pursues this kind of self-righteousness ends up isolated and alone. He drives people away. He has no joy. His spiritual life is a joyless grind of rule-keeping. He is like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, standing outside the party, bitter and alone in his own correctness.

v. 17 Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a simpleminded fool. Why should you die before your time?

Having warned against the ditch on the right side of the road, Solomon now warns against the ditch on the left. If self-righteousness is a danger, so is outright wickedness. The warning "do not be excessively wicked" is something of an understatement, a bit of Hebrew irony. The point is not that a little wickedness is fine. The point is a warning against throwing off all restraint. Do not give yourself over to evil. And do not be a "simpleminded fool." The fool is the one who says in his heart there is no God, the one who lives for the moment with no thought for the consequences.

And what is the consequence of this path? "Why should you die before your time?" While the righteous sometimes perish early, the wicked often hasten their own demise. The drunkard destroys his liver. The adulterer gets a bullet from a jealous husband. The violent man meets a violent end. Sin has built-in consequences. To live a life of flagrant sin is to play Russian roulette with God's common grace. It is supreme folly.

v. 18 It is good that you seize one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.

So what is the solution? Solomon says it is good to "seize one thing and also not let go of the other." What are these two things? He is referring back to the two warnings in the previous verses. You must hold in tension the warning against self-righteousness and the warning against wickedness. You must navigate a course between them. You must understand that your own righteousness is a filthy rag, and at the same time you must pursue holiness and hate sin. You must see the vanity of life under the sun, and yet not become a cynical or hedonistic fool.

How is this possible? How can a man hold these two seemingly contradictory truths? The answer is in the final clause: "for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them." The Hebrew can be translated "will escape them all" or "will go forth with both." The idea is that the God-fearer successfully navigates this treacherous territory. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the central, foundational orientation of the heart toward God. The one who fears God knows that he is not God. He is therefore saved from the pride of being "overly wise." He knows that all his righteousness is a gift from God, received by faith, and so he is saved from being "excessively righteous." He knows that God is a holy judge who will not be mocked, and so he is saved from being "excessively wicked." The fear of God is the secret. It is the can opener that God gives His beloved along with the cans of peaches. Without it, you have all the blessings of life, or all the rules for life, but no ability to enjoy God or His world. The man who fears God is the one who can walk this tightrope, holding to the truth, living in wisdom, and finding joy in the midst of the vanity.

Application

The primary application of this passage is a call to abandon all forms of self-salvation and to rest entirely in the fear of the Lord, which is to say, in Christ. The gospel saves us from both ditches described here. It saves us from the self-righteousness of the Pharisee because it tells us that our only righteousness is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. We bring nothing to the table but our sin. Our best efforts, our most virtuous deeds, are what Paul called "dung" compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Men are not truly converted until the day their virtues humiliate them. This truth demolishes the temptation to be "excessively righteous."

At the same time, the gospel saves us from the license of the fool. Grace is not a license to sin, but the power to overcome it. Because we have been bought with a price, we are no longer our own. We are called to glorify God in our bodies. The fear of God, instilled in us by the Holy Spirit, makes us hate the sin that nailed our Savior to the tree. We flee wickedness not to earn our salvation, but because we have been saved. We walk the narrow way, not the broad road that leads to destruction.

So the Christian life is this steady walk, holding these truths in hand. We live in a world where good people suffer and bad people prosper, and we do not lose heart, because our hope is not in this life. We reject the sour-faced piety that thinks it is earning points with God, and we embrace the joyful freedom of those who know they are sinners saved by grace. And we reject the foolishness of the world that chases after sin, knowing that it leads only to death. We do all this by keeping our eyes fixed on God, fearing Him, which is the only way to truly live.