Ecc 4:7 | KingComments | STEP | The Preacher saw something else under the sun that is vanity ( ). This is that there are so many lonely people on earth who work hard and earn a lot, but have no one to share their lives and possessions with ( ). He describes the emptiness of loneliness and therefore the fruitlessness of everything that is obtained through hard work. The lonely egoist is worse than the striver and the sloth of . We see here a compulsive money-grubber, one whose eye is not satisfied with riches. He walks with the dollar sign in his eyes, he only sees money, and is therefore ‘dehumanized’. He has no family, he does not want to have any relationship, and friendships he desires least of all. He is always at work, without any moment of pleasure and enjoyment of what he has earned. He always wants more, but never will he share anything with anyone else. He has a big company, but no possible followers. He has an abundance of food, but no one to share his meals with. He does not want that either, because it costs time and money. There is no place for a “second person” in his life. There is only one ‘first person’, who is at the same time the ‘only one’, because there is no second one. The first and only one is he himself. If he had a wife or children, he’d hardly have time for them. Maybe he thinks he is working hard for them, but in reality he lives for his business and therewith he is married. His eye is focused on his wealth. And since his eye is not satisfied with riches, he just plods on. There is no end to his hard toil ( ). He has more than he can ever spend for himself, but for whom does he do it? He deprives himself of any pleasure, but why? Slogging in solitude is indeed “vanity” and “a grievous task”. Peace and rest are sacrificed for his desires. He labors on and on. He does not think about God. He is rich, but not in God. If his heart stops beating, for whom will everything be for which he has worked so ceaselessly ( )? Someone has described money as ‘an article that can be used as a universal passport to go everywhere except to heaven, and as a universal provision for everything except for happiness.’ I have read in a commentary a current description of the lonely, hard worker the Preacher presents to us here: ‘This man believes in the value of hard work and finds satisfaction in it. He is probably married and has at least three children whose picture he has in his wallet. He loves his wife and thinks about her more often than she knows. Certainly, he makes long days; he often leaves the house before six o’clock in the morning and only returns home after seven o’clock in the evening. The pressure of his work is so great that it takes him an hour or two to come to rest, so that he cannot spend much time talking. He is so tired that reading the newspaper and watching a bit of television is all he can do, after which he goes to bed tired. His blood pressure is too high, he knows he needs to move more. His diet is not very good, and sometimes he is irritable and growls at his family, which he later regrets. It is true that he works seventy hours a week, but he does not think he is a workaholic. He just loves his job, and he is good at it. And luckily, he can take home a nice salary and provide his family with good things. One day he plans to slow down, because it is not going well …, but not yet today. He leaves the house before his family knows he is gone. One evening he comes home and his family is not there. While he was at work, the children grew up, his wife went back to university and started her own career, his children moved, and now the house is empty. He cannot believe it. The Board of Directors has just appointed him director and now there is no one to share the good news with. He has reached the top … alone. Even if we do not want to become a director, many people suffer from the ‘hurry-syndrome’. There are so many busy people. They are so busy that they forget the people who are closest to them. How many fathers and mothers have failed their children for €10,000 or €20,000 extra per year?’ [End of description] After the ‘lone money-grubber’, the man who does everything alone and lives only for himself, the Preacher describes in the advantage of a companion. This companion can be found in all kinds of relationships and especially in the marriage relationship. Individualism, which increasingly governs the world today, creates enormous divisions. The disintegration into groups is already a disaster, the disintegration of a society by individualism is one of an unprecedented size. Each person is a group for himself, stands alone and fights for his own interests. Just look at the one-man groups in politics or the sectarian leader with only one or two followers. They only make the misery worse, while imagining they are working on lasting solutions to problems. Fellowship is a gift from the Creator, a benefit, intended to improve the quality of life. Through a sense of community, the burden of life is better distributed and more bearable. Man is also made in such a way that he needs others and that others need him. God said this at the time of man’s creation: “It is not good for the man to be alone” ( ). Man is a social being. However, many people choose loneliness and many others suffer from loneliness. Many people, much loneliness. Those who prefer loneliness to friendship feel elevated above human nature or have lowered themselves below human nature. Collaboration offers all kinds of advantages that the lonely plodder lacks. The obligations of doing something together do not outweigh the benefits. The price is to give up independence. You have to listen to and take into account the arguments of the other person, you have to adapt to his pace and lifestyle and you have to rely on his word. The benefit is also shared. There is no question of one exploiting the other. Certainly not in marriage, because in marriage you want to take account of each other and share everything with each other in absolute loyalty. You are always there for each other and together you are there for the Lord. There is a reward for working together: being busy together on a common project and the success you achieve together. You go for something together, you commit yourself to it, together with the other. What you achieve, you share together. The satisfaction you find in this cannot be expressed in terms of money. There is another advantage to having a companion: helping and supporting each other. When one of them falls, the other one can lift the other one up ( ). The companion’s help and support can be practically experienced in accidents along the way, such as tripping or falling in a ravine or in a well or ditch ( ; ). Someone who falls into it and is alone will perish, but if someone else is there, they can help him out. We can also apply it to having a hard time in a spiritual sense, being desperate. The other person can help him out of his depression by encouraging him and helping him to bear the burden. A companion does not make accusations, but puts his back into it and helps. In a marriage, there is a danger of stumbling and falling by making wrong decisions or even falling into sin. How valuable it is, then, to be lifted up by the other person. A third advantage of having a companion is the warmth that companions give each other during the cold of the night ( ). It is about dealing with each other in love in every day’s life. The warmth of love, which does not demand, but gives. The world is cold because there is no love, i.e. no Divine love. In the atmosphere of Divine love, children will grow up spiritually healthy. Someone who is alone does not know the fervent warmth of brotherly love ( ). The result is that he becomes lukewarm in his affections and finally he becomes cold and hard. A fourth advantage of having a companion is that you are stronger together against enemies ( ). A companion provides security and protection by majority. A tight marriage is difficult to fight. The same goes for a local church where the ranks are closed. Eve could be deceived because she was alone ( ). If there is internal division, the power is gone and it is easy for the enemy to penetrate. Two are already better than one, but when a third one is added, it is all the way a reinforcement. A cord of three strands is stronger than a cord of two strands. If we apply this to marriage, we can see husband, wife and God in the cord of three strands. Everything shows that one is better off with another person or with two other persons than being alone. In the midst of all vanity, it still gives some satisfaction, help, warmth and strength to life. You are there for someone else and someone else is there for you. In this way you can make something of life together.

