Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ecclesiastes 4:5
The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.
5. The fool foldeth his hands together ] Simple as the words seem they have received very different interpretations: (1) The fool (the word is the same as in ch. Ecc 2:14-16, and is that, the prominence of which in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes serve as a connecting link between the two Books), the man without aim or insight, leading a half brutish life, “folds his hands” in the attitude of indolence (Pro 6:10; Pro 24:33), and yet even he, with his limited desires, attains to the fruition of those desires, “eats his meat” and rejoices more than the wise and far-sighted who finds his dexterous and successful work empty and unsatisfying. (So Ginsburg.) For this sense of the words “eateth his flesh,” we have the usage of Exo 16:8; Exo 21:28; Isa 22:13; Eze 39:17. So taken, this thought coheres with the context, and expresses the sense of contrast between the failure of aspiring activity and skill to attain the happiness they aim at, and the fact that those who do not even work for enjoyment get as full a share of it perhaps, even a fuller as those who do. (2) The last clause has been interpreted, as in the A.V., as meaning literally that the slothful man “consumes his own flesh,” i.e. reduces himself literally to the poverty and starvation which culminates in horrors such as this, as in Isa 9:20; Jer 19:9, or, figuratively, pines away under the corroding canker of envy and discontent. For the latter meaning, however, we have no authority in the language of the Old Testament, and so taken, the passage becomes only a warning, after the manner of the Proverbs, against the sin of sloth, and as such, is not in harmony with the dominant despondency of this stage of the writer’s experience. The view which sees in Ecc 4:5, the writer’s condemnation of sloth, and in Ecc 4:6 the answer of the slothful, seems out of keeping with the context.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Foldeth his hands – The envious man is here exhibited in the attitude of the sluggard (marginal references).
Eateth his own flesh – i. e., Destroys himself: compare a similar expression in Isa 49:26; Psa 27:2; Mic 3:3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. The fool foldeth his hands] After all, without labour and industry no man can get any comfort in life; and he who gives way to idleness is the veriest of fools.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Foldeth his hands together; is careless and idle, which is the signification of this gesture, Pro 6:10; 19:24; 26:15. Perceiving that diligence is attended with envy, Ecc 4:4, he, like a fool, runs into the other extreme.
Eateth his own flesh; wasteth his substance, and bringeth himself to poverty, whereby his very flesh pineth away for want of bread, and he is reduced to skin and bone; and if he have any flesh left, he is ready to eat it through extremity of hunger.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. Still the
fool (the wickedoppressor) is not to be envied even in this life, who “folds hishands together” in idleness (Pro 6:10;Pro 24:33), living on the meanshe wrongfully wrests from others; for such a one
eateth his own fleshthatis, is a self-tormentor, never satisfied, his spirit preyingon itself (Isa 9:20; Isa 49:26).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The fool foldeth his hands together,…. In order to get more sleep, or as unwilling to work; so the Targum adds,
“he folds his hands in summer, and will not labour;”
see Pr 6:10. Some persons, to escape the envy which diligence and industry bring on men, will not work at all, or do any right work, and think to sleep in a whole skin; this is great folly and madness indeed:
and eateth his own flesh; such a man is starved and famished for want of food, so that his flesh is wasted away; or he is so hungry bitten, that he is ready to eat his own flesh; or he hereby brings to ruin his family, his wife, and children, which are his own flesh, Isa 58:7. The Targum is,
“in winter he eats all he has, even the covering of the skin of his flesh.”
