Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ecclesiastes 10:19
A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all [things].
19. money answereth all things ] The maxim as it stands in the English Version, has a somewhat cynical ring, reminding us only too closely of the counsel condemned by the Roman satirist,
“O cives, cives, qurenda pecunia primum est;
Virtus post nummos.”
“Money, my townsmen, must be sought for first;
Virtue comes after guineas,”
“Isne tibi melius suadet, qui rem facias; rem,
Si possis, recte; si non, quocunque modo rem?”
“Does he give better counsel whom we hear,
‘Make money, money; justly if you can,
But if not, then in any way, make money?’ ”
Hor. Epp. i. 1. 53, 65.
So Menander (quoted by Delitzsch) “Silver and gold these are the Gods who profit most. If these are in thy house pray for what thou wilt and it shall be thine,” and Horace:
Scilicet uxorem cum dote, fidemque, et amicos,
Et genus, et formam, regina pecunia donat;
Ac bene nummatum decorat Suadela Venusque.”
“Seek’st thou a dowried wife, or friends, or trust,
Beauty or rank, Queen Money gives thee all;
Put money in thy purse, and thou shalt lack
Nor suasive power nor comeliness of form.”
Epp. i. 6. 36 38.
The truer rendering of the Hebrew, however, gives not so much a maxim as the statement of a fact and is entirely in harmony with the preceding verses. For revelry they ( i.e. “man,” indefinitely) prepare food (literally, bread) and wine that rejoices life, and money answereth all things, i.e. meets all they want. The words obviously point to the conduct of the luxurious and slothful princes condemned in Ecc 10:16; Ecc 10:18. Regardless of their duty as rulers and of the sufferings of their people, they aim only at self-indulgence and they look to money, however gained, as the means of satisfying their desires. So, in our own times, Armenians or Fellaheen may die by thousands of famine or pestilence, but the palaces of the Sultan and the Khedive are as full of luxury and magnificence as ever. The State may be bankrupt and creditors unpaid, but they manage somehow to get what they want. The money which they squeeze out from a starving province is for them as the God they worship who grants all they wish.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 19. A feast is made for laughter] The object of it is to produce merriment, to banish care and concern of every kind. But who are they who make and frequent such places? Epicures and drunkards generally; such as those of whom Horace speaks:
Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati.
Epist. lib. i., ep. 2, ver. 27.
“Those whose names stand as indications of men, the useless many; and who appear to be born only to consume the produce of the soil.”
But money answereth all] This saying has prevailed everywhere.
Scilicet uxorem cum dote, fidemque, et amicos,
Et genus, et formam REGINA PECUNIA donat;
Ac bene nummatum decorat Suadela, Venusque.
HOR. EP. lib. i., ep. 6, ver. 36.
“For gold, the sovereign QUEEN of all below,
Friends, honour, birth, and beauty, can bestow.
The goddess of persuasion forms her train;
And Venus decks the well-bemonied swain.”
FRANCIS.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The design and effect of feasting and drinking wine is, that men may exhilarate their minds with the society of their friends, and with the use of the creatures.
