Prediger 4:5

Elberfelder Bibel

Parallel Translations

Schlachter Bibel (1951)
Der Tor faltet seine Hände und verzehrt sein eigenes Fleisch.

Lutherbible (1912)
Ein Narr schlägt die Finger ineinander und verzehrt sich selbst.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

fool: Proverbs 6:10, Proverbs 6:11, Proverbs 12:27, Proverbs 13:4, Proverbs 20:4, Proverbs 24:33, Proverbs 24:34

eateth: That is, with envy - see Ecclesiastes 4:4, though too idle to follow his neighbour's example. Job 13:14, Proverbs 11:17, Isaiah 9:20

Reciprocal: Ephesians 5:29 - hated

Gill's Notes on the 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 Proverbs 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, Isaiah 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, Proverbs 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Isaiah 49:26; Psalms 27:2; Micah 3:3.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 4:5. 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.