Some understand this of the envious man, who is a fool, traduces the diligent and industrious, and will not work himself; and not only whose idleness brings want and poverty on him as an armed man, but whose envy eats up his spirit, and is rottenness in his bones, Pr 6:11. Jarchi, out of a book of theirs called Siphri, interprets this of a wicked man in hell, when he sees the righteous in glory, and he himself judged and condemned.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
There ought certainly to be activity according to our calling; indolence is self-destruction: “The fool foldeth his hands, and eateth his own flesh.” He layeth his hands together (Prov 6:10-24:33), – placeth them in his bosom, instead of using them in working, – and thereby he eateth himself up, i.e., bringeth ruin upon himself (Psa 27:2; Mic 3:3; Isa 49:26); for instead of nourishing himself by the labour of his hands, he feeds on his own flesh, and thus wasteth away. The emphasis does not lie on the subject (the fool, and only the fool), but on the pred.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(5) Eateth his own flesh.Interpreters have usually taken these words metaphorically, as in Psa. 27:2; Isa. 49:26; Mic. 3:3, and understood them as a condemnation of the sluggards conduct as suicidal. But it has been proposed, taking the verse in connection with that which precedes and those which follow, to understand them literally, eats his meat; the sense being that, considering the emulation and envy involved in all successful exertion, one is tempted to say that the sluggard does better who eats his meat in quiet. There is, however, no exact parallel to the phrase eats his flesh; and I think that if the latter were the meaning intended, it would have been formally introduced in some such way as, Wherefore I praised the sluggard. Adopting, then, the ancient interpretation, we understand the course of conduct recommended to be the golden mean between the ruinous sloth of the fool and the vexatious toil of the ambitious man.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. The fool eateth his own flesh The activity of the jealous is here contrasted with the quiet of the stupid, to the advantage of the latter: The stupid foldeth his hands, yet hath meat to eat. This can be said of him, that he enjoys the common blessings of life with small care or anxiety. Fool as he is, he shows something of philosophic calm and content.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ecc 4:5-6. The fool foldeth his hands, &c. The fool, folding his hands together, and eating his own flesh, saith, Better is the palm of one hand full of rest, than both the hands full of work, and that which goes with the wind. Desvoeux; who observes, that metaphors derived from images which are not familiar to us, and which on that account may at first appear almost unintelligible, are sometimes easily understood, when you compare therewith the context: thus the expression, eating his own flesh, does not immediately raise in the mind the distinct idea of any particular passion; but when you see envy mentioned just before, and consider the thread of the argument, there can scarcely remain any doubt but that Solomon intended to describe an envious and idle man. So Iliad, i. ver. 243. Agamemnon is represented as tearing his own heart on account of a fault in which he is still resolved to persevere. So Ovid, describing Envy, says, Suppliciumque suum est, “She is her own torment;” and in some lines ascribed to Virgil it is said of her, that “She drinks up the whole blood while devouring the limbs;” totum bibit artubus cruorem; which he explains afterwards, by saying, that the more envy a man has in his heart, the greater torment he is to himself: Sibi poena semper ipse est.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Ecc 4:5 The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.
Ver. 5. The fool foldeth his hands together. ] A graphical and lively description of a sluggard, fitly called a fool ( ), a naughty person. “Thou idle and evil servant.” Mat 25:26 God puts no difference between nequaquam and nequam, a drone and a naughty pack, seem he never so “wise in his own eyes,” Pro 26:16 and have he never so much reason to allege for himself – as in the verse here next following; a fool he is, and so he will soon prove himself; for “he folds up his hands and hides them in his own bosom.” Pro 26:15 A great many chares he is likely to do the while: See Trapp on “ Pro 19:24 “ And as ( Neque mola, neque farina – nothing do, nothing have) “he eateth his own flesh” – he maketh many a hungry meal, he hath a dog’s life, as we say. “Ease slayeth this fool”; Pro 1:32 , marg. poverty comes upon him as an armed man; grief also slays him; Pro 21:25 envy consumes his flesh, and he is vexed at the plenty of painful persons, and, because he cannot come at, or rather pull out their hearts, he feeds upon his own.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
fool. Hebrew. kesil, fat, inert. See note on Pro 1:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
fool: Pro 6:10, Pro 6:11, Pro 12:27, Pro 13:4, Pro 20:4, Pro 24:33, Pro 24:34
eateth: That is, with envy – see Ecc 4:4, though too idle to follow his neighbour’s example. Job 13:14, Pro 11:17, Isa 9:20
Reciprocal: Eph 5:29 – hated
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Ecc 4:5. The fool foldeth his hands, &c. Is careless and idle: perceiving that diligence is attended with envy, he runs into the other extreme. And eateth his own flesh Wastes his substance, and brings himself to poverty, whereby his very flesh pines away for want of bread.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
4:5 The fool foldeth his hands together, and {e} eateth his own flesh.
(e) For idleness he is compelled to destroy himself.