Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Eclesiastes 5:1

נפש כי תחטא ושמעה קול אלה, “If a person will sin, having heard a sound (demand) for an oath, etc.” Tanchuma Vayikra 7, commenting on this introduction writes as follows: “take note that when both the creatures in the celestial regions and the ones in the terrestrial regions were created their creation was the result of G’d employing only one half of His name, i.e. Isaiah 26,4 כי ביה ה' צור עולמים, ‘that the Lord employed only the letters י-ה of His name when creating the universe.’ He did so in order that the sinners should not become guilty of desecrating His entire name when sinning.” Observe the sequence of the wording of the Torah in our verse. Instead of the Torah writing אדם כי יקריב מכם לה’ קרבן, the Torah writes אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן לה'. The reason that the name “for the Lord” appears only at the end is to prevent the possibility of someone dying after having uttered the words “for the Lord” without his being able to complete the sentence. This is how careful one has to be not to utter the name of the Lord in vain.
This attitude is reflected in Solomon writing in Kohelet 5,1 “be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter a word before G’d.” Our sages (Tanchuma Vayikra 7) said that Jews should not be rash with offering vows and they should not make a practice of uttering oaths (even true ones). .hey tell of a king called Har in whose time 2,000 towns were destroyed all because of a true oath, because the oath was not called for. What was the oath all about? A person (not just one) swore an oath to his friend that he would go to a certain place and eat and drink there. He completed the journey and kept his oath. All the towns in which they confirmed all their intentions by phrasing them as an oath were ruined. If this is what happened to towns whose inhabitants honoured their oaths, how much worse is in store for people who do not honour their oaths! When in the future, G’d will judge people, the ones who will be accused for swearing a false oath will be put in the same company as the witches, sorcerers, and adulterers. This is all based on Maleachi 3,5: “But I will step forward to contend against you and I will act as a relentless accuser against those who have no fear of Me; who practice sorcery, commit adultery, who swear falsely, who cheat labourers of their hire and who subvert the cause of the widow.” G’d said: “the mouth which I gave you was meant to be used to sing My praises. Instead you use it to defame Me.” This is what is meant by Solomon in Proverbs 16,4: “the Lord made everything for a purpose, for His sake.” Another verse commenting on this subject is found in Isaiah 57,20: “but the wicked are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters toss up mire and mud.” Just as the waves of the sea in their arrogance rise higher and higher only to collapse upon themselves and be broken as soon as they hit the sand along the shore and the wave following it does not learn a lesson from the fate of the preceding wave, so the wicked do not learn from the fate which has befallen other wicked people before by becoming penitents. This is why they are compared to the waves of the sea which do not know the meaning of ever coming to rest in the world. The righteous, on the other hand, do know the meaning of calm and quiet as testified by Jeremiah 30,10 who writes: “and Yaakov shall again have calm and quiet with none to trouble him.”

ליסוד To lay the foundations. It is the infinitive; the radical י is silent, according to the rule;¹⁸The י after a Hirek is silent, when it has no vowel of its own. the word ליסוד is, however, in form similar to the perfect verb;¹⁹לִיְסד is fully corresponding to לִשְׁמוֹר; all the letters of the root are written; the Sheva under the second letter is dropped on account of the property of the י mentioned in the preceding note. comp. לישון to sleep (Eccl. 5:11)

And in the section of “Shelach Lecha,” with God’s help, this matter will also be explained regarding the techelet [blue thread] of tzitzit, as concluded in the Yalkut portion of Ha’azinu (942): Moses said, Look at the heavens that I created to serve you — have they ever changed their ways? etc. And likewise regarding the sea, as it is said Do you not fear Me, says the Lord, who has placed sand as a boundary for the sea (Jeremiah 5:22), etc. This is the reason for the techelet as a reminder of all of God’s commandments, because by looking at the techelet which resembles the sea, one will be reminded of the sea’s behavior — that it does not breach its boundaries and stands by God’s decree. So too should a person behave. And by looking at the sea which resembles the firmament, one will also be reminded of the firmament’s behavior, which does not change its measure. One should observe this and do likewise, all the more so. And by looking at the firmament which resembles the Throne of Glory, one will see with his own eyes the source from which he was hewn, and he will yearn to return and cleave to that place, because the soul yearns for the place where its tent was initially situated. See further in the portion of Shelach Lecha (15:38), for that is its place. And here, the main reason for the techelet is to learn from the sea alone, as stated. We can also say that there is benefit in looking at the heavens and the Throne of Glory, because this will cause one to reduce his speech, as it is written For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore, let your words be few (Ecclesiastes 5:1).