Ecclesiastes 7:26

And I find more bitter than death the woman,.... This was the issue of his diligent studies and researches, and the observations he had made; this was what he found by sad and woeful experience, and

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

I find, by my own sad experience; which Solomon here records, partly as an instance of that folly and madness which he expressed in general, , and partly as a testimony of his true repentance for his foul miscarriages, for which he was willing to take shame to himself, not only from the present, but from all succeeding generations. More bitter; more vexatious and pernicious, as producing those horrors of conscience, those reproaches, and diseases, and other plagues, both temporal and spiritual, from God, which are far worse than simple death and, after all these, everlasting destruction. The woman, the strange woman, of whom he speaks so much in the Proverbs, whose heart is snares and nets; who being subtle of heart, , is full of crafty devices to ensnare men; and her hands, either by gifts, or rather by lascivious actions, as bands; wherewith she holds them fast in cruel bondage; so that they have neither power nor will to forsake her, notwithstanding all the dangers and mischiefs which they know do attend upon such practices. Whoso pleaseth God, Heb. he that is good before God; either, 1. Whom God loves and favours. Or rather, 2. Who is good sincerely, or in the judgment of God, who cannot be deceived, whereas hypocrites are frequently good in the eyes or opinions of men; which sense seems to be confirmed from the opposition of the sinner to him, both here and . Hereby he intimates that neither a good temper of mind, nor great discretion, nor good education and instruction, nor any other thing, except God’ s grace, is a sufficient preservative from the dominion of this lust. Shall escape from her; shall be prevented from falling into that sin; or if by surprisal or strong temptation he be drawn to it, he shall be recovered out of it by true repentance. The sinner; the wilful and obstinate sinner, who gives himself up to the common practice of this or other sins; he who is a sinner before the Lord, as the Sodomites are called, , who is fitly opposed to him that is good before God; he in whom there is not a dram of true goodness; for otherwise all men are sinners, as was said, . Shall be taken by her; shall be entangled and kept fast in her chains, as is implied, because this is opposed to escaping from her.

Ecclesiastes 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart [is] snares and nets, [and] her hands [as] bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.Ver. 26. And I found more bitter than death.] Amantes amentes: Amor amaror, Plus aloes quam mellis habet. Knowest thou not that there is bitterness in the end? Heus scholastiae, said the harlot to Apuleius, Hark, scholar, your sweet bits will prove bitter in the close. “ Principium dulce est, at finis amoris amarus. ” The pomegranate, with its sweet kernels, but bitter rind, is an emblem of the bitter sweet pleasure of sin. It is observed of our Edward III that he had always fair weather at his passage into France, and foul upon his return. Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet. The panther hides her head till she sees her time to make prey of those other beasts that, drawn by her sweet smell, follow her to their own destruction. The poet’ s fable, that pleasure and pain complained one of another to Jupiter, and that, when he could not decide the controversy between them, he tied them together with chains of adamant, never to be sundered. The woman.] The wanton woman, that shame of her sex. A bitch, Moses calls her; St Paul, a living ghost, a walking sepulchre of herself. Cum careat pura mente, cadaver agit. "This I find," saith Solomon, where "I" is "I" with a witness; he had found it by woeful experience, and now relates it for a warning to others. Saith he - “ Quid facies facies veneris cum veneris ante? Non sedeas, sed eas: ne pereas, per eas. ” Whose heart is snares and nets.] Heb., Hunters’ snares; for she "hunteth for the precious life," and the devil, by her, hunts for the precious soul, there being not anything that hath more enriched hell than harlots. All is good fish that comes to these nets; but they are "taken alive by the devil at his pleasure" And her hands as bands.] To captivate and enslave those that haunt her, as Delilah did Samson, as the harlot did the young novice, as Solomon’ s Moabitish mistress did him, and as it is said of the Persian kings, that they were captivarum suarum captivi, captives to their concubines, who dared to take the crown from their heads, or do anything to them almost, when others might not come near them uncalled upon pain of death Whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her.] As Joseph did, and Bellerophon, though with a difference: Joseph out of a principle of chastity, Bellerophon of continence. The continent person refrains either for love of praise, or fear of punishment, but not without grief, for inwardly he is scalded with boiling lust, as Alexander, Scipio, and Pompey were, when, tempted with the exquisiteness and variety of choicest beauties, they forbare. Vellem, si non essem imperator. I would if I were not a general.

