Verse 4
Ecc 4:4 “And I saw all the labour and all the skill of business, that it is an envious surpassing of the one by the other: also this is vain and windy effort.” The היא refers to this exertion of vigorous effort and skill. The Graec. Venet., by rendering here and at Ecc 2:24 כּשׁרון, by καθαρότης, betrays himself as a Jew. With כּי, quod, that which forms the pred. follows the object. the min in mere'ehu is as in amatz min, Psa 18:18, and the like - the same as the compar.: aemulatio qua unus prae altero eminere studet. All this expenditure of strength and art has covetousness and envy, with which one seeks to surpass another, as its poisoned sting.
Verse 5
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.
Verse 6
The fifth verse stands in a relation of contrast to this which follows: “Better is one hand full of quietness, than both fists full of labour and windy effort.” Mendelssohn and others interpret Ecc 4:5 as the objection of the industrious, and Ecc 4:6 as the reply of the slothful. Zöckler agrees with Hitz., and lapses into the hypothesis of a dialogue otherwise rejected by him. As everywhere, so also here it preserves the unity of the combination of thoughts. נחת signifies here, as little as it does anywhere else, the rest of sloth; but rest, in contrast to such activity in labour as robs a man of himself, to the hunting after gain and honour which never has enough, to the rivalry which places its goal always higher and higher, and seeks to be before others - it is rest connected with well-being (Ecc 6:5), gentle quietness (Ecc 9:17), resting from self-activity (Isa 30:15); cf. the post-bibl. רוּח נחת, satisfaction, contentment, comfort. In a word, nahath has not here the sense of being idle or lazy. The sequence of the thoughts is this: The fool in idleness consumes his own life-strength; but, on the other hand, a little of true rest is better than the labour of windy effort, urged on by rivalry yielding no rest. כּף is the open hollow hand, and חפן