‏ Ecclesiastes 4:7

Two Are Better Than One

The Preacher saw something else under the sun that is vanity (Ecc 4:7). This is that there are so many lonely people on earth who work hard and earn a lot, but have no one to share their lives and possessions with (Ecc 4:8). He describes the emptiness of loneliness and therefore the fruitlessness of everything that is obtained through hard work.

The lonely egoist is worse than the striver and the sloth of Ecc 4:4-5. We see here a compulsive money-grubber, one whose eye is not satisfied with riches. He walks with the dollar sign in his eyes, he only sees money, and is therefore ‘dehumanized’. He has no family, he does not want to have any relationship, and friendships he desires least of all. He is always at work, without any moment of pleasure and enjoyment of what he has earned. He always wants more, but never will he share anything with anyone else.

He has a big company, but no possible followers. He has an abundance of food, but no one to share his meals with. He does not want that either, because it costs time and money. There is no place for a “second person” in his life. There is only one ‘first person’, who is at the same time the ‘only one’, because there is no second one. The first and only one is he himself.

If he had a wife or children, he’d hardly have time for them. Maybe he thinks he is working hard for them, but in reality he lives for his business and therewith he is married. His eye is focused on his wealth. And since his eye is not satisfied with riches, he just plods on. There is no end to his hard toil (Ecc 5:10).

He has more than he can ever spend for himself, but for whom does he do it? He deprives himself of any pleasure, but why? Slogging in solitude is indeed “vanity” and “a grievous task”. Peace and rest are sacrificed for his desires. He labors on and on. He does not think about God. He is rich, but not in God. If his heart stops beating, for whom will everything be for which he has worked so ceaselessly (Lk 12:18-21 ; Lk 16:25)? Someone has described money as ‘an article that can be used as a universal passport to go everywhere except to heaven, and as a universal provision for everything except for happiness.’

I have read in a commentary a current description of the lonely, hard worker the Preacher presents to us here:

‘This man believes in the value of hard work and finds satisfaction in it. He is probably married and has at least three children whose picture he has in his wallet. He loves his wife and thinks about her more often than she knows. Certainly, he makes long days; he often leaves the house before six o’clock in the morning and only returns home after seven o’clock in the evening. The pressure of his work is so great that it takes him an hour or two to come to rest, so that he cannot spend much time talking. He is so tired that reading the newspaper and watching a bit of television is all he can do, after which he goes to bed tired.

