Find Top Church Sermons, Illustrations, and Preaching Slides on Ecclesiastes 4:6. Better is an handful with quietness. In a word, nahath has not here the sense of being idle or lazy. Does it have meaning or not? It depends on whether the additional handful does not bring with it something else as well. 6 Better is an handfull with quietnesse, then both the hands full with trauell and vexation of spirit. I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog.In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man can not hope to find a lasting meaning to his life in a closed system without bringing God back into the picture. Life is hevel or vapor, according to the Book of Ecclesiastes. (Menochius). The meaning of Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 shows that Solomon is speaking of what awaits us after we die. Ecclesiastes 11:5 Meaning of Path of the Wind. This, indeed, is no argument for “folding the hands” in sloth or indifference; for there is no weariness like the weariness of idleness, and there is no more prolific source of cares than carelessness. If God is not placed first in every liaison that we human beings make (marriage, friendship, or church fellowship) the relationship will be short lived. Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature in regard to kind of a big picture of life. One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit. This maxim of Ecclesiastes is well worth pondering. But in order to get the significance of that verse and the section it’s in, we need to back up just a little. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had # Lam. Your friends and loved ones’ envy and sometimes even despise you, when you are more successful than they are. This is the same exact case with Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Better is a handful with quietness, &c. — These are the words, either, 1st, Of the sluggard, making this apology for his idleness, that his little, with ease, is better than great riches got with much trouble; or, 2d, of Solomon, who elsewhere speaks to the same purpose, and here proposes this antidote against the vanity of immoderate cares and labours for worldly goods, against which he industriously directs his speech in divers places of this book, and particularly in the following passage. Or. Ecclesiastes definition is - a book of wisdom literature in canonical Jewish and Christian Scripture. Taking the wisdom of the world, he pushes it to its logical end-points, which is what Francis Schaeffer did in his book The God Who is There . Ecclesiastes 4:6 Better [is] an handful [with] quietness, than both the hands full [with] travail and vexation of spirit. “a handful of repose, … two handfuls of travail and feeding on wind.”, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. I say that a stillborn l child is better off than he. Ecclesiastes 4:6 Better [is] a handful [with] quietness, than both the hands full [with] travail and vexation of spirit. To get what Ecclesiastes 4:6 means based on its source text, scroll down or follow these links for the original scriptural meaning , biblical context and relative popularity. Atheists love to contend that the book of Ecclesiastes seems to confirm that view. He that observeth the wind, shall not sow, &c. — He who neglects the necessary works of sowing and reaping, because the weather is not exactly suitable to his desires, will lose his harvest. In the Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes stands between the Song of Solomon and Lamentations and with them belongs to … Better — These are the words of the sluggard, making this apology for his idleness, That his little with ease, is better than great riches got with much trouble. To what end, saith he, should a man toil and tire out himself with hard labour to compass commodity - making a drudge and a beast of himself for a little pelf, since he knows not who shall have the spending of it, and he is sure to be either squeezed by his superiors, {as Ecclesiastes 4:1} or else envied by his neighbours? To make Israel content with its lot by laying bare the vanity of that which it was destitute of, but which the world possessed, is the usually misunderstood main drift of Ecclesiastes 4:4-6. Ecclesiastes 4:6. Again I considered all travail, and every right work The pains that men take to do right works. than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit; than large possessions gotten with a great deal of trouble, and enjoyed with much vexation and uneasiness; in which he mistakes slothful ease for true quietness; calls honest labour and industry travail and vexation; and supposes that true contentment lies in the enjoyment of little, and cannot be had where there is much; whereas it is to be found in a good man in every state: or else these words express the true sentiments of Solomon's mind, steering between the two extremes of slothfulness, and too toilsome labour to be rich; that it is much more eligible to have a competency, though it is but small, with a good conscience, with tranquillity of mind, with the love and fear of God, and a contented heart, than to have a large estate, with great trouble and fatigue in getting and keeping it, especially with discontent and uneasiness; and this agrees with what the wise man says elsewhere, Proverbs 15:16. 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