Pengkhotbah 4:2

Bahasa Indonesia Sehari-hari

Oleh sebab itu aku menganggap orang-orang mati, yang sudah lama meninggal, lebih bahagia dari pada orang-orang hidup, yang sekarang masih hidup.

Parallel Translations

Alkitab Terjemahan Baru
Oleh sebab itu aku menganggap orang-orang mati, yang sudah lama meninggal, lebih bahagia dari pada orang-orang hidup, yang sekarang masih hidup.

Contextual Overview

¹ So I turned me, and considered all the violent wrong that is done vnder the sunne: and beholde the teares of such as were oppressed, and there was no man to comfort them, or that woulde deliuer and defende them from the violence of their oppressours. ² Wherfore I iudged those that are dead, to be more happy then those that be alyue? ³ Yea him that is yet vnborne, to be better at ease then they both: because he seeth not the miserable workes that are done vnder the sunne.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Ecclesiastes 2:17, Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, Job 3:17-21

Reciprocal: Ecclesiastes 7:1 - the day Jeremiah 22:10 - Weep ye Revelation 14:13 - Blessed

Cross-References

Genesis 3:23
Therefore the Lorde God sent hym foorth fro the garden of Eden, to worke the grounde whence he was taken.

Genesis 4:25
Adam knewe his wyfe agayne, and she bare a sonne, and called his name Seth: For God [sayde she] hath appoynted me another seede in steade of Habel whom Cain slewe.

Genesis 4:26
And vnto the same Seth also there was borne a sonne, and he called his name Enos: then began men to make inuocation in the name of the Lorde.

Genesis 9:20
Noah also began to be an husbandman, and planted a vineyarde.

Genesis 37:13
And Israel sayde vnto Ioseph: do not thy brethren kepe in Sichem? come, and I wyll sende thee to them.

Genesis 47:3
And Pharao sayd vnto his brethren: what is your occupation? And they aunswered Pharao: thy seruauntes are kepers of cattell, both we, and also our fathers.

Exodus 3:1
Moyses kept the sheepe of Iethro his father in lawe, priest of Madian: and he droue the flocke to the backesyde of the desert, aud came to the mountayne of God Horeb.

Psalms 127:3
Beholde, chyldren be the inheritage of God: and the fruite of the wombe is a rewarde.

Amos 7:15
And the Lorde toke me as I folowed the flocke, and the Lord sayde vnto me, Go, prophecie vnto my people Israel.

Luke 11:51
From the blood of Abel, vnto ye blood of Zacharie, whiche perished betwene the aulter & the temple: Ueryly I saye vnto you, it shalbe required of this nation.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Wherefore I praised the dead, which are already dead,.... Truly and properly so; not in a figurative sense, as dead sinners, men dead in trespasses and sins; nor carnal professors, that have a name to live, and are dead; nor in a civil sense, such as are in calamity and distress, as the Jews in captivity, or in any affliction, which is sometimes called death: but such who are dead in a literal and natural sense, really and thoroughly dead; not who may and will certainly die, but who are dead already and in their graves, and not all these; not the wicked dead, who are in hell, in everlasting torments; but the righteous dead, who are taken away from the evil to come, and are free from all the oppressions of their enemies, sin, Satan, and the world. The Targum is,

"I praised those that lie down or are asleep, who, behold, are now dead;''

a figure by which death is often expressed, both in the Old and New Testament; sleep being, as the poet a says, the image of death; and a great likeness there is between them; Homer b calls sleep and death twins. The same paraphrase adds,

"and see not the vengeance which comes upon the world after their death;''

see Isaiah 57:1. The wise man did not make panegyrics or encomiums on those persons, but he pronounced them happy; he judged them in his own mind to be so; and to be much

more happy

than the living which are yet alive: that live under the oppression of others; that live in this world in trouble until now, as the Targum; of whom it is as much as it can be said that they are alive; they are just alive, and that is all; they are as it were between life and death. This is generally understood as spoken according to human sense, and the judgment of the flesh, without any regard to the glory and happiness of the future state; that the dead must be preferred to the living, when the quiet of the one, and the misery of the other, are observed; and which sense receives confirmation from Ecclesiastes 4:3: otherwise it is a great truth, that the righteous dead, who die in Christ and are with him, are much more happy than living saints; since they are freed from sin; are out of the reach of Satan's temptations; are no more liable to darkness and desertions; are freed from all doubts and fears; cease from all their labours, toil, and trouble; and are delivered from all afflictions, persecutions, and oppressions; which is not the case of living saints: and besides, the joys which they possess, the company they are always in, and the work they are employed about, give them infinitely the preference to all on earth; see Revelation 14:13.

a "Stulte, quid est semnus gelidae nisi mortis imago?" Ovid. Plato in Ciceron. Tuscul. Quaest. l. 1. c. 58. b Iliad. 16. v. 672, 682. Vid. Pausan. Laconica, sive l. 3. p. 195.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 4:2. Wherefore I praised the dead — I considered those happy who had escaped from the pilgrimage of life to the place where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.