A Fool’s Speech with a Multitude of Words

1Guard 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. 2Don’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. 3For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words. 4When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow. 5It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay. 6Don’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? 7For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words: but you must fear God. 8If 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. 9Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field.

Before we enter the temple and worship, we must always remember the holy God and come with a heart that fears him. When we forget God’s holiness and majesty, our posture in offering sacrifice and worship grows careless, and we make empty, thoughtless vows. “Temple” is a holy name given only where God’s presence dwells. In the temple where God is present, whether people are offering sacrifices or believers are worshiping, if they behave rashly and frivolously instead of acting with care and holiness, they can sin.

The prophet Habakkuk also said, in 2:20, that Yahweh is in his holy temple, and that all the earth should be silent before him. Yahweh demands the obedience of the whole universe. That is why all the earth must bow before him in solemn reverence and offer him a respectful heart and faith. As Habakkuk watched the providence of God fulfilling his promises, he thought of the wrongdoing of people who serve idols that can neither see nor hear nor think. He saw the folly of people who serve the things God made.

You must set an example of faith through your life so that people receive Christ, and you must work so that they are forgiven their sins and become God’s people. As people who know the greatness and holiness of God, you must not speak rashly or hide his glory by foolish conduct.

Ecclesiastes 5:1

1Guard 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.

Solomon is saying that God’s people must bring a whole heart and whole conduct when they enter the temple. But fools live outside the Word without realizing that this is sin, and so even when they come into the holy place they do whatever comes to mind. Because people have no standard of good, they may think that when they come to the temple, bringing many offerings is enough. But Solomon said that listening to God’s word and living by it is what is good, rather than offering sacrifices.

In 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel asked King Saul whether Yahweh has as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying his voice, and told him that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. It says that more than sacrifices, God delights when a believer who fears him and does what is right and good prays and praises with their own voice. Because people think the world is what matters, they do not take the Word as their standard. But even for those who think themselves wise, listening to God’s word comes first, and honestly living out the Word they have heard matters more than sacrifice offered as a formality.

When we know the Word, we gain a standard for judging good and evil, and with it we can wisely discern whether the judgments of the people we meet in the world are right or wrong. Hebrews 11:4 says that by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had testimony given to him that he was righteous. Abel and Cain did the same thing in offering sacrifice, yet God, who received the sacrifices, judged that Abel had lived by faith and accepted his gifts. God had been watching the lives of Abel and Cain. That is why he said that Abel had offered gifts gained through honest faith.

But Cain, the fool, complained that he too had certainly offered a sacrifice and gifts, and asked why they were not accepted. God knew that Cain had not lived by faith in his everyday life, and so he did not accept that sacrifice or those gifts. This shows what God was saying: the sacrifice and the gifts are not what matters; their lives must be holy.

Yahweh’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save, nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear. That is why the worship of someone who does not live by the Word is nothing but the sacrifice of fools. People think form is what matters, but the one who fears God is the one who first understands the importance of the sacrifice and offers an honest life. Heaven is not a place easily entered. Only those who become God’s family can enter heaven. So a person must be adopted, entered in God’s family register, and written in the book of life to enter the kingdom of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:2

2Don’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.

It says not to say just anything in a hasty heart, because God is in heaven and people are on earth.

This is because speaking and acting on our own feelings is a sin we must repent of. People take only their own side, so they speak without thinking deeply, but God is watching closely to see what a believer will say and do about the matter at hand. Before we speak, we should think once more and ask whether what we have said is a sin against God. For in God’s eyes we may be fools who cannot see an inch ahead.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs that the wise spare their words and speak with care. People who cannot say a single word before the powerful of this world dare to say whatever comes to mind before almighty God. That is rude, so we must be careful. In our haste we make vows, babbling on in vain repetitions. But such vows are not so much a resolve to turn our lives toward God’s will as vows born of greed. Because of that, in God’s eyes they are sin in themselves.