Money answereth all things; it procures not only meat and drink for feasting, but for all other things; as the heavens are said to answer the earth, when they give it those showers which it desires and needs to make it fruitful, Hos 2:21. And this clause seems to be added as an aggravation of the sin and folly of luxury, because princes do thereby waste that money and treasure which is so highly necessary for the support and preservation of themselves, and of their kingdoms, and are forced to squeeze money out of their people by oppressive, and dishonourable, and dangerous practices, that they may have more to spend in riotous courses.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. Referring to Ec10:18. Instead of repairing the breaches in the commonwealth(equivalent to “building”), the princes “make a feastfor laughter (Ec 10:16), andwine maketh their life glad (Ps104:15), and (but) money supplieth (answereth their wishes bysupplying) all things,” that is, they take bribes to supporttheir extravagance; and hence arise the wrongs that areperpetrated (Ecc 10:5; Ecc 10:6;Ecc 3:16; Isa 1:23;Isa 5:23). MAURERtakes “all things” of the wrongs to which princesare instigated by “money”; for example, the heavy taxes,which were the occasion of Rehoboam losing ten tribes (1Ki12:4, &c.).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
A feast is made for laughter,…. Or, “who make bread for laughter” i. Not bakers, who make bread for common use, and for all sorts of persons, sorrowful ones as others; but luxurious men, particularly such princes as are before described; they “make bread”, that is, a feast, as the phrase is used, Da 5:1; not for mere refreshment, but to promote mirth and gaiety to an excessive degree; being attended with rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, with revellings and dancing;
and wine maketh merry; or, “and [they prepare] wine” k; which is provided in plenty at feasts; and which is sometimes put for a feast itself, and called a banquet of wine, Es 7:2; which wine makes merry, and men drink of it till they become drunk with it, at such profuse feasts: or, “which maketh life cheerful” l; as it does, when moderately used: “cheers the living”; so Aben Ezra;
but money answereth all [things]; is in the room of all things, and by it men obtain everything they want and wish for; it answers the requests of all, and supplies them with what they stand in need of, or can desire: particularly such expensive feasts, and sumptuous entertainments, are made by means of money; and, in this luxurious way, the coffers of princes are drained, and they are obliged to raise new levies, and impose new taxes upon their subjects, to the oppression of them. Or else the sense may be, that princes should consider, and not be so profuse in their manner of living, but be more frugal and careful of the public money, and lay it up against a time of need; since it is that that answers all things, is the sinew of war when that arises, and will procure men and arms, to secure and protect them from their enemies, and obtain peace and safety for them and their subjects, which otherwise they cannot expect.
i “ad risum facientes panem”, Montanus; “faciunt panem”, Paganinus, Mercerus, Piscator. k “et vinum, repete, parant”, Piscator. l “et vitam exhilaret”, Tigurine version; “exhilarare solet vitam”, Mercerus; “quod exhilarare debebat vitam”, so some in Rambachius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Meals they make into a pleasure, and wine cheereth the life, and money maketh everything serviceable.” By , wicked princes are without doubt thought of-but not immediately, since Ecc 10:16 is too remote to give the subject to Ecc 10:19. The subject which ‘osim bears in itself (= ‘osim hem ) might be syntactically definite, as e.g., Psa 33:5, , He, Jahve, loves, thus: those princes, or, from Ecc 10:18: such slothful men; but ‘osim is better rendered, like e.g., omrim , Exo 5:16 (Ewald, 200 a), and as in the Mishna we read and the like with gramm. indefin. subj.: they make, but so that by it the slothful just designated, and those of a princely rank are meant (cf. a similar use of the inf. abs., as here of the part. in the historical style, Isa 22:13). Ginsburg’s rendering is altogether at fault: “They turn bread and wine which cheereth life into revelry.” If and as its object stand together, the meaning is, “to prepare a feast,” Eze 4:15; cf. ‘avad lehem , Dan 5:1. Here, as there, ‘osim lehem signifies coenam faciunt ( parant ). The of is not the sign of the factitive obj. (as leel , Isa 44:17), and thus not, as Hitz. supposes, the conditioning with which adv. conceptions are formed, – e.g., Lam 4:5, , where Jerome rightly translates, voluptuose ( vid., E. Gerlach, l.c.), – but, which is most natural and is very appropriate, it is the of the aim or purpose: non ad debitam corporis refectionem, sed ad hera ludicra et stulta gaudia (Geier). is laughter, as that to which he utters the sentence (Ecc 2:2): Thou art mad. It is incorrect, moreover, to take lehem veyaim together, and