Ecclesiastes 1

Ecclesiastes 1:1

I. PROLOGUE: ALL IS VANITY UNDER THE SUN (1:1-11)1:1 The author introduces himself as the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. That word Preacher is interesting. The Hebrew equivalent is Koheleth, and it means “caller” or “congregator.” The Greek is ekklsiasts, meaning, “one who convenes an assembly.” From there it has been variously interpreted as meaning “convener, assembler, speaker, debater, spokesman, and preacher.” The Preacher was the son of David. While son here could admittedly mean a grandson or an even later descendant, the first sense probably makes the best sense. Solomon was the only descendant of David who was king over Israel in Jerusalem (v. 12). All the rest were kings over Judah. Those of other dynasties who were kings over Israel used Shechem (1Ki_12:25) or Samaria (1Ki_16:24), and not Jerusalem as their capital. 1:2 Solomon comes to the point right away; we don’t have to wait till the last chapter. The result of all of Solomon’s investigation and research under the sun is that all is vanity. Life is transitory, fleeting, useless, empty, and futile. It has no meaning. Nothing on this earth provides a valid goal of existence. Is that true? Yes, it is absolutely true! If this life is all, if death draws a final curtain on human existence, then life is nothing but a vaporunsubstantial and evanescent. The Apostle Paul reminds us that the whole creation was subjected to vanity or futility as a result of the entrance of sin (Rom_8:20). And it is not without significance that the first parents named their second son Abel, which means “vanity” or “vapor.” Solomon is right. All is vanity under the sun. 1:3 Frail man’s life is filled with labor and activity, but where does it get him when all is said and done? He is on a treadmill, a tiresome round of motion without progress. You ask him why he works, and he replies, “To get money, of course.” But why does he want money? To buy food. And why does he want food? To maintain his strength. Yes, but why does he want strength? He wants strength so he can work. And so there he is, right back where he began. He works to get money to buy food to get strength to work to get money to buy food to get strength, and so on, ad infinitum. As Henry Thoreau observed, he lives a life of quiet desperation. Seeing a woman crying at a bus stop, a Christian asked her if he could be of any help. “Oh,” she replied, “I’m just weary and bored. My husband is a hard worker, but he doesn’t earn as much as I want. So I went to work. I get up early every morning, fix breakfast for our four children, pack lunches, and take a bus to my job. Then I return home for more drudgery, a few hours of sleep, and another day just like the one before. I guess I’m just sick of this endless routine.” It was H. L. Mencken who said: The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in any sense. 1:4 The transience of man stands in stark contrast to the seeming permanence of his natural environment. Generation succeeds generation with irresistible momentum. This is life under the sun. Each one dreams that he will be enduring, How soon that one becomes the missing face! Will H. Houghton Apart from revelation, we might think that the present earth will last forever. That is what Solomon concludes. But Peter tells us that the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up in the coming Day of the Lord (2Pe_3:10). 1:5 Nature moves in a continuous, inexorable cycle. For instance, the sun 85 rises in the east, swings through the heavens to set in the west, then hastens around the other side of the world to rise in the east again. This seemingly endless pattern, age after age, makes man realize that he is nothing but a passing shadow. If any are tempted to accuse Solomon of a scientific blunder for describing the sun as moving when actually it is the earth that moves in relation to the sun, they should hold their fire. He was merely using the language of human appearance. The sun appears to rise and set. Even scientists use this language all the time, and it is so readily understood that it should not require explanation. 1:6 Solomon continues the thought into verse 6. The wind patterns change with the same regularity as the seasons of the year. In the winter, the north winds sweep down over Israel to the Negev, the desert in the south. Then when summer comes, the south winds carry warmth on their northward flights. With almost dreary sameness, they follow this circuit, and then, with callous disregard for the world of men, pass off the scene. 1:7 Not only the earth, the sun, and the wind, but the water follows its same monotonous routine throughout the centuries. All the rivers run into the sea but never to the point where the ocean overflows, because the sun evaporates enormous quantities of water. Then as air cools, the vapor condenses and forms clouds. The clouds in turn scud across the skies and drop the water over the land areas in the form of rain, snow, or hail. And as the rivers are fed with the surplus, they bear the water back to the ocean. The ceaseless activity of nature reminds man of his own unending labor. Perhaps Kristofferson had this verse in mind when he wrote, “I’m just a river that rolled forever and never got to the sea.” 1:8 Thus the life that is confined to this earth is full of weariness. Human language is inadequate to describe the monotony, boredom, and futility of it all. Man is never satisfied. No matter how much he sees, he still wants more. And his ears never reach the stage where they don’t want to hear something new. He travels incessantly and frenetically for new sensations, new sights, new sounds. He is after what an American sociologist calls the fundamental wish for new experience. But he returns dissatisfied and jaded. Man is so constituted that all the world cannot bring lasting happiness to his heart. This does not mean that his case is hopeless. All he needs to do is get above the sun to the One who “satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness” (Psa_107:9). Worldly joy is fleetingvanity itself; Vain the dazzling brightness, vain the stores of wealth; Vain the pomp and glory; only Thou canst give Peace and satisfaction while on earth we live. There is none, Lord Jesus, there is none like Thee For the soul that thirsteth, there is none like Thee. Author unknown1:9 An additional feature of Solomon’s disillusionment was the discovery that there is nothing new under the sun. History is constantly repeating itself. He longed for new thrills, but before long, he found everything was, in its own way, “a bad trip.” 1:10 Is it true that there is nothing really new? Yes, in a sense. Even the most modern discoveries are developments of principles that were locked into creation at the beginning. Many of man’s most boasted achievements have their counterparts in nature. Birds flew long before man did, for instance. Even space travel is not new. Enoch and Elijah were transported through space without even having to carry their own oxygen supplies with them! So those who spend their lives searching for novelties are bound to be disappointed. It has already happened in ancient times, long before we were born. 1:11 Another bitter pill that man has to swallow is the speed with which he forgets and is forgotten. Lasting fame is a mirage. Many of us would have great difficulty in naming our great-grandparents. And fewer, perhaps, could name the last four vice-presidents of the United States. In our self-importance, we think that the world can’t get on without us; yet we die and are quickly forgotten, and life on the planet goes on as usual.