Luke 10 records the story of Mary and Martha. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening intently to his words, while Martha was busy serving the people who had come to her house to hear Jesus. With so much to do, Martha began to feel quietly resentful toward Mary, who was only listening in front of Jesus. So she asked Jesus why, when she was working like this all alone, he did not tell her younger sister to help her busy older sister. Then Jesus said that her serving was important and needed, but that what was needed was first to hear the Word and know God’s will, as Mary did.

A temptation that believers who serve easily fall into is to think that Mary, who is intent on the Word, is doing nothing. Of course, without believers who serve, the church could never take on the shape of a church. For it is only when believers use their talents and gifts to serve the church as best they can that the Word Mary was listening to can be proclaimed. But Jesus came to this earth to accomplish God’s will. People who put service first without knowing the Word do not know why they serve. So their human thinking takes the lead, and they may judge others.

What Jesus meant is that Mary must become a Martha. That is because when believers have first come to know the Word like Mary and then grown spiritually, and work like Martha, they can work together for good. Believers who understand the Word and have matured spiritually do not judge the devotion of others; more than that, they sacrifice themselves so that believers who are weak can focus on the Word. They devote themselves beyond their strength without ever thinking of it as sacrifice, and so, instead, they serve faithfully with thanks and a glad heart.

Believers who are faithful because of God have the wisdom to quietly cover other believers’ mistakes and to smooth them over. God will commend believers of good character who embrace others’ mistakes instead of exposing them, and he will help them show even more love. If we do not grasp God’s deep will, we may complain, like Martha, to whom Mary seemed to be idle, that we are the only ones serving. Going further, we may even belittle the devotion of those who serve, and such an attitude can break down the order of the church. That is why those of us who have gone ahead in faith must teach the Word to those whose faith is weak, and help them come forward of their own accord to the place of fellowship and the place of service. The church is where people who have each lived their own lives in the world come together. So unless we have the good character to consider others and sacrifice ourselves, we cannot become one in the Word.

Ecclesiastes 5:4-5

4When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow. 5It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.

To vow to God and not pay is sin, because it comes from a heart that wants to use God for its own gain. A vow carries within it the meaning of promising and swearing an oath. So what we have sworn to God we must keep. Moses told Israel that when a man vows a vow to Yahweh, or swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word but shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth, and he said that this is what Yahweh has commanded. Just as people do not speak carelessly to someone who could do them great good, a people who fear God must not make vows to him carelessly, and if they have made a vow, they must keep that promise.

Solomon said not to make rash vows, like fools who offer as they please sacrifices that will not be accepted, and, if we have vowed, not to defer to pay. We make far too many promises to God of our own accord, and we break them far too easily. God created the universe and is the Lord of life. That is why he already knows everything we need before we ask him. Yet, thinking he will hear us only if we say a great deal, we make promises as we please and then break them easily. That is sin.

If believers have the faith to acknowledge that their lives and their possessions belong to God, then even without a vow they will not need to hesitate to give God what is his, and keeping their promises would not be hard. In other words, when someone agonizes over keeping a vow made to God, that struggle itself shows the vow already has no meaning.

Exodus 24:7

7He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that Yahweh has spoken will we do, and be obedient.”

Moses took the book of the covenant and read it to the people, and when he asked whether they would do what God commanded, the people vowed that they would do according to his word. When they had promised, Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and this means that the promise was made with Yahweh and must be kept without fail.

A promise to God made under blood holds within it the death of a life. So the people’s vow that they would surely obey must be kept above every circumstance and every event in the world. We make vows to God, but when hardship comes again and again or the future is uncertain, we can doubt God’s providence or betray it.

People say they have been blessed by God only when their circumstances improve or others recognize them, but we must know that the very fact that we are breathing is a blessing. Only while we are breathing and alive can we overcome hardship and give glory to God, and only then are we given the chance to repent. People think God naturally ought to answer the vows they have made as they pleased, but we must show God our faith, praying and devoting ourselves, so that he can answer our earnest wishes. Doing nothing and only waiting for an answer is what a foolish person does.

When we believe that God will work and make the effort, he sometimes changes our prayers, and he sometimes opens a new way we cannot see and helps us get around hardship. This is how God fulfills a vow.

