Fear God and Keep Your Vows

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1. Observe

   What warnings about God and vows (vv. 1-7)?

   • None
   • Guard your steps in God's house; draw near to listen rather than offering sacrifice of fools; don't be rash with mouth; let words be few; pay vows promptly; better not to vow than to vow and not pay; don't claim it was a mistake; fear God
   • Speak much
   • Vows are unimportant

2. Observe

   What happens to the wealth accumulator (vv. 13-17)?

   • Continuous prosperity
   • Wealth kept to owner's harm; wealth perishes by misfortune; if he has a son, nothing in his hand; naked he goes as he came; all days he eats in darkness, frustrated, with sickness and wrath
   • He becomes happier
   • No consequences

3. Interpret

   Why does God's transcendence require human brevity?

   • God can't hear many words
   • Verbosity impresses God
   • Because the gap between heaven (God's abode) and earth (ours) makes endless human words seem presumptuous; few words acknowledge the difference; the Preacher diagnoses that fools in religious settings often substitute volume of words for actual reverence — performing piety rather than encountering God; brevity is humility, and humility is the proper posture before transcendence
   • God dislikes speech

4. Interpret

   Why can't "enough" be defined by accumulation?

   • It can be defined by accumulation
   • Accumulation always satisfies
   • Because love of money creates an appetite without an internal stopping point — each addition increases the desire for more rather than satisfying it; the heart that has located its security in silver perceives any amount as potentially insufficient; "enough" must be defined by something external to the accumulation itself (contentment grounded in God, gratitude for present provision, recognition of true need); without that external anchor, the appetite is infinite and the soul is endlessly hungry
   • Money limits itself

5. Apply

   Is one approaching worship to listen or to perform?

   • Performance is fine
   • Listening is irrelevant
   • Honest examination identifies one's actual posture — entering church to be seen or to see God, opening Scripture to confirm one's views or to hear God's voice, praying to manage a script or to actually communicate, singing for the experience or to address God; the worship Ecclesiastes commends is fundamentally receptive — listening more than speaking; many performative habits can be quietly replaced with receptive ones once identified
   • Worship is empty

6. Apply

   What does sleep/rest reveal about relationship to security?

   • Nothing
   • Sleep is purely physical
   • Inability to sleep often signals where one's actual security has been placed — financial worries that won't release the mind, anxiety about outcomes one cannot control, the inability to trust God enough to lay responsibility down for the night; the laborer's sweet sleep comes from limited possessions to worry about; mature faith can sleep regardless of accumulation, because the heart's security is in God's keeping, not in one's holdings
   • Rest is unrelated to faith

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