Scripture Daily

Context No. 744 of 4322 · Ecclesiastes

Context · Reflection

Ecclesiastes 4:7-16: in context

7Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun. 8There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then do I labor and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business. 9Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. 10For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. 11Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? 12If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 13Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who doesn’t know how to receive admonition any more. 14For out of prison he came out to be king; yes, even in his kingdom he was born poor. 15I saw all the living who walk under the sun, that they were with the youth, the other, who succeeded him. 16There was no end of all the people, even of all them over whom he was—yet those who come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

The Preacher keeps walking through the world noticing what is empty, and here he stops at a man working alone. There is one who has no son and no brother, he says, and no end to his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with wealth, and he never stops to ask, for whom am I working, and depriving myself of any joy? It is a bleak little portrait: a person piling up more and more for no one, with no one beside him. And out of that bleakness the Preacher makes his most-quoted case for the opposite. Two are better than one, he says, because they get a good return for their work.

Then he argues it plainly, without sentiment. If they fall, one lifts the other up, but woe to the one who falls alone and has no one to help him up. If two lie down together they keep warm; one alone cannot. One can be overpowered, but two can stand back to back, and a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. This is not a poem about friendship; it is a hard-eyed accounting of what solitude costs and company is worth. The man toiling by himself is not only lonely. He is the one with no one to catch him when he goes down.

The Preacher pitied not the poor man but the one working alone, with no one to lift him when he fell. Whom would I have to lift me if I fell right now, and have I been building a life with no one in it?

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