Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest
Or "see", or "enjoy life" F4: this is one of the ways of
enjoying life comfortably, and one of the principal ones; that if
a man has a wife whom he ought to love as himself as his own
flesh, to take delight in her company, be pleasant with her, and
rejoice in her, ( Proverbs
5:18 Proverbs
5:19 ) ; and this here may be put for all that pleasure and
satisfaction which may be lawfully had in the enjoyment of all
other relations and friends; which adds no small part to the
comfort of a man's life; all the days of the life of thy
vanity;
a wife is for life, and not after a while to be divorced; and to
be lived joyfully with, not for a short time only, but all the
days of life; which he hath given thee under the
sun;
that is, either which wife God has given thee; for a wife is the
gift of God, ( Genesis 3:12
) ; and which is a gift under the sun; for above it, or in
heaven, and in a future state, there is no marrying nor giving in
marriage, ( Luke 20:35 ) ; or which
days he hath given thee, so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and
Arabic versions. It is added, all the days of thy
vanity;
which is repeated, that it might be observed that the life of man
is but a vain life, a vapour that soon vanishes away, and man in
it, at his best estate, is vanity; and that notwithstanding all
the enjoyments of life in the most comfortable manner here
directed to, yet still the doctrine he set out with must be
remembered, that all is vanity, ( Ecclesiastes
1:2 ) ; for that [is] thy portion in [this] life, and
in thy labour which thou
takest under the sun;
this is all the outward happiness of a man in this life, and all
the use, profit, and advantage of his labours, to eat and drink
cheerfully, to clothe decently, to debar himself of nothing of
lawful pleasure, particularly to live joyfully with his wife, and
enjoy his friends; this is the utmost of outward felicity he can
partake of, and this he should not deny himself. Ben Melech
restrains this portion to a wife, and joyful living with her; but
it is best to include all that goes before.
F4 (Myyx har) "vide vitam", Pagninus, Vatablus, Drusius, Mercerus, Cocceius; "vel vitas", Montanus; "perfruere vita", V. L. "fracre vita", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus, Rambachius; so Broughton.
