Thoughts on Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Thoughts on Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 by David F. Maas

"Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. (10) For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. (11) Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone?(12) Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken."

The last portion of the passage refers to a threefold cord. If one individual and another individual make a twofold cord, the threefold cord must have an additional element that we can infer to be God Almighty. If God is not placed first in every liaison that we human beings make (marriage, friendship, or church fellowship) the relationship will be short lived.

Consider these scriptural warnings:
» Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished; but the posterity of the righteous will be delivered. (Proverbs 11:21)
» Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; though they join forces, none will go unpunished. (Proverbs 16:5)

Any alliance or friendship not based upon God's laws and principles will not succeed. We are warned to stay away from any such bond:

If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods," which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, . . . you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him. . . . (Deuteronomy 13:6, 8)

Close or intimate friends should have an intense love for God's law. Any alliance made between two people that explicitly or implicitly subverts God's laws is destined to be destroyed.
God set in motion those immutable laws that bind one person to another. There are laws of attraction that bring human beings with similar traits together. Cliques also adhere or cohere on this principle.

Some studies in human behavior suggest that people bond with one another because they see aspects of their own personalities in others (sometimes good, such as a common love for music or literature, and sometimes bad, such as a proclivity to be a clutter-bug or indecisive).

The recognition of a parallel trait in someone else causes us to feel protective toward that person.

For instance, some social analysts have speculated that the reason the United States Senate did not carry out the House of Representatives recommendations to expel President Bill Clinton from office was a timidity rising from their own parallel sins and iniquities. As the wife of a prominent radio commentator has suggested, "Bill Clinton makes us comfortable with our own sins."