Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 – Don’t wilt under oppression

In our previous reflection, the preacher saw how inhumane people could be. In these three verses, he took a deeper look into this issue – man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.  He could see nothing but the sheer evil of oppression. People lose their dignity, both the victim and the aggressor, under oppression. This word suggests a high-handed injustice. It a display of offensive selfishness. It is usually carried out to prevent the victim from living a pressure-free life. It is a total disregard to the victim, just to pander to one’s own personal selfish interest.

Solomon tried looking at different angles of oppression. He surveyed the angle of the victim, then the oppressor, and then the effect of oppression. From the end of the victim he could see tears. Solomon took notice not only the wrong done to the victim, but the effect and the hardship the victim had to endure. He saw that there was not one who could comfort the victim. His friends, for fear of trouble or being dragged in, avoided him. So, there was no one to wipe their tears away. Besides, he had no capacity to redress the wrong he had to suffer. In the second part of verse 1, Solomon scrutinized from the angle of the oppressors, he saw power. It was sheer power without mercy. Those oppressors had a hardened attitude and couldn’t care about the plight of the victim. Sadly, they too had no one to comfort them. Both the oppressed and the oppressor had no one to comfort them. Both felt isolated.

The more he dwelt on the plight and the effect of oppression on both the victim and the oppressor, he came to a morbid conclusion that being dead is more fortunate than living. On further thought, he felt that the best situation, he surmised, was not to be born at all. The dead he felt would escape the miseries and need not endure the oppression. But he probably had gone through some before his death. So ultimately, to avoid being oppressed at all, it seems the only way is not to be born at all. He will never need to experience a single moment of oppression.

Here we see two flaws in this reasoning. The first flaw is that the dead are happier than the living. The second is that not to be born is better than those who have lived to suffer and those who had died in their suffering. These fallacies had not considered the role of God in one’s life. Jesus clearly tells us that in this world there will be tribulations. And our courage comes from living in Him and for Him. He has overcome the world. And as the Apostle so said in 1 Peter 4:1-2, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” Amen!