Ecclesiastes 4:3

Ecc 4:3 Yea, better [is he] than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Ver. 3. Yea, better is he than both they.] The heathen could say, Optimum non nasci: proximum mori. Life is certainly a blessing of God, though never so calamitous. Why is living man sorrowful? saith the prophet: {Lam 3:39} and it is as if he should say, Man, if alive, hath some cause of comfort amidst all his miseries; if he may escape though but "with the skin of his teeth," {Job 19:20} and have his life for a prey, he should see matter of thankfulness, and say, "It is the Lord’s mercy that I am not consumed" {Lam 3:22} - that I am yet on this side hell. But those that have set their hearts upon earthly things, if ever they lose them, they are filled almost with unmedicineable sorrows; so as they will praise the dead above the living, and wish they had never been born. These are they whom Solomon in this sentence is by some thought to personate.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He speaketh according to the judgment of the flesh, which cannot abide to feel or see troubles.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

not seen--nor experienced.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 3. Which hath not yet been] Better never to have been born into the world, than to have seen and suffered so many miseries.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. Yea, better is he than both they] As the utterance of a personal feeling of despair we have a parallel in the words of Job (Ecc_3:11-16). As expressing a more generalised view of life we have multiform echoes of the thought in the Greek writers, of whose influence, direct or indirect, the book presents so many traces. Thus we have in Theognis:

Πάντων μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον,

μηδʼ ἐσιδεῖν αὐγὰς ὀξέος ἠελίου·

φύντα δʼ ὄπως ὤκιστα πύλας Ἀΐδαο περῆσαι,

καὶ κεῖσθαι πολλὴν γῆν ἐπαμησάμενον.

“Best lot for men is never to be born,

Nor ever see the bright rays of the morn:

Next best, when born, to haste with quickest tread

Where Hades’ gates are open for the dead,

And rest with much earth gathered for our bed.”

425–428.

Or in Sophocles:

μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἄπαντα νικᾷ λόγον• τὸ δʼ, ἐπεὶ φανῇ,

βῆναι κεῖθεν ὄθεν περ ἤκει,

πολὺ δεύτερον, ὡς τάχιστα.

“Never to be at all

Excels all fame;

Quickly, next best, to pass

From whence we came.”

Oed. Col. 1225.

More remote but of yet deeper significance is the fact that the same feeling lies at the root of Buddhism and its search after Nirvana (annihilation or unconsciousness) as the one refuge from the burden of existence. Terrible as the depression thus indicated is, it is one step higher than the hatred of life which appeared in chs. Ecc_1:14, Ecc_2:17-18. That was simply the weariness of a selfish satiety; this, like the feeling of Çakya Mouni when he saw the miseries of old age and disease and death, and of the Greek Chorus just quoted, rose from the contemplation of the sorrows of humanity at large. It was better not to be than to see the evil work that was done under the sun. In marked contrast with this dark view of life we have the words: “Good were it for that man not to have been born” in Mat_26:24, as marking out an altogether exceptional instance of guilt and therefore of misery.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yea, better is he than both they which hath not yet been,.... That is, an unborn person; who is preferred both to the dead that have seen oppression, and to the living that are under it; see Job 3:10. This supposes a person to be that never was, a mere nonentity; and the judgment made is according to sense, and regards the dead purely as such, and so as free from evils and sorrows, without any respect to their future state and condition; for otherwise an unborn person is not happier than the dead that die in Christ, and live with him: and it can only be true of those that perish, of whom indeed it might be said, that it would have been better for them if they had never been born, according to those words of Christ, Mat 26:24; and is opposed to the maxim of some philosophers, that a miserable being is better than none at all. The Jews, from this passage, endeavour to prove the pre-existence of human souls, and suppose that such an one is here meant, which, though created, was not yet sent into this world in a body, and so had never seen evil and sorrow; and this way some Christian writers have gone. It has been interpreted also of the Messiah, who in Solomon's time had not yet been a man, and never known sorrow, which he was to do, and has, and so more happy than the dead or living. But these are senses that will not bear; the first is best; and the design is to show the great unhappiness of mortals, that even a nonentity is preferred to them;