His blood pressure is too high, he knows he needs to move more. His diet is not very good, and sometimes he is irritable and growls at his family, which he later regrets. It is true that he works seventy hours a week, but he does not think he is a workaholic. He just loves his job, and he is good at it. And luckily, he can take home a nice salary and provide his family with good things.

One day he plans to slow down, because it is not going well …, but not yet today. He leaves the house before his family knows he is gone.

One evening he comes home and his family is not there. While he was at work, the children grew up, his wife went back to university and started her own career, his children moved, and now the house is empty. He cannot believe it. The Board of Directors has just appointed him director and now there is no one to share the good news with. He has reached the top … alone.

Even if we do not want to become a director, many people suffer from the ‘hurry-syndrome’. There are so many busy people. They are so busy that they forget the people who are closest to them. How many fathers and mothers have failed their children for €10,000 or €20,000 extra per year?’ [End of description]

After the ‘lone money-grubber’, the man who does everything alone and lives only for himself, the Preacher describes in Ecc 4:9 the advantage of a companion. This companion can be found in all kinds of relationships and especially in the marriage relationship. Individualism, which increasingly governs the world today, creates enormous divisions. The disintegration into groups is already a disaster, the disintegration of a society by individualism is one of an unprecedented size.

Each person is a group for himself, stands alone and fights for his own interests. Just look at the one-man groups in politics or the sectarian leader with only one or two followers. They only make the misery worse, while imagining they are working on lasting solutions to problems.

Fellowship is a gift from the Creator, a benefit, intended to improve the quality of life. Through a sense of community, the burden of life is better distributed and more bearable. Man is also made in such a way that he needs others and that others need him. God said this at the time of man’s creation: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). Man is a social being. However, many people choose loneliness and many others suffer from loneliness. Many people, much loneliness. Those who prefer loneliness to friendship feel elevated above human nature or have lowered themselves below human nature.

Collaboration offers all kinds of advantages that the lonely plodder lacks. The obligations of doing something together do not outweigh the benefits. The price is to give up independence. You have to listen to and take into account the arguments of the other person, you have to adapt to his pace and lifestyle and you have to rely on his word. The benefit is also shared. There is no question of one exploiting the other. Certainly not in marriage, because in marriage you want to take account of each other and share everything with each other in absolute loyalty. You are always there for each other and together you are there for the Lord.

There is a reward for working together: being busy together on a common project and the success you achieve together. You go for something together, you commit yourself to it, together with the other. What you achieve, you share together. The satisfaction you find in this cannot be expressed in terms of money.

There is another advantage to having a companion: helping and supporting each other. When one of them falls, the other one can lift the other one up (Ecc 4:10). The companion’s help and support can be practically experienced in accidents along the way, such as tripping or falling in a ravine or in a well or ditch (Gen 14:10; Lk 6:39). Someone who falls into it and is alone will perish, but if someone else is there, they can help him out.

We can also apply it to having a hard time in a spiritual sense, being desperate. The other person can help him out of his depression by encouraging him and helping him to bear the burden. A companion does not make accusations, but puts his back into it and helps. In a marriage, there is a danger of stumbling and falling by making wrong decisions or even falling into sin. How valuable it is, then, to be lifted up by the other person.

A third advantage of having a companion is the warmth that companions give each other during the cold of the night (Ecc 4:11). It is about dealing with each other in love in every day’s life. The warmth of love, which does not demand, but gives. The world is cold because there is no love, i.e. no Divine love. In the atmosphere of Divine love, children will grow up spiritually healthy. Someone who is alone does not know the fervent warmth of brotherly love (1Pet 1:22). The result is that he becomes lukewarm in his affections and finally he becomes cold and hard.

A fourth advantage of having a companion is that you are stronger together against enemies (Ecc 4:12). A companion provides security and protection by majority. A tight marriage is difficult to fight. The same goes for a local church where the ranks are closed. Eve could be deceived because she was alone (Gen 3:1-6). If there is internal division, the power is gone and it is easy for the enemy to penetrate.

Two are already better than one, but when a third one is added, it is all the way a reinforcement. A cord of three strands is stronger than a cord of two strands. If we apply this to marriage, we can see husband, wife and God in the cord of three strands.

Everything shows that one is better off with another person or with two other persons than being alone. In the midst of all vanity, it still gives some satisfaction, help, warmth and strength to life. You are there for someone else and someone else is there for you. In this way you can make something of life together.