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 to worship, we must always remember the holy God and come with reverent fear. If we forget God’s holiness and majesty, our attitude in sacrifice and worship grows careless, and we make thoughtless, empty vows. The temple is a holy name given only where God’s presence dwells. In the temple where God is present, whether offering sacrifices or gathering as his people to worship, we may sin if we act rashly instead of with care and holiness.

The prophet Habakkuk says in 2:20 that Yahweh is in his temple, and all the earth is to keep silence before him. Since Yahweh demands the obedience of the whole universe, all the earth must stand before him in solemn reverence and offer him a respectful heart and faith. As Habakkuk watched God’s providence fulfilling his promises, he thought of the guilt of those who serve idols that can neither see, nor hear, nor think. He saw the folly of people who worship the creatures God has made.

By our lives we must set an example of faith and lead people to receive Christ, and we need to strive so that they are forgiven and become God’s people. We who know God’s greatness and holiness must not speak carelessly or obscure his glory by foolish behavior.

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 enter the temple with their hearts and conduct made right. But fools, living outside the word, do not realize that it is sin; that is why, even in a holy place, they act on whatever comes to mind. Having no standard of what is good, people may think that bringing many offerings to the temple is all it takes, but Solomon said that to hear God’s word and live by it is good, better 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. So God takes more pleasure in saints who fear him and do what is right and good, praying and praising him with their own voices, than in sacrifice. Thinking the world is what matters, people do not take the word as their standard. But even those who consider themselves wise must first listen to God’s word, and living out that word honestly matters more than any sacrifice offered as a formality.

When we know the word, we gain a standard for judging good and evil, and 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 performed the same act of offering, but God, who received their offerings, judged that Abel had lived by faith and accepted his gift. Because God had been watching the lives of both brothers, he declared that Abel had offered a gift gained through honest faith.

Cain, the fool, complained that he too had certainly brought a sacrifice and an offering, so why was it not accepted? But God, knowing that Cain had not lived by faith in his everyday life, did not accept that sacrifice or that offering. In this God is telling us that what matters is not the sacrifice or the offering but whether the lives of those who bring them are holy.

Yahweh’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear, and that is why the worship of those who do 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 knows how much sacrifice matters and offers an honest life. Heaven is not a place one enters easily. We can enter only by becoming God’s family: we 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.

Solomon told us not to say whatever comes to mind in our haste, because God is in heaven and we are on earth.

This is because speaking and acting on our feelings is a sin that calls for repentance. Seeing only their own side, people speak without thinking deeply, but God watches closely to see what his people will say and do in the matter. Before speaking, we should think once more and ask whether what we are about to say might be a sin against God, since in his sight we may be fools who cannot see a step ahead.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs that the wise spare their words and speak with care. Someone who cannot say a word before the powerful of this world, yet presumes to say whatever comes to mind before almighty God, is being disrespectful, and we must guard against it. In our haste we pile up empty words and make vows, but such vows spring from greed rather than from a resolve to turn our lives toward God’s will. In God’s sight, that makes them sin in themselves.

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

Those who serve easily fall into a particular temptation: thinking that Mary, absorbed in the word, is doing nothing at all. Of course, without people who serve, a church can never take on the shape of a church. That is because the word Mary was listening to can be proclaimed only when God’s people put their talents and gifts to work and serve the church as best they can. But Jesus came to this earth to accomplish God’s will. Those who put service first without knowing the word do not know why they serve; human thinking then takes over, and they may end up judging others.

What Jesus meant was that Mary must become Martha. The reason is that once we have first come to know the word like Mary and grown in spirit, we can work like Martha and join with others in working for good. Those who have grasped the word and grown mature in spirit do not judge the devotion of others; rather, they sacrifice themselves so that those weak in faith can give their attention to the word. Because they never count it a sacrifice, even when they labor beyond their strength, they serve faithfully with thankful and joyful hearts.

Those who serve faithfully for God’s sake have the wisdom to quietly cover and smooth over the mistakes of others in the church. God will commend those of good character who do not expose others’ mistakes but embrace them, and he will help them show still more love. If we do not grasp God’s deeper purpose, we may complain that we alone are serving, like Martha, to whom Mary seemed to be idle. We may go further and belittle the devotion of those who serve, and such an attitude can tear down the order of the church. So those who have gone ahead in faith must teach the word to those whose faith is weak, helping them come of their own accord to places of fellowship and service. The church is a gathering of people who have each lived their own lives in the world, and 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 make a vow to God and not pay it is sin, because it comes from a heart that wants to use God for its own gain. A vow carries the sense of a promise and an oath, which means that what we have sworn to God we must keep. Moses told Israel that when anyone vows a vow to Yahweh, or binds themselves by an oath, they shall not break their word but shall do according to all that proceeds out of their mouth, and that this was Yahweh’s command. Just as people do not speak carelessly to someone who can greatly benefit them, those who fear God must not make vows to him carelessly, and if they have vowed, they have to keep that promise.

Solomon said not to vow rashly, like the fool who offers sacrifices God will not accept, and if you have vowed, not to defer paying it. We sometimes make far too many promises to God of our own accord, and break them far too easily. As the Creator of the universe and the Lord of life, God knows everything we need before we ask. Still, thinking he will hear us only if we say a great deal, we make promises as we please and then break them just as easily. That is exactly what sin is.