The people of Israel, who had boldly vowed to obey God’s commands, complained and disobeyed the Word when they met all kinds of trouble in the wilderness. Out of fear or out of greed they did not rely on God but looked only at the situation they were in, and so in the end they did not enter Canaan but died in the wilderness. Of course, people cannot keep all of the law God gave. Just as Christ came himself and fulfilled the law when people could not keep all of it, believers need the patience to believe, in any situation, that God will work, and to wait for his time.

Believers think God hears them only when they say a great deal. But if they live with God as their first priority, he knows what they want and will surely answer them. Only the time of the answer is different from the time we want; we can receive it all.

Jesus spoke about vows like this. In Matthew 5:33 he said never to make false vows to God, but to perform what one has sworn. He said not to swear by heaven or by the earth, because heaven is the throne of God and the earth is the footstool of his feet, and not to make a vow by the temple where God is present either. He said that making promises in God’s name that we cannot keep is a sin we commit because we do not know how unprofitable a human being is.

People can’t make one hair white or black. We are frail beings who cannot hold back the passing years or stop the death of the body that is coming. That is why people who cannot see an inch ahead must not swear to God trusting only in their own will. Jesus, who knows human nature, told people to let their ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and their ‘No’ be ‘No,’ and not to make empty vows saying they can do it or that they will keep their promise to the end. For false oaths are the world’s trick for deceiving others. Yet if we think about it, believers who have grown well through the Word will serve faithfully and devote themselves gladly, without limit, without any vow, and if they have made a vow, they will strive with their very lives to keep it.

God knows whether a vow is false or a promise from the heart. That is why the true vow is to devote ourselves honestly and unchangingly in our place as believers.

Ecclesiastes 5:8

8If 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.

In the course of life we see the wicked oppress the powerless, ignore justice, and wield their power. Sometimes people of the world succeed more than believers. It says there is no need to marvel when those in power oppress the weak and commit injustice to plunder their wealth, because such things commonly happen in a world ruled by Satan.

They do evil with their little power, but God, who is higher than they are, sees their evil deeds, and they will surely be repaid for them. Worldly power in the end governs only the world and cannot change the work of God. That is why you must build your faith on the rock. The hardships you go through are of course painful, but God uses the attacks of evil people and evil spirits sometimes as tools to train you and sometimes as tools to bring your sins to light.

If only believers believe that God will surely deal with the wicked in his time, they can gain great understanding even in hardship. If believers do not doubt that they are under the protection of God, who rules the whole universe and the eternal world, their hardship will soon end.

Solomon, who had once commanded the world, saw how spiritually poor his last years were, and he realized how meaningless all of that life had been in God. He had thought the power he held was great strength, but when he looked at himself in God, he realized that he was a very foolish man who had wielded a little power and oppressed his people.

Power and wealth that God did not give become tools for sin. And a vow made only in words, without deeds, is also sin. God has never forced you to make a vow so that he could get something from you. All that happened is that we bargained with him to get what we wanted, promising offerings, fasting, and devotion if he would give us blessing. I hope you will never commit this sin again. And rather than complain, you must believe that one who is higher than the world is watching over all and protecting you. God, who hears the voice of your crying out in prayer, will surely repay, when the time comes, the effort you made to keep the faith. You must endure even hardship well to keep your faith. If you have made a vow to God, it means you are in hard circumstances. So you must believe that Christ will work.

Whatever heart you made your vow to God with, I hope you will keep it. If you become a fool who makes empty vows to God and does not keep them, that in itself is sin, and you may be rebuked by God. I hope your words and your deeds will match.

If you have vowed to God that you would faithfully attend church, love your brothers and sisters, or work hard at serving and evangelism, I hope you will keep it. For God remembers the words that came out of your mouth and will surely call you to account for that sin. God, who sees you striving to devote yourself, will bless you as much as your faith. I hope you will live holy lives and never spill the grace of God, which he gives to overflowing into the clean vessel you have prepared.

Do not forget that the vessel of blessing is made as you pass through hardship, and I hope you will live out a holy life.