Ecclesiastes 6:3

“If a man beget an hundred [children], etc.] Sons and daughters, a certain number for an uncertain. Some have had many children, and almost this number; Rehoboam had twenty eight sons and threescore daughters; and Ahab had seventy sons, how many daughters is not said, (<141121>2 Chronicles 11:21 <121001>2 Kings 10:1); this was reckoned a great honour and happiness to have many children; happy was the man that had his quiver full of them, (<19C703>Psalm 127:3); such a case is here supposed; and live many years, so that the days of his years be many; or “sufficient”, as Jarchi interprets it; he lives as long as life is desirable; lives to a good old age, to the full age of men, threescore years…”

“Even if a man (of this character) have very many (equivalent to "a hundred," Kg2 10:1) children, and not have a "stranger" as his heir (Ecc 6:2), and live long ("days of years" express the brevity of life at its best, Gen 47:9), yet enjoy no real "good" in life, and lie unhonored, without "burial," at death (Kg2 9:26, Kg2 9:35), the embryo is better than he. In the East to be without burial is the greatest degradation. "Better the fruit that drops from the tree before it is ripe than that left to hang on till rotten" [HENRY].”

“No burial - For a corpse to lie unburied was a circumstance in itself of special ignominy and dishonor (compare the marginal references). return to 'Top of Page'”

“With good - He hath not a contented mind and comfortable enjoyment of his estate. Is better - Which as it never enjoyed the comforts, so it never felt the calamities of life. Ecclesiastes 6:4”

“6:3-6 a hundred children and . . . be very old: Such honors as virility and old age amount to nothing if life is not enjoyable or does not end well (a decent burial). The darkness of being born dead is preferable to a discontented life.”

“a man: Gen 33:5; Sa1 2:20, Sa1 2:21; Kg2 10:1; Ch1 28:5; Ch2 11:21; Est 5:11; Psa 127:4, Psa 127:5; Pro 17:6 so: Ecc 5:17-19; Gen 47:9 and also: Kg2 9:35; Est 7:10, Est 9:14, Est 9:15; Isa 14:19, Isa 14:20; Jer 22:19, Jer 36:30 that an: Ecc 4:3; Job 3:16; Psa 58:8; Mat 26:24 Ecclesiastes 6:4”

“"If a man begat an hundred, and lived many years, and the amount of the days of his years was great, and his soul satisfied not itself in good, and also he had no grave, then I say: Better than he is the untimely birth." The accentuation of 3a is like that of 2a. The disjunctives follow the Athnach, as at Kg2 23:13, only that there Telisha Gedhola stands for Pazer. Hitzig finds difficulty with the clause לו ... וגם־, and regards it as a marginal gloss to 5a, taken up into the text at a wrong place. But just the unexpected form and the accidental nature, more than the inward necessity of this feature in the figure, leads us to conclude that the author here connects together historical facts,…”