Ecclesiastes 7:15 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ecclesiastes 7:15
All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
to see · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
days
בִּימֵ֣יbi.Mei
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
vanity
הֶבְלִ֑יhev.Li
H1892
emptiness or vanity · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
is
יֵ֤שׁyesh
H3426
there is or are (or any other form of the verb to be · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
just
צַדִּיק֙tza.Dik
H6662
just · adjective, masculine singular absolute
perisheth
אֹבֵ֣ד'o.Ved
H6
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
righteousness
בְּצִדְק֔וֹbe.tzid.Ko
H6664
the right (natural · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
wicked
רָשָׁ֔עra.Sha'
H7563
morally wrong · noun, common masculine singular absolute
prolongeth
מַאֲרִ֖יךְma.'a.Rikh
H748
to be (causative · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
wickedness
בְּרָעָתֽוֹbe.ra.'a.To
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 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
Ecclesiastes 8:12-14 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which…
Ecclesiastes 6:12 For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what…
Psalms 73:3-13 For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Matthew 23:34-35 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall y…
Ecclesiastes 9:1-2 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: n…
Genesis 47:9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years…
1 Samuel 22:18-19 And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that…
1 Kings 21:13 And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 7:11-22
Solomon, in these verses, recommends wisdom to us as the best antidote against those distempers of mind which we are liable to, by reason of the vanity and vexation of spirit that there are in the things of this world. Here are some of the praises and the precepts of wisdom.
I. The praises of wisdom. Many things are here said in its commendation, to engage us to get and retain wisdom. 1. Wisdom is necessary to the right managing and improving of our worldly possessions: Wisdom is good with an inheritance, that is, an inheritance is good for little without wisdom. Though a man have a great estate, though it come easily to him, by descent from his ancestors, if he have not wisdom to use it for…
An objection entertained by Solomon
in the days of his vanity--his apostasy (Ecc 8:14; Job 21:7).
just . . . perisheth-- (Kg1 21:13). Temporal not eternal death (Joh 10:28). But see on Ecc 7:16; "just" is probably a self-justiciary.
wicked . . . prolongeth--See the antidote to the abuse of this statement in Ecc 8:12.
John Gill on Ecclesiastes 7:15
All things have I seen in the days of my vanity,.... Or, "all these things" (u). What goes before and follows after, the various changes men are subject unto, both good and bad; these he had made his observations upon, throughout the course of his life, which had been a vain one, as every man's is, full of evil and trouble; see Ecclesiastes 6:12; perhaps the wise man may have some respect to the times of his apostasy; and which might, among other things, be brought on by this; observing good men afflicted, and the wicked prosper, which has often been a stumbling to good men;
there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; not eternally; no truly just man ever perished, who is made…
The first of these counsels warns against extremes, on the side of good as well as on that of evil: "All have I seen in the days of my vanity: there are righteous men who perish by their righteousness, and there are wicked men who continue long by their wickedness. Be not righteous over-much, and show not thyself wise beyond measure: why wilt thou ruin thyself? Be not wicked overmuch, and be no fool: why wilt thou die before thy time is? It is good that thou holdest thyself to the one, and also from the other withdrawest not thine hand: for he that feareth God accomplisheth it all." One of the most original English interpreters of the Book of Koheleth, T. Tyler (1874), finds in the thoughts…
The Church Fathers
There is an absolute righteousness and a righteousness that is only righteous for one.… A righteous person can get lost in what is only righteous for him. Those, however, who are really righteous … do not remain in what is righteous for them alone and do not trust in this as their own right. This is why he does not perish in absolute righteousness, as the psalmist says: "In your righteousness I will live." Paul, for example, who was a great man who lived in Christ and for whom truth was revealed, said, "I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted."
"In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also has set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him. "I have heard from a certain man in the Church, who was thought to have a knowledge of the Scriptures, that these verses are to be explained in this way: while you remain in the present world, and while you are able to do good work, work hard so that afterwards you may be without worry in the day of wickedness, that is the day of judgement, when you will see others to be tormented. For just as God made the present world, in which we can obtain for ourselves the benefits of good work; so too he made the future age, in which no opportunity will be given for us to do good work. This man of the Church even seemed to convince those he was preaching to, but to me there seems a different meaning to this, which Symmachus has translated, saying, 'in the good day, be good; but be wary of the day of wickedness'. All the same, God made this world similar to the next, so that man should not be able to find that which he complains against Him. Suffer both the good things, he says, and the bad, as they happen to you in your life. And do not think that there is only the nature of good or bad alone in the world, especially when the world itself consists of opposites: hot and cold, dry and wet, hard and soft, dark and light, bad and good. [Cfr Ovid, Meta. I.19-20.] But God made this ambivalence so that wisdom might have a place, and it is found by choosing good and avoiding bad: man is given free will, lest he argue that he has been made unfeeling, and stupid by God. But God has made man so diverse that man is unable to complain of his manner of being. At the same time this argument is to be taken with the previous verses, in which he says 'who is able to correct what God has done?'.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Enjoying prosperity is beneficial, but such gifts are fleeting. The wise person accepts God’s sovereign hand in everything (cp. Phil 4:11-13).
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 7:15
There is a righteous man who perishes [despite] his righteousness. Although he is perishing, he is nonetheless steadfast in his righteousness.40Alternatively, “there is a righteous man who perishes because of his righteousness,” i.e., were he not righteous, he might not have been punished at all. God is more demanding with the righteous, as stated in Maseches Yevamos 121b (Metsudas Dovid and Alshich). Avrohom, Yaakov, Yoseif, Dovid, Michal and Chizkiyah are examples of righteous people who did not escape judgement because of a slight indiscretion on their part. (Mesilas Yeshorim) There was an incident concerning Yoseif the son of Pinchas the kohen who had an ulcerating sore on his leg. They…