Pengkhotbah 9:4

Bahasa Indonesia Sehari-hari

Contextual Overview

⁴ And why? as long as a man liueth, he hath an hope: for a quicke dogge [say they] is better then a dead lion. ⁵ For they that be liuing knowe that they shall dye: but they that be dead knowe nothing, neither deserue they any more, for their memoriall is forgotten. ⁶ Also their loue, and their hatred, and their enuie is nowe perished, neither haue they any more part in the worlde in all that is done vnder the sunne. ⁷ Go thou thy way then, eate thy bread with ioy, & drinke thy wine with a glad heart, for thy workes please god: ⁸ Let thy garmentes be alwayes white, and let thy head lacke no oyntment. ⁹ Use thy selfe to liue ioyfully with thy wife whom thou louest all the dayes of thy life whiche is but vayne, that God geueth thee vnder the sunne all the dayes of thy vanitie: for that is thy portion in this life of al thy labour and trauayle that thou takest vnder the sunne. ¹⁰ Whatsoeuer thou takest in hande to do, that do with al thy power: for in the graue that thou goest vnto, there is neither worke, counsayle, knowledge, nor wysdome.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Job 14:7-12, Job 27:8, Isaiah 38:18, Lamentations 3:21, Lamentations 3:22, Luke 16:26-29

Reciprocal: Job 24:19 - so doth Ecclesiastes 4:2 - General Isaiah 57:18 - to his

Cross-References

Genesis 9:10
And with euery liuing creature that is with you, in foule, in cattell, in euery beast of the earth whiche is with you, of all that go out of the arke, whatsoeuer liuing thyng of the earth it be.

Genesis 9:14
And it shall come to passe, that when I bryng a cloude vpon the earth, the bowe also shalbe seene in ye same cloude.

Leviticus 3:17
Let it be a perpetuall statute for your generations throughout your dwellynges, yt ye eate neither fat nor blood.

Leviticus 7:26
Moreouer, ye shall eate no maner of blood, whether it be of foule or of beast, in any your dwellynges.

Leviticus 19:26
Ye shall not eate vpon blood, neither shall ye vse witchcraft, nor obserue tymes.

Deuteronomy 12:16
Only ye shall not eate the blood, but powre it vpon the earth as water.

Deuteronomy 12:23
But be strong, that thou eate not the blood: for the blood is the life, and thou mayest not eate the life with the fleshe.

Deuteronomy 14:21
Ye shall eate of nothyng that dyeth alone: But thou shalt geue it vnto the straunger that is in thy citie, that he eate it, or thou mayest sell it vnto a straunger: For thou art an holy people vnto the Lorde thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothers milke.

Deuteronomy 15:23
Only eate not the blood therof: but powre it vpon the grounde as water.

Acts 15:20
But that we write vnto them, that they absteyne themselues from fylthynesse of idols, and fro fornication, and from strangled, and from blood.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope,.... That is, who is among the living, is one of them, and, as long as he is, there is hope, if his circumstances are mean, and he is poor and afflicted, that it may be better with him in time; see Job 14:7; or of his being a good man, though now wicked; of his being called and converted, as some are at the eleventh hour, even on a death bed; and especially there is a hope of men, if they are under the means of grace, seeing persons have been made partakers of the grace of God after long waiting. There is here a "Keri" and a "Cetib", a marginal reading and a textual writing; the former reads, "that is joined", the latter, "that is chosen"; our version follows the marginal reading, as do the Targum, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions: some, following the latter, render the words, "who is to be chosen" y, or preferred, a living, or a dead man? not a dead but a living man: "to all the living there is hope"; of their being better; and, as Jarchi observes, there is hope, while alive, even though he is a wicked man joined to the wicked; yea, there is hope of the wicked, that he may be good before he dies;

for a living dog is better than a dead lion; a proverbial speech, showing that life is to be preferred to death; and that a mean, abject, and contemptible person, living, who for his despicable condition may be compared to a dog, is to be preferred to the most generous man, or to the greatest potentate, dead; since the one may possibly be useful in some respects or another, the other cannot: though a living sinner, who is like to a dog for his uncleanness and vileness, is not better than a dead saint or righteous man, comparable to a lion, who has hope in his death, and dies in the Lord.

y מי אשר יבחר "quisquis eligatur", Montanus, so Gejerus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For to him - Rather: “Yet to him.” Notwithstanding evils, life has its advantage, and especially when compared with death.

Dog - To the Hebrews a type of all that was contemptible 1 Samuel 17:43.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 9:4. For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope — While a man lives he hopes to amend, and he hopes to have a better lot; and thus life is spent, hoping to grow better, and hoping to get more. The Vulgate has, "There is none that shall live always, nor has any hope of such a thing." Perhaps the best translation is the following: "What, therefore, is to be chosen? In him that is living there is hope." Then choose that eternal life which thou hopest to possess.

A living dog is better than a dead lion. — I suppose this was a proverb. The smallest measure of animal existence is better than the largest of dead matter. The poorest living peasant is infinitely above Alexander the Great.