Ecc 6:3-6 | JFB | STEP | 3. Even if a man (of this character) have very many (equivalent to "a hundred," ) children, and not have a "stranger" as his heir ( ), and live long ("days of years" express the brevity of life at its best, ), yet enjoy no real "good" in life, and lie unhonored, without "burial," at death ( ), the embryo is better than he. In the East to be without burial is the greatest degradation. "Better the fruit that drops from the tree before it is ripe than that left to hang on till rotten" [HENRY ].

Ecclesiastes 6:3-6

3. Even if a man (of this character) have very many (equivalent to "a hundred," 2Ki 10:1) children, and not have a "stranger" as his heir (Ec 6:2), and live long ("days of years" express the brevity of life at its best, Ge 47:9), yet enjoy no real "good" in life, and lie unhonored, without "burial," at death (2Ki 9:26, 35), the embryo is better than he. In the East to be without burial is the greatest degradation. "Better the fruit that drops from the tree before it is ripe than that left to hang on till rotten" [HENRY].

4. he—rather "it," "the untimely birth." So "its," not "his name."

with vanity—to no purpose; a type of the driftless existence of him who makes riches the chief good.

darkness—of the abortive; a type of the unhonored death and dark future beyond the grave of the avaricious.

5. this—yet "it has more rest than" the toiling, gloomy miser.

6. If the miser's length of "life" be thought to raise him above the abortive, Solomon answers that long life, without enjoying real good, is but lengthened misery, and riches cannot exempt him from going whither "all go." He is fit neither for life, nor death, nor eternity.