Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him in his labor all the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Now, to be made a sharer at the table is to begin to have life, as we see from a text in Ecclesiastes: “There is no good for a man except what he shall eat and drink.” How can we reasonably interpret these words save as an allusion to partaking at the table which the Mediator of the New Testament, priest according to the order of Melchizedek, provides with his own body and blood? This sacrifice, indeed, has taken the place of all the sacrifices of the Old Testament that foreshadowed it.
No good for a man Some commentators think the wise man here speaks in the person of the libertine, representing the objections of these men against divine Providence, and the inferences they draw from thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of world lings, their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the unsearchable ways of divine providence. (Challoner) (Chap. ii. 24., and iii. 12., and Ecclesiasticus xv.) (Calmet)
Felicity is not attached to temporal prosperity, nor are the afflicted always miserable. (Worthington)
No good for a man: Some commentators think the wise man here speaks in the person of the libertine: representing the objections of these men against divine providence, and the inferences they draw from thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings, their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the unsearchable ways of divine providence.
