Ecclesiastes 6:3

3 A man might have a hundred children and live a long time, but what good is it if he can't enjoy the good God gives him or have a proper burial? I say a baby born dead is better off than he is.

Ecclesiastes 6:3 Meaning and Commentary

Ecclesiastes 6:3

If a man beget an hundred [children]
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, ( 2 Chronicles 11:21 ) ( 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, ( Psalms 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 and ten; yea, supposing he was to live to be as old as Methuselah, and his soul be not filled with good;
does not enjoy the good things he has; has no pleasure nor satisfaction in the temporal good things of life, has not the comfort of them, and is always uneasy, because he has not more of them; and especially if his soul is not filled with spiritual good things, the grace of God, and righteousness of Christ; And also [that] he have no burial;
as Jezebel, Jehoiakim, and others; who is either destroyed by robbers and cutthroats, for the sake of his substance, and cast into a ditch or a river, or some place, where he is never found to be interred; or else, being of such a sordid disposition, he provides not for a decent burial, suitably to his circumstances, or forbids one; or, being despised and disesteemed by all men, his heirs and successors either neglect or refuse to give him one; see ( Jeremiah 22:29 ) ; I say [that] an untimely birth [is] better than he;
an abortive is to be preferred unto him; it would have been better for him if he had never been born, or had been in such a case.

Ecclesiastes 6:3 In-Context

1 I have seen something else wrong here on earth that causes serious problems for people.

2 God gives great wealth, riches, and honor to some people; they have everything they want. But God does not let them enjoy such things; a stranger enjoys them instead. This is useless and very wrong.

3 A man might have a hundred children and live a long time, but what good is it if he can't enjoy the good God gives him or have a proper burial? I say a baby born dead is better off than he is.

4 A baby born dead is useless. It returns to darkness without even a name.

5 That baby never saw the sun and never knew anything, but it finds more rest than that man.