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Ecclesiastes 8 · a question people ask

"Keep the king’s command!" (8:2). Is the Preacher saying to obey a ruler in everything?

In the text

The chapter gives the Preacher's words and one reason: "Keep the king’s command!" (8:2), "because of the oath to God" (8:2) (tap oath). It doesn't say who swore the oath or when. The next verses speak of the king's power: "he does whatever pleases him" (8:3), "for the king’s word is supreme" (8:4). The verse that says "Don’t be hasty to go out of his presence" (8:3) also says "Don’t persist in an evil thing" (8:3), and says no more about what that evil thing is. The chapter doesn't say what to do if a king commands evil, and these notes won't add an answer it doesn't give. It speaks of a king in the Preacher's own world; these notes apply it to no ruler, government or debate today, and don't make the king God.

The verses

“I say, “Keep the king’s command!” because of the oath to God. Don’t be hasty to go out of his presence. Don’t persist in an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him, for the king’s word is supreme. Who can say to him, “What are you doing?””
Ecclesiastes 8:2-4 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ecclesiastes 8

Ecclesiastes 8: Who is like the wise man?

The king's word is "supreme" (8:4), and no man has "power over the day of death" (8:8): in Hebrew both are shilton, a word found only in these two verses. And the Preacher says "surely I know" (8:12) two verses before "this also is vanity" (8:14), and the chapter keeps both.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions