10 So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.
10 Therefore remove sorrow
10 Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain
10 Live footloose and fancy free - You won't be young forever. Youth lasts about as long as smoke.
10 Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, And put away evil from your flesh, For childhood and youth are vanity.
10 So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ecclesiastes 11:10
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 11:7-10
(Read Ecclesiastes 11:7-10)
Life is sweet to bad men, because they have their portion in this life; it is sweet to good men, because it is the time of preparation for a better; it is sweet to all. Here is a caution to think of death, even when life is most sweet. Solomon makes an effecting address to young persons. They would desire opportunity to pursue every pleasure. Then follow your desires, but be assured that God will call you into judgment. How many give loose to every appetite, and rush into every vicious pleasure! But God registers every one of their sinful thoughts and desires, their idle words and wicked words. If they would avoid remorse and terror, if they would have hope and comfort on a dying bed, if they would escape misery here and hereafter, let them remember the vanity of youthful pleasures. That Solomon means to condemn the pleasures of sin is evident. His object is to draw the young to purer and more lasting joys. This is not the language of one grudging youthful pleasures, because he can no longer partake of them; but of one who has, by a miracle of mercy, been brought back in safety. He would persuade the young from trying a course whence so few return. If the young would live a life of true happiness, if they would secure happiness hereafter, let them remember their Creator in the days of their youth.