(26) Sir 9:3; Sir 26:23. Snares.—See Ecclesiastes 9:12; used for siege works, Ecclesiastes 9:14. Nets.—Habakkuk 1:15; Ezekiel 26:5. Bands.—Judges 15:14.

Verse 26. And I find more bitter than death the woman] After all his investigation of the wickedness of folly, and the foolishness of madness, he found nothing equally dangerous and ruinous with the blandishments of cunning women. When once the affections are entangled, escape without ruin is almost impossible. Whoso pleaseth God] The man who walks with God, and he alone, shall escape this sore evil: and even he that fears God, if he get with an artful woman, may be soon robbed of his strength, and become like other men. A bad or artful woman is represented as a company of hunters, with nets, gins, &c., to catch their prey.

26. And I find more bitter than death] The result is a strange one in its contrast to the dominant tendency of Hebrew thought; especially we may add to that thought as represented by the Son of David with whom the Debater identifies himself. We think of the praises of the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon; of the language of Pro 5:13; and (though that is probably of later date) of the acrostic panegyric on the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31:10-31; and we find here nothing like an echo of them, but rather a tone of scorn, culminating in Ecclesiastes 7:28 in that which reminds us of the misogyny of the later maxim-makers of Greece, or of the Eastern king who never heard of any great calamity or crime without asking, Who is she? Such a change might, it is true, be explained as the result of the satiety into which the historical Solomon might have fallen as the penalty of his sensuality; and has its parallel in the cynical scorn of Catullus for the Lesbia whom he had once loved so tenderly (see Introduction, ch. iii.) and in that of a thousand others. Doubtless the words speak of such a personal experience on the part of the Debater. He had found no wickedness like that of the “strange woman,” such as she is painted in Proverbs 2:16-19; Proverbs 7:1-27. But we can scarcely fail to trace the influence of the Greek thought with which, as we have seen, the writer had come into contact. Of this the following may serve as samples out of a somewhat large collection. Μεστὸνκακῶνπέφυκεφορτίονγυνή.“A woman is a burden full of ills.”Ὅπουγυναῖκεςεἰσι, πάντʼ ? ἐκεῖκακά.“Where women are, all evils there are found.”Θηρῶνἁπάντωνἀγριωτέραγυνή.“Woman is fiercer than all beasts of prey.”Poet. Graec. Gnomici, Ed. Tauchnitz, p. 182. It might, perhaps, be pleaded in reference to this verse that the writer speaks of one class of women only, probably that represented in the pictures of Proverbs 2 or 7 and that the “corruptio optimi est pessima,” but the next verse makes the condemnation yet more sweeping. The suggestion that the writer allegorizes, and means by “the woman” here the abstract ideal of sensuality is quite untenable. In the imagery of “snares” and “nets” and “bands” some critics (Tyler) have traced a reminiscence of the history of Samson and Delilah (Judges 16). Such a reference to Hebrew history is however not at all after the writer’s manner, and it is far more natural to see in it the result of his own personal experience (see Introduction, ch. iii.). The Son of Sirach follows, it may be noted, in the same track of thought, though with a somewhat less sweeping condemnation (Sir 25:15-26; Sir 26:6-12). whoso pleaseth God] The marginal reading, whoso is good before God should be noted as closer to the Hebrew.

Compare the account of Solomon’s wives 1 Kings 11:1-8 : see also Proverbs 2:16-19; Proverbs 5:3...

26. The woman — That is, the sex, better without the “the.” I find woman more bitter than death — her heart, etc.