Ecclesiastes 5:12

The sleep of a labouring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much,.... Or "of a servant" (i), who enjoys sleep equally as a king; a tiller of the ground, as Jarchi; who also interprets it of one

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet ... Another argument against anxiety to gain riches.

Is sweet; because he is free from those cares and fears, wherewith the minds of rich men are oft distracted, and their sleep disturbed. Whether he eat little, then his weariness disposeth him to sleep, or much, in which case his healthful constitution and laborious course of life prevents those crudities and indigestions which ofttimes break the sleep of rich men. The abundance, Heb. the fulness, either, 1. Of his diet, which commonly discomposeth their stomachs, and hinders their rest; or, 2. Of wealth, which is commonly attended with many perplexing cares, which disquiet men both by day and by night. The Hebrew word is used in Scripture both ways, and possibly it is thus generally expressed to include both significations.

Ecclesiastes 5:12 The sleep of a labouring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.Ver. 12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.] Sleep is the nurse of nature, the wages that she pays the poor man for his incessant pains. His fare is not so high, his care is not so great, but that without distemper or distraction he can hug his rest most sweetly, and feel no disturbance, until the due time of rising awakeneth him. These labouring men are as sound as a rock, as hungry as hunters, as weary as ever was dog of day, as they say, and therefore no sooner laid in their beds but fast asleep, their hard labour causing easy digestion, and uninterrupted rest. Whereas the restless spirit of the rich wretch rides his body day and night; care of getting, fear of keeping, grief of losing, these three vultures feed upon him continually. He rolls a Sisyphus’ stone; his abundance, like a lump of lead, lies heavy upon his heart, and breaks his sleep. Much like the disease called the nightmare, or ephialtes, in which men in their slumber think they feel a thing as large as a mountain lying upon their breasts, which they can no way remove. His evil conscience soon lasheth and lanceth him, as it did our Richard III, after the murder of his two innocent nephews, and Charles IX of France, after the bloody massacre. God also terrifies him with dreams, throws handfuls of hell fire in his face, interpellat cogitantem, excitat dormientem, as Ambrose hath it, interrupts him while he is thinking, awakeneth him while he is sleeping, rings that doleful peal in his ears, that makes him start and stare, "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be taken from thee." Veni miser in iudicium, Come, thou wretch, receive thy judgment. Somni finis est salus animantis. - Magir.

Verse 12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet] His labour is healthy exercise. He is without possessions, and without cares; his sleep, being undisturbed, is sound and refreshing.

12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet] We may probably, as suggested in the “Ideal Biography” of the Introduction ch. iii., see in this reflection the reminiscence of a state with which the writer had once been familiar, and after which, now that it had passed away, he yearned regretfully. Again we get on the track of the maxims of Epicurean teachers. So Horace; “Somnus agrestiumLenis virorum non humiles domosFastidit umbrosamque ripam,Non Zephyris agitata Tempe.”“Gentle slumber scorneth notThe ploughman’s poor and lowly cot,Nor yet the bank with sheltering shade,Nor Tempe with its breezy glade.”Od. iii. 1. 21–24. See the passage from Virgil, Georg. iv., already quoted in the note on ch. Ecclesiastes 2:24, and “Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shadeTo shepherds looking on their silly sheep,Than doth a rich embroider’d canopyTo kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.And to conclude, the shepherd’s homely curds,His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,His viands sparkling in a golden cup,His body couched in a curious bed,When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.”Shakespeare, Henry VI. Act ii. Sc. 5.

Labouring man - Not a slave (Septuagint), but everyone who, according to the divine direction, earns his bread in the sweat of his brow.

12. Sleep of a labouring man — That is, of the husbandman, or farmer. Is sweet — Freedom from carking care has often, and even beyond what is true, been imputed to the plain tillers of the soil.