Keep Your Promises to God

Continuing our study of Ecclesiastes…

Eccl. 5:4-5 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

Let’s refocus on Solomon’s context regarding the importance of our words before God. A vow is a promise. Solomon is reiterating the words of Moses as he declares that God holds us accountable to our promises.

Deuteronomy 23:21-23 “When thou shalt vow a vow unto the LORD thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the LORD thy God will surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in thee. But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee. That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth.”

I think it is important to note that reference is regarding that “which is gone out of thy lips…which thou hast promised with thy mouth.” We can’t always control the flow of our thoughts, but we can definitely control the words that we speak. When we make a conscious decision to voice a promise or commitment to God, He considers that binding. He is always faithful to His promise, and He expects the same from us.

I think this is an especially important truth for believers today to understand. We live in a culture in which a man’s word is no longer valued, and it is easy for the believer to find himself conforming to the culture. Marriage vows are easily broken and dissolved. Truth is considered relative. The ends justifies the means is accepted practice. More than ever we need to stand out as different from the world and living our lives according to the irrefutable truth of God’s word in submission and obedience to Him.

Eccl. 5:6-7 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.

We saw from the verses in Deuteronomy quoted above that to make a vow to God and not keep it is a sin. “I didn’t mean it” is not an acceptable excuse. The implication is that God might respond in anger to your unkept promise and destroy what you have achieved through your hard work. He would certainly be just in doing so.

I was about to give up on making the connection in context of verse 7 until I pulled out The Bible Knowledge Commentary, by Walvoord and Zuck. It gave the somewhat literal translation as “Through many dreams there is futility and also through many words.” It made sense that Solomon was comparing rash vows to the many meaningless dreams that we have. Neither has value. Following after meaningless dreams can lead us astray (from the Hebrew for vanities) and rash vows can cause us to lose the fruits of our labor. The better choice is to live in fear and reverence before God in submission and obedience.