Ecclesiastes 4:4-6

Envy of others 4:4-6

"Every labor and every skill" (Ecclesiastes 4:4) undoubtedly means every type of labor and skill, rather than every individual instance of these things. Solomon used hyperbole. Much achievement is the result of a desire to be superior. Ecclesiastes 4:5 seems to be the opposite of Ecclesiastes 4:4.

"We pass from the rat-race with its hectic scramble for status symbols to the drop-out with his total indifference." [Note: Eaton, p. 93.]

"He [the drop-out] is the picture of complacency and unwitting self-destruction, for this comment on him points out a deeper damage than the wasting of his capital. His idleness eats away not only what he has but what he is: eroding his self-control, his grasp of reality, his capacity for care and, in the end, his self-respect." [Note: Kidner, p. 46.]

Ecclesiastes 4:6 is the middle road between the two preceding extremes.