World English Bible
- Guard your steps when you go to God’s house; for to draw near to listen is better than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they don’t know that they do evil.
- Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
- For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words.
- When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow.
- It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.
- Don’t allow your mouth to lead you into sin. Don’t protest before the messenger that this was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?
- For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words; but you must fear God.
- If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.
- Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field.
- He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity.
- When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to its owner, except to feast on them with his eyes?
- The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.
- There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm.
- Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand.
- As he came out of his mother’s womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.
- This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?
- All his days he also eats in darkness, he is frustrated, and has sickness and wrath.
- Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion.
- Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God.
- For he shall not often reflect on the days of his life, because God occupies him with the joy of his heart.
Ecclesiastes 5 places two subjects beside one another that we rarely connect: worship and wealth. Yet both reveal the same temptation—the desire to control tomorrow.
A vow tries to secure the future through religious speech: If God does this, I will do that. A vault tries to secure it through accumulated silver: If I possess enough, nothing can threaten me. One stores promises; the other stores possessions. Both can become defenses against dependence upon God.
“Guard your steps” is temple language. Approaching God’s house was not a casual religious experience. Worshipers entered sacred space where sacrifices and vows had public, binding significance. The “messenger” in verse 6 may have been a temple official responsible for recording or collecting what had been promised.
The warning is not against passionate prayer but against using words to manufacture intimacy with God. The fool speaks as though heaven can be managed by eloquence. True worship begins when we stop explaining ourselves and start listening.
The chapter’s contrast—God in heaven, humanity on earth—does not mean God is remote. It means God is God, and we are not. Yet the gospel adds a breathtaking wonder: the God of heaven came to earth as the Word made flesh. Because Christ has spoken the perfect “Yes” of obedience to the Father, we do not need to impress God with inflated promises. As Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:33–37, simple faithfulness is holier than dramatic vows.
Qoheleth then looks from the temple to the government. Officials watch officials while the poor are crushed beneath the hierarchy. Ancient seals, ostraca, and administrative records show how carefully grain, oil, wine, and taxes moved through layers of authority. But verse 9 quietly overturns the pyramid: even the king depends upon the field. The ruler who imagines himself above the farmer still eats what the soil and laborer provide.
Oppression begins when those who depend upon the earth forget those who work it.
The Hebrew word often translated “vanity” is hevel: vapor, breath, mist. Wealth is not called evil merely because it disappears. It becomes hevel when we ask it to bear the weight of eternity. Silver cannot satisfy the love of silver because appetite grows alongside abundance. Possessions multiply, consumers gather, sleep departs, and the owner becomes the servant of what he owns.
The chapter’s surprising answer is not poverty for its own sake, but received joy. The ability to enjoy bread, work, and provision is itself God’s gift. Martin Luther recognized this as a summons away from anxious grasping: faith receives today without demanding ownership of tomorrow.
In verse 20, the Hebrew may suggest that God “answers” a person with joy or “keeps” the heart occupied by it. Holy joy shortens the tyranny of time. We cease rehearsing our brief lives because we are present to the Giver.
Cross-references: 1 Samuel 15:22; Matthew 6:19–34;
James 5:1–6; 1 Timothy 6:17–19
Suggested hymn: “Be Still, My Soul”
Lord of heaven, quiet my bargaining words and unclench my grasping hands. Teach me to listen, to keep faith, to defend the oppressed, and to receive today’s bread with gratitude. Let Christ be my treasure and Your joy my true abundance. Amen.
Narrated version of this devotional on Ecclesiastes Chapter 5