3 “If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he”.
Solomon is speaking of that which he himself feared; a meaningless existence. If a man lives his whole life in misery and does not see good then his life is in vain and it would be better that he was never born (bear in mind in order to see good in this life one must be good – God gives to the man that is good in His sight wisdom, knowledge and joy as we stated in Ecclesiastes 2:26). We can pick up where Solomon left off though, how much worse will it be for the man or woman who does not seek to love the Lord with all their heart; they too will live a vain existence but it will not just be limited to this life only but rather all eternity. This statement is not coming from the wise Solomon who made such astute observations of wisdom in proverbs; I would interject here that this statement comes from a man who had a warped sense of what was good (he tried all folly and madness to see what was good for the sons of men). At this point in his life he seems possessed by pleasures, parties and remembrance. These things, which seem to bring joy to men, actually do not add to the quality of life but rather wastes one existence. Colossians 3:2 “Seek those things which are above…” would have served Solomon very well. O' what a life was wasted in Solomon, he could have used his wealth and influence to make a profound impact in the world on behalf of the Lord God but instead he doted on selfish pursuits, pleasures and making for himself a name.
4 “For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness”.
He is talking about the same man in verse four that he spoke of in verse three; this is indeed the lot of those who forget God (although Solomon has not made that conclusion about this man, we observe it). There was a dark cloud that settled in on Solomon, I have seen this same cloud on men and women of our day. They conclude that just because a life does not sparkle and shine with many spectacular events of this world that it is a vain life, however, I would point out that history is full of men and women who never attained to much of what the word would call glitzy or glamorous and yet their lives were full and rich and their eternities sweet. They lived lives full of self sacrifice and piety and made a tremendous impact in this world (All the heroes of faith, to numerous to mention, who we love and hold dear throughout the ages). Solomon formed evil opinions about life; what was important and what was not. We should not think that just because one does not posses much of this worlds good or fame that their lives are wasted. In fact we need to ignore the circumstances of life all together because they do not tell the whole story; in all things seek the mind of Christ and formulate opinions based on that. Be careful about trying to assess things based solely on what we see or feel.
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