to render yesammahh hayaim as an attribut. clause to yain : this epitheton ornans of wine would here be a most unsuitable weakening of the figure intended. It is only an apparent reason for this, that what Psa 104:15 says in praise of wine the author cannot here turn into a denunciatory reproach. Wine is certainly fitted to make glad the heart of a man; but here the subject of discourse is duty-forgetting idlers, to whom chiefly wine must be brought (Isa 5:12) to cheer their life (this sluggard-life spent in feasting and revelry). The fut. is meant in the same modal sense as , Ecc 10:10: wine must accomplish that for them. And they can feast and drink, for they have money, and money … . Luther hits the meaning: “Money must procure everything for them;” but the clause is too general; and better thus, after Jerome, the Zrich Bible: “unto money are all things obedient.” The old Jewish interpreters compare Hos 2:23., where , with accus. petentis, signifies, “to answer a request, to gratify a desire.” But in the passage before us is not the obj. accus. of petentis, but petiti; for ‘anah is connected with the accus. of that to which one answers as well as of that which one answers, e.g., Job 40:2, cf. Ecc 9:3. It is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to interpret as Hiph.: Money makes all to hear (him who has the money), – makes it that nothing is refused to his wish. It is the Kal: Money answers to every demand, hears every wish, grants whatever one longs for, helps to all; as Menander says: “Silver and gold, – these are, according to my opinion, the most useful gods; if these have a place in the house, wish what thou wilt ( ), all will be thine;” and Horace, Epod. i. 6. 36 s.:
“Scilicet uxorem cum dote fidemque et amicos
Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.”
The author has now described the king who is a misfortune and him who is a blessing to the land, and princes as they ought to be and as they ought not to be, but particularly luxurious idle courtiers; there is now a warning given which has for its motive not only prudence, but also, according to Ecc 8:2, religiousness.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(19) I look on these verses as isolated proverbs, and believe that the obvious meaning suggested by the English of this verse is the right one. Those who strive to trace a continuity of thought take Ecc. 10:18 as a figurative description of the ruin of an ill-governed land; Ecc. 10:19 as describing the riot of those rulers who make feasts for merriment, and have money freely at their disposal; and (Ecc. 10:20) as a warning to the subjects to beware how, notwithstanding all this mis-government, they venture to rebel.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. Made for laughter This verse should read, The bread and the wine, which cheer the life, are made into laughter, or revelry; that is, by the luxurious rulers still spoken of.
Money answereth all things Better, And the money furnishes both. Whose “money?” It is artfully suggested, rather than told, that it is the “money” wrung from the subjects that is thus squandered in feasting.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Value Of Silver ( Ecc 10:19 ).
Ecc 10:19
‘A feast is made for laughter, and wine gladdens the life, and silver answers all things.’
The thought here would seem to be that feasting and wine temporarily produce merriment but that a man’s wealth is the mainstay of his whole life. The wise man will therefore make sure that his wealth is preserved and will not fritter it away in feasting and drinking and fruitless activities.
Or the idea may be that while a feast and wine bring a kind of happiness, it is only silver which can be fully persuasive with regard to life.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ecc 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all [things].
Ver. 19. A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry. ] Slothful governors, Regni dilapidatores (so our Henry III was called for his pride and prodigality), a are all for feasting and frolicking. See Pro 31:4 Dan 5:3-4 . This cannot be maintained without money, for the getting and gathering in whereof the poor people are peeled and polled, and rich men’s gifts are received, to the perverting of justice by those corrupt rulers, qui vili precio nihil non humile et vile parati sunt facere, as Gregory Thaumaturgus speaketh in his note upon this verse.
But money answereth all things.
a Daniel.
b .
c Lib. i., Excid. Hierosol., cap. 14.
d of strong, and to prepare.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
wine. Hebrew. yayin. App-27.
maketh merry = will gladden life. Compare Psa 104:15.
answereth all things = maketh everything respond [to their requirements]: i.e. will procure both [feast and wine]. See note on Ecc 5:19, the only two occurrences of ‘anah in this book.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Ecc 10:19
Ecc 10:19
“A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh glad the life; and money answereth all things.”
