Ecclesiastes 9:2

All things come alike to all As before, the seeker sees no order or purpose in the chances and changes of life. Earthquakes, pestilences, tempests make no discrimination between good and evil. As with the melancholy emphasis of iteration, the various forms of contrasted characters are grouped together. "The righteous and the wicked" point to men's conduct relative to their neighbours, the "good and pure" (the first word is probably added to shew that a moral and not merely a ceremonial purity is meant) to what we call "self-regarding" actions, the self-reverence of purity in act and thought. "Sacrifice" is the outward expression of man's relation to God. "The good" and "the sinner" are wider in their range and express the totality of character. The last group is not without difficulty. As commonly interpreted, "he that sweareth" is the man who swears falsely or rashly, as in Zechariah 5:3, he "that feareth an oath" is either the man who looks on its obligation with a solemn awe, or one whose communication is Yea, yea, Nay, nay, and who shrinks in reverential awe from any formal use of the Divine Name. On this view, the words probably point to the tendency of thought which was developed in the teaching of the Essenes, who placed every oath on the same level as perjury (Jos. Wars, ii. 8, § 6), and was in part sanctioned in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37). It may be noted, however, that in all the other groups, the good side is placed first, and I do not feel quite sure that it is not so in this case also. The man "that sweareth" may be he who does what most religious Jews held to be their duty, truthfully and well (comp Deuteronomy 6:13; Isaiah 65:16; Psalms 63:11), he who "fears the oath," may be the man whose "coward conscience" makes him shrink from the oath either of compurgation on the part of an accused person (comp. Aristot. Rhet. i. 27), or of testimony. The former was in frequent use in Jewish as in Greek trials. Comp. Exodus 22:10-11; 1 Kings 8:31; 2 Chronicles 6:22; Numbers 5:19-22. It may be added that this view agrees better with the language about "the oath of God" in ch. Ecclesiastes 5:2.