If we have a faith that acknowledges our life and possessions belong to God, then even without vowing we will have no reason to hesitate in giving to God what is his, and keeping our promises will not be hard. In other words, the very fact that we agonize over keeping a vow made to God means that the vow has already lost its 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, then asked whether they would carry out God’s commands, and the people vowed that they would do as the word said. When they had promised, Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people. This meant that it was a covenant made with Yahweh and must be kept at all costs.

A promise to God sealed under blood holds within it the death of a life. The people’s pledge to obey, whatever it cost them, must therefore be kept above every circumstance and event in the world. We too have made vows to God, but when hardships keep coming or the future looks uncertain, we may doubt his providence or betray him.

People say they have been blessed by God only when their circumstances improve or others recognize them, but we must understand that the very fact that we are breathing is a blessing. For only while we breathe and live can we overcome hardship, give glory to God, and be given the chance to repent. People think God must answer whatever they have vowed on their own terms, but we need to show him our faith by praying and giving ourselves, so that he may answer our earnest desires. Whoever does nothing and only waits for an answer is a fool.

When we believe God will act and make the effort, he sometimes changes our prayers, and sometimes opens a new way we could not see, helping us pass by hardship. This is how God fulfills our vows.

The people of Israel, who had boldly vowed to obey God’s commands, complained and disobeyed the word when they met various troubles in the wilderness. Whether from fear or from greed, they did not rely on God but looked only at their circumstances, and so in the end they could not enter Canaan and died in the wilderness. Of course, no one can keep all of the law God gave. Just as Christ himself came and fulfilled the law when people could not keep it, we need the patience to believe that God will act in any situation and to wait for his time.

We think God hears us only when we say a great deal, but if we put God first in the way we live, he knows what we desire and will not fail to answer. The answer may simply come at a different time than we would choose; still, we will receive it all.

Jesus spoke about vows in this way. In Matthew 5:33 he said that we must never make false vows to God, but must perform what we have vowed. He said not to swear by heaven or by earth, because heaven is God’s throne and the earth is his footstool, nor to make vows by the temple where God dwells. To make a promise in God’s name that we cannot keep, he said, is a sin we commit because we do not know how useless we human beings are.

We cannot make a single hair of our heads white or black. We are frail creatures who cannot hold back the passing years or stop the death of the body as it draws near, and for that reason we who cannot see a step ahead must not swear to God trusting only in our own will. Knowing human nature, Jesus told us to let our yes be yes and our no be no, and not to make empty vows, swearing that we can do it or that we will keep our promise to the end. This is because false oaths are the world’s trick for deceiving others. But when you think about it, those who have grown well in the word will gladly serve faithfully and give themselves without needing to vow, and if they have vowed, they will strive with their very lives to keep it.

Since God knows whether a vow is false or a promise from the heart, the true vow is to give ourselves honestly and steadfastly in our place as his people.

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 life we see the wicked abuse the powerless, trample on justice, and wield their power. Sometimes the people of the world succeed more than God’s people do. Solomon said that when those in power oppress the weak and commit injustice to plunder wealth, it is something that commonly happens in a world ruled by Satan, and nothing to marvel at.

They commit evil with what little power they have, but God, who is higher than they, sees their evil deeds, and they will certainly be repaid for it. The power of this world governs only this world and cannot change God’s work in history. We must build our faith, then, on the rock. The suffering we endure is real pain, yet God uses the attacks of the wicked and of evil spirits sometimes as tools to train us and sometimes as tools to bring our sins to light.

If we simply believe that God is sure to deal with them in his own time, we can gain deep understanding even in the midst of suffering. If we never doubt that we are kept by the God who rules the whole universe and the eternal world, our suffering will soon come to an end.

Solomon, who once commanded the world, saw how spiritually poor his final years had become, and realized how meaningless all of it had been before God. He had thought his power was great, but when he looked at himself in God’s light, he realized he was a great fool who had wielded a little power to torment his people.

Power and wealth that God has not given become instruments of sin. A vow made with words alone, with no deeds behind it, is likewise sin. God has never pressed you to make vows in order to get something from you. It is only we, his people, who have bargained with him, promising offerings, fasting, and service in return for blessing, to get what we wanted. Friends, may you never commit such a sin again. And instead of complaining, you must believe that the One who is higher than the world is watching over you and protecting his people. God, who hears the voice of his people crying out in prayer, will surely repay, when the time comes, all their efforts to keep the faith. We need to endure even hardship well to keep our faith. Having made a vow to God means we are in a hard place; all the more, then, we must believe that Christ will act.

Friends, whatever heart you brought to your vows before God, I hope you will keep them. If you become a fool who makes empty vows to God and does not keep them, that in itself is sin, and you may come under God’s rebuke. May you be people whose words and deeds agree.

If you have vowed to God that you will faithfully attend church, love your brothers and sisters, or give yourself to service and evangelism, I hope you will keep that vow. For God remembers the words that came from your mouth, and he will certainly call you to account for that sin. God, who sees you striving to give yourself to him, will bless you in the measure of your faith. May you be holy people who do not spill the grace God pours to overflowing into the clean vessel you have prepared.

Friends, let us not forget that the vessel of blessing is shaped by passing through hardship, and let us be people who live out a holy life.