“Feasting makes you happy, and wine cheers you up, but you can’t have either without money. “Men make a feast for enjoyment, and wine makes life pleasant, but money is everyone’s concern.” This relationship between drinking wine and feasting on the one hand, and providing the funds to pay for it on the other hand, reminds us of a song that became popular back during the days of the depression, “If you’ve got the money, Honey, I’ve got the time.”
Ecc 10:19 It is because of the three erroneous attitudes expressed in this verse that the condition discussed in verse eighteen existed. Instead of repairing the breaches, the officials seek a feast, wine and money. They spend their time and energy in revelry rather than looking after the affairs of the state. A Jewish tradition puts the following words in the mouth of Solomons mother as she scolds him for just such irresponsible behavior for a king: Do not give your strength to women, or your ways to that which destroys kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink. Lest they drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted. Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his trouble no more. Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.
Money answers all. How did Solomon acquire the money to carry out his outlandish experiments, and pursue his luxurious personal pleasures? The Amplified Bible says that he depends on (tax) money to answer for all of it (Ecc 10:19 c). Solomon taxed the people heavily and survived the criticism of the people. However, upon his death excessive taxation proved to be the undoing of Rehoboam and occasioned the loss of the ten tribes. In troubled times, when justice is perverted, money is secured from many illegitimate sources. Extortion, exorbitant taxation, bribes, and numerous opportunities for graft are only a few examples. Thus, money grants all that such people want. It is of course a perversion that money answers all. Truly it is more than just perversion, it is idolatry. Meander says: Silver and gold,-these are according to my opinion, the most useful gods; if these have a place in the house, wish what you wilt, all will be thine. Such is the obsession which conquers the fool. The Preacher is already on record concerning the superiority of wisdom over money. Not only is wisdom greater than money, it has the inherent quality of preserving the lives of its possessors (Ecc 7:11-12). Of course the philosophy that money will resolve every problem and supply the answer to every desire is the expression of the sinner, not the godly of Israel.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
feast: Ecc 2:1, Ecc 2:2, Ecc 7:2-6, Gen 43:34, Dan 5:1-12, 1Pe 4:3
and wine: Ecc 9:7, Psa 104:15, Isa 24:11, 1Sa 25:36, 2Sa 13:28, Luk 12:19, Eph 5:18, Eph 5:19
maketh merry: Heb. maketh glad the life
but: Money which would have answered every good purpose, and served for every emergency, is too often spent in feastings and revellings. Ecc 7:11, Ecc 7:12, 1Ch 21:24, 1Ch 29:2-9, 2Ch 24:11-14, Ezr 1:6, Ezr 7:15-18, Neh 5:8, Psa 112:9, Isa 23:18, Mat 17:27, Mat 19:21, Luk 8:3, Luk 16:9, Act 2:45, Act 11:29, Phi 4:15-19, 1Ti 6:17-19
Reciprocal: Jdg 9:13 – cheereth Jdg 14:10 – made there Rth 3:7 – his heart Est 1:10 – the heart Pro 21:20 – treasure Joh 2:3 – they wanted
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Ecc 10:19. A feast is made for laughter, &c. Not merely for caring, but chiefly for pleasant conversation, and the society of friends; not the laughter of fools, which is madness, but that of wise men, namely, that cheerfulness by which they fit themselves for business and severe studies: and wine maketh merry Hebrew, , maketh glad the life, exhilarates the mind; but money answereth all things Procures not only meat and drink for feasting, but all other worldly advantages. Therefore be frugal, and spend not all in luxurious eating and drinking, remembering, that money is wanted for a great many other purposes. Some refer this verse to rulers, and consider this last clause as being added to aggravate the sin and folly of luxury, to which, when princes give up themselves, they not only neglect their business, but thereby waste that money and treasure which are so highly necessary for the support and preservation of themselves and their kingdoms: and, in consequence thereof, are obliged to squeeze money out of their people by oppressive taxes, and other dishonourable and dangerous practices.