Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Ecclesiastes 5:1-Judges : . Reality in Religion.— This section deals with worship and vows. Those who go to the house of God (whether Temple or synagogue is not clear) must go reverently and thoughtfully. “ Keep thy foot” recalls the Oriental practice of removing one’ s shoes in sacred places ( Exodus 3:5). The great requirement in religion is not the ritual sacrifice but the spirit of discipleship and obedience ( 1 Samuel 15:22 and the prophets passim) . Read, with a slight change, “ for they know nothing except how to do evil.”

Ecclesiastes 5:2 may refer to prayer ( cf. Matthew 6:7) or to vows ( cf. Ecclesiastes 5:4). The remoteness of God was a feature of late Jewish thought; the gap had to be filled by angels ( cf. Ecclesiastes 5:6) and by abstractions like the Wisdom, the Word, the Glory, and the Spirit of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:3 is a gloss which breaks the line of thought. It seems to mean that as a worried mind leads to dreams, so the fool’ s much speaking leads to nothing substantial; or “ a multitude of business” may refer to the confused complexity of a dream.— With Ecclesiastes 5:4 f. cf. Deuteronomy 23:21 ff. The Talmudic tract Nedarim shows that evasions of hasty vows were frequent in late Judaism. The classic example of a rash vow in OT is Jephthah (Judges 11). Read, “ there is no delight in fools” ; it is fools who make hasty vows. Such vows lead one’ s whole being into sin, the lips involve the entire body ( Ecclesiastes 5:6). “ Angel” may be a synonym for God ( cf. LXX), or for the priest ( Malachi 2:7) or other Temple official who recorded vows. On vows see p. 105. In Ecclesiastes 5:7 read mg., or, with slight change, “ in a multitude of dreams and words are many vanities.” It is an interpolation like Ecclesiastes 5:3, and perhaps originally a marginal variant of it.