who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun? the evil works of oppressors, and the sorrows of the oppressed.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Born. It is better to have no existence than to be in eternal misery, Matthew xxvi. 24. But the affliction of the just procureth glory for them. (Worthington) --- The pagan sages observed, that it was "best for mortals not to be born; and if they were, to die very soon." (Chalcid. and Theognis.) --- But they considered only temporal inconveniences. Religion has in view the danger of sin, and the desire of eternal happiness, Romans vii. 24.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Which hath not yet been; who was never born. How this is true, see on the foregoing verse.

Not seen, i.e. not felt; for as seeing good is put for enjoying it, Ecc 2:24, so seeing evil is put for suffering it, as hath been more than once observed.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. Better… not yet been — The dead have suffered; the living now suffer. The abortion that perishes unborn, as infants which never saw light, escapes all suffering. “They have slept, they have been at rest.” Very wretched must he be to whom cold and dark non-existence seems better than the warm experiences of life and action. Yet it has many times been expressed, if not felt.

“Not to be born, never to see the sun,

No worldly blessing is a greater one.”— Theognis.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been. Thus we have Job"s passionate appeal, (Job_3:11) "Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came forth," etc.? And in the Greek poets the sentiment of the text is re-echoed. Thus Theognis, "Paroen.," 425

Pantwn men mhoisin ariston Mhd ejsidein aujgaov hjeliou Funta d opwv wkista pulav jAi"dao perhsai Kai keisqai pollhmenon

"Tis best for mortals never to be born, Nor ever see the swift sun"s burning rays; Next best, when born, to pass the gates of death Right speedily, and rest beneath the earth.

(Comp. Soph., "Ed. Colossians," 1225-1228.) Cicero, "Tusc. Disp.," 1:48, renders some lines from a lost play of Euripides to the same effect

Nam nos decebat, caetus celebrantes, domum Lugere, ubi esset aliquis in lucern editus, Humanae vitae varia reputantes mala; At qui labores metre finisset graves, Hunc omni amicos lauds et laetitia exsequi.

Herodotus (5. 4) relates how some of the Thracians had a custom of bemoaning a birth and rejoicing at a death. In our own Burial Service we thank God for delivering the departed "out of the miseries of this sinful world." Keble alludes to this barbarian custom in his poem on" The Third Sunday after Easter." Speaking of a Christian mother"s joy at a child"s birth, he says

No need for her to weep Like Thracian wives of yore, Save when in rapture still and deep Her thankful heart runs o"er. They mourned to trust their treasure on the main, Sure of the storm, unknowing of their guide: Welcome to her the peril and the pain, For well she knows the home where they may safely hide.

(See on Ecc_7:1; comp. Gray"s ode "On a Prospect of Eton College;" and for the classical notion concerning life and death, see Plato, "Laches," p. 195, 1, sqq.; "Gorgias," p. 512, A.) The Buddhist religion does not recommend suicide as an escape from the evils of life. It indeed regards man as master of his own life; but it considers suicide foolish, as it merely transfers a man"s position, the thread of life having to be taken up again under less favorable circumstances. See "A Buddhist Catechism," by Subhadra Bhikshu (London: Redway, 1890). Who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. He repeats the words, "under the sun," from ver. 1, in order to show that he is speaking of facts that came under his own regard outward phenomena which any thoughtful observer might notice (so again ver. 7).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Better is he - Who was never born. Not seen - Not felt: for as seeing good is put for enjoying it, so seeing evil is put for suffering it.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

yet Heb. עֲדֶן, [like] עֲדַיִן.

who has not seen I saw in Midrash Koheleth (Zuta pp. 117, 125): These are the 974 generations that were decreed to be created, but were not created.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.