properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct
wind
ר֖וּחַRu.ach
H7307
wind · noun, common feminine singular absolute
sow
יִזְרָ֑עyiz.Ra'
H2232
to sow · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
regardeth
וְרֹאֶ֥הve.ro.'Eh
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
clouds
בֶעָבִ֖יםve.'a.Vim
H5645
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
reap
יִקְצֽוֹרyik.Tzor
H7114
to dock off · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 20:4 The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.
Proverbs 3:27 Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
Proverbs 22:13 The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 11:1-6
Solomon had often, in this book, pressed it upon rich people to take the comfort of their riches themselves; here he presses it upon them to do good to others with them and to abound in liberality to the poor, which will, another day, abound to their account. Observe,
I. How the duty itself is recommended to us, Ecc 11:1. 1. Cast thy bread upon the waters, thy bread-corn upon the low places (so some understand it), alluding to the husbandman, who goes forth, bearing precious seed, sparing bread-corn from his family for the seedness, knowing that without that he can have no harvest another year; thus the charitable man takes from his bread-corn for seed-corn, abridges himself to supply the po…
Therefore sow thy charity in faith, without hesitancy or speculation as to results, because they may not seem promising (Ecc 9:10). So in Ecc 11:1, man is told to "cast his bread corn" on the seemingly unpromising "waters" (Psa 126:5-6). The farmer would get on badly, who, instead of sowing and reaping, spent his time in watching the wind and clouds.
John Gill on Ecclesiastes 11:4
He that observeth the wind shall not sow,.... Who before he sows his seed is careful to observe where the wind is, from what corner it blows, and forbears sowing until it is down or changes, lest it should be troublesome unto him in sowing, or blow away his seed, and waits for a better season; such a man may lose his seedtime and never sow at all, and his grain in his barn may be devoured by vermin, or be destroyed by one accident or another, and so he may lose both his seed and his crop;
and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap; which are uncertain signs of weather; and if a man gives heed to them, and puts off his sowing from time to time, for the sake of better weather, as he may…
Let not much wisdom become a stumbling-block to your soul and a snare before you; but trusting in God, manfully make a beginning upon the way that is filled with blood, lest always you be found wanting and naked of knowledge of God. For he who is fearful or watches the winds, sows not.
He that observeth the wind doth not sow: and he that regardeth the clouds never reapeth. For what is expressed by the wind but the temptation of malignant spirits? And what are denoted by the clouds which are moved of the wind but the oppositions of bad men? The clouds, that is to say, are driven by the winds, because bad men are excited by the blasts of unclean spirits. He, then, that observeth the wind soweth not, and he that regardeth the clouds reapeth not, because whosoever fears the temptation of malignant spirits, whosoever the persecution of bad men, and does not sow the seed of good work now, neither doth he then reap handfuls of holy recompense.
"He that observes the wind shall not sow; and he that regards the clouds shall not reap. "He who considers what is good for him and does not give out to all who ask him, often destroys what he ought to receive. [Cfr. Luc 6, 30.] Differently: he who proclaims the word of God at the time when the people listen freely and a second wind of rumour comes, he is a negligent and lazy farmer. But favourably or not in his career he must proclaim the word of God [Cfr II Tim. 4, 2.]; and he must not think of the storm of adverse clouds in his time of faith. This is written in Proverbs: "just as the rains are heavy and unyielding, so are they who leave wisdom and praise impiety" [Prov. 28, 3.4.]. Therefore you must sow your seeds in the middle of a storm without thinking of the clouds and without fearing the winds. And you must not say, 'that time was convenient, this of no use', when we do not know which way and which will is the one spirit of giving.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"He who observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." The proverb is not to be understood literally, but in the spirit of the whole paraenesis: it is not directed against the provident observation, guided by experience, of the monitions and warnings lying in the present condition of the weather, but against that useless, because impossible, calculation of the coming state of the weather, which waits on from day to day, from week to week, till the right time for sowing and reaping has passed away. The seed-time requires rain so as to open up and moisten the ground; he who has too much hesitation observes (שׁמר) the wind whether it will bring rain (Pro 25:…
clouds . . . rains: Sometimes we can be reasonably certain of what will happen. • a tree . . . stays where it falls: Our actions sometimes yield irrevocable consequences.
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:4
He who watches [waits] for the wind. He who waits and looks forward for the wind to come.10שמר הרוח cannot means “watching” a wind, Rashi therefore explains that שומר הרוח means “waiting” for the wind. שומר is used in the same context in Bereishis 37:11, which states, “his father waited [שומר]” to see when Yoseif’s dream would be fulfilled. (Sifsei Chachomim)
Will never sow. Sometimes he waits [for the wind], but it does not come.11According to Rashi, the farmer is waiting for the wind to come in order to sow his field, because he wants the wind to scatter his seeds. Alternatively, the farmer is afraid of the wind and does not sow because the wind will blow the seeds away. (Sforno)
And he…
