Ecclesiastes 12:14

For God shall bring every work into judgment,.... Not in this life, but in the day of the great judgment, as the Targum explains it; that is, whatever has been done by men, from the beginning of the

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. A summary of the second, and the more important part. The whole forms the epilogue, an epitome of the book.

For God shall bring every work into judgment: this is added either, 1. As a reason of what he last said, this is the whole of man, because all men must give an account to God of all their works, and this alone will enable them to do that with joy, and not with grief. Or, 2. As another argument to press the foregoing exhortation, Fear God, and keep his commandments, for you must be called to judgment about it, &c. With every secret thing; not only outward and visible actions, but even inward and secret thoughts.

Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.Ver. 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment.] Full loath is sinful flesh to come to judgment; but (will they, nill they), come they must, "God will bring them." Angels will hale them out of their hiding holes. Rocks and mountains will then prove a sorry shelter, since rocks shall rend and mountains melt at the presence of the Judge. Let us therefore judge ourselves, if he shall not judge us, and take unto us words against our sins, if we will not have him to take unto him words against our souls. And then, Ira vivamus, ut rationem nobis reddendam arbitretour, saith the heathen orator, Let us so live as those that must shortly be called to an account. For who can tell but that he may suddenly hear as that Pope did, and was soon after found dead, Veni, miser, in iudicium, Come, thou wretch, receive thy judgment. Let this be firmly believed and thoroughly digested, and it will notably incite us to the fear and service of God. This some heathens knew. Zaleucus Locrensis, in the preface to his laws, hath these words: Hoc inculcatum sit, esse Deos, et venturum esse summum et fatalem illum diem: Remember to press often upon the people these two things; first, That there are gods; next, To these gods an account of all must be given. The Areopagites at their council were wont diligently to inquire what every one of the Athenians did, and how he lived, that men knowing and remembering that once they must give an account of their lives, though but to earthly judges, might embrace honesty. With every secret thing.] For at that day of "Revelation," as it is called, we must all appear - or be made transparent, translucent, and dear, like a perfectly transparent body, as the word there signifies - before the judgment seat of Christ; all shall be laid naked and open, the books of God’ s omniscience and man’ s conscience also shall be then opened, and secret sins shall be as legible in thy forehead as if written with the brightest stars or the most glittering sunbeams upon a wall of crystal. Men’ s actions are all in print in heaven, and God will at that day read them aloud in the ears of all the world. Whether it be good or evil.] Then it shall appear what it is, which before was not so clear; like as in April both wholesome roots and poisonable reveal themselves, which in winter were not seen. Then men shall give an account - (1.) De bonis commissis, of good things committed unto them; (2.) De bonis dimissis, of good things neglected by them; (3.) De malis commissis, of evils committed by them; (4.) Lastly, De malis permissis, of evils done by others, suffered by them when they might have hindered it.

(14) Considering that the book is filled with complaints of the imperfection of earthly retribution, this announcement of a tribunal, at which “every work,” “every secret thing,” shall be brought into judgment, cannot be reasonably understood of anything but a judgment after this life; so that this book, after all its sceptical debatings, ends by enunciating, more distinctly than is done elsewhere in the Old Testament, the New Testament doctrine of a day when God shall judge the secrets of men (Romans 2:16), shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts (1 Corinthians 4:5).

Verse 14. For God shall bring every work into judgment] This is the reason why we should "fear God and keep his commandments." 1. Because there will be a day of judgment. 2. Every soul of man shall stand at that bar. 3. God, the infinitely wise, the heart-searching God, will be judge. 4. He will bring to light every secret thing - all that has been done since the creation, by all men; whether forgotten or registered; whether done in secret or in public. 5. All the works of the godly, as well as all the works of the wicked, shall be judged in that day; the good which the godly strove to conceal, as well as the evil which the wicked endeavoured to hide. This, then, will be the conclusion of the whole mortal story. And although in this world all is vanity; yet there, "vanities will be vain no more." Every thing, whether good or evil, will have its own proper stable, eternal result. O God! prepare the reader to give up his accounts with joy in that day! Amen. MASORETIC NOTES Number of verses, 222. Middle verse, Ecclesiastes 6:10. Sections, 4. The ARABIC subjoins this colophon: - "Praise be to God for ever and ever!" "By the assistance of the Most High God this book of Ecclesiastes, which is vanity of vanities, written by Solomon the son of David who reigned over the children of Israel, is completed." The SYRIAC has, "The end of the book of Koheleth." There are others, but they are of no importance.

14. For God shall bring every work into judgment] Once again the Teacher brings into prominence what was indeed the outcome of the book; though, as history shews, the careless reader, still more the reader blinded by his passions, or prejudice, or frivolity, might easily overlook it. The object of the writer had not been to preach a self-indulgence of the lowest Epicurean type, or to deny the soul’s immortality, though for a time he had hesitated to affirm it, but much rather to enforce the truth, which involved that belief, of a righteous judgment (ch. Ecclesiastes 11:9), seen but imperfectly in this life, with its anomalous distribution of punishments and rewards, but certain to assert itself, if not before, when “the spirit shall return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). From the standpoint of the writer of the epilogue it was shewn that the teaching of Ecclesiastes was not inconsistent with the faith of Israel, that it had a right to take its place among the Sacred Books of Israel. From our standpoint we may say that it was shewn not less convincingly that the book, like all true records of the search after Truth, led men through the labyrinthine windings of doubt to the goal of duty, through the waves and winds of conflicting opinions to the unshaken rock of the Eternal Commandment.

14. Every work into judgment — This book began with a view of the arena on which mortal life is enacted. It ends with a conclusion in which nothing is concluded but mortal cares and vanities and opportunities.