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1Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
4When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
5:1-7 features a string of imperatives. We are more directly challenged with this language than has been the case so far. After all, Ecclesiastes 1-4 is an invitation for reflection, and the language in the opening chapters is virtually exclusively descriptive, not prescriptive. But this passage (5:1-7), which draws our attention to worship ("When you go to the house of God…," 5:1), confronts us with exhortation supported by a series of warrants.
The text is keen on commenting on religious vows and promises. In fact, 5:2 can already be read in this sense, namely, words uttered before God which promise a specific performance ("I will do this…"; "I will never again do that…"). In this case, "God is in heaven and you are on earth" would translate as follows: "How do you know that you will be able to do what you promise, or what will happen?"
Vows and promises we make before God are a tricky thing, even if we rely on his strength in carrying out what we have uttered before him. This is so, not because there is something inherently wrong about making promises (or vows) to God. Quite to the contrary, the making of a promise lies at the heart of covenantal language, and since we claim to have entered into covenant with our Lord, we do promise him our allegiance and loyalty, notwithstanding our ongoing need for forgiveness. The issue hinges, once again, on the heart's motive in making promises to God. The motive in turn is informed by what we think of God (the "dream" of God, 5:3).
Let us suppose I promise God to repent of a certain sin. Do I do this now because deep down in my heart I believe that God can be manipulated? Our heart may tell us, "If you turn away from evil, then God will love you." We may entertain the notion that the guilt of our particular sins can somehow be "worked off" by not lying, not gossiping, not masturbating, not drinking, or not cursing. We are tempted to "earn" God's love because the concept of desert has been drilled into our minds from day one of our life on earth. Virtually everything under the sun works on the basis of what one deserves. Recognition, respect, wages, even love have to be earned. But the God of the gospel of Christ preaches faith in his promise of life despite the fact that we have forfeited any blessing we could ever receive from him.
The lesson of grace is harder to learn than one would think. For the god of this world, indeed, sin itself, has taught us the lie that righteousness with God must be a matter of our works. But God's love and mercy cannot be brokered by our performance. God's forgiveness cannot be earned. Believe in God's love for Christ's sake who paid the full price for our redemption. If you cannot do this, ask him to increase your faith. At the end of the day, the only thing that manages to break and humble our hearts before God so as to produce true holiness is the realization that God loves us in spite of ourselves. Promise God your loyalty today and every day, and rely only on his Spirit to empower you for service, but do not even begin to think that you can or need to earn his love. Do not insult the love of our heavenly Father. Another way of saying this is, "God is the one you must fear" (5:7).
The author of these devotionals, the Rev. Martin Emmrich, is an ordained OPC minister (Westminster OPC, Corvallis, Oregon) as well as the author of Pneumatological Concepts in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book on the teaching of Hebrews on the Holy Spirit. We are happy to make these devotionals on Ecclesiastes and other passages of Scripture available to you.
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