Ecclesiastes 1:12

II. ALL IS VANITY (1:126:12) A. The Vanity of Intellectual Pursuits (1:12-18)1:12 So much for Solomon’s conclusions. Now he is going to retrace for us the pilgrimage he made in search of the summum bonumthe greatest good in life. He reminds us that he was king over Israel in Jerusalem, with all that implies of wealth, status, and ability. When Solomon says I . . . was king, he does not mean that his reign had ended. He was king and still is king (v. 1). 1:13 Here Solomon begins his search for happiness under the sun. First, he decides to travel the intellectual route. He thinks he might be happy if he could just acquire enough knowledge. So he applies himself to get the most comprehensive education possible. He devotes himself to research and exploration, synthesis and analysis, induction and deduction. But he soon becomes disenchanted with learning as an end in itself. In fact, he says that it is an unhappy business with which God allows men to occupy themselvesthis deep inner drive to find out the meaning of life. Malcolm Muggeridge, a contemporary sage, reached a similar conclusion: Education, the great mumbo-jumbo and fraud of the ages, purports to equip us to live, and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything from juvenile delinquency to premature senility. For the most part, it only serves to enlarge stupidity, inflate conceit, enhance credulity and put those subjected to it at the mercy of brainwashers with printing presses, radio and television at their disposal. Recently someone painted this telling graffiti in bold, black letters on the wall of a university library: APATHY RULES. Someone had found what Solomon had learned centuries earlierthat education is not the sure road to fulfillment, but that, taken by itself, it can be a bore. This does not mean that intellectual pursuit cannot play an important role in life. There is a place for it, but that place is at the feet of Christ. It should not be an end in itself but a means of glorifying Him. The reference to God in this verse must not be equated with deep personal faith. The name of God is what W. J. Erdman calls His natural nameElohim. As mentioned in the introduction, this name presents Him as the Almighty One who created the universe. But nowhere in this book does Solomon acknowledge Him as the covenant-keeping Jehovah who shows redeeming grace to those who put their trust in Him. 1:14 There can be no doubt that Solomon got the best education that was available in Israel at that time. This is apparent from his unblushing claim to have seen everything that is done under the sun. What this means is that he became highly knowledgeable in the sciences, philosophy, history, the fine arts, the social sciences, literature, religion, psychology, ethics, languages, and other fields of human learning. But an alphabet of degrees after his name and a room papered with diplomas didn’t give him what he was seeking. On the contrary, he concluded that it was all a grasping for something as elusive as the wind. 1:15 He was frustrated to discover that book learning doesn’t solve all the puzzles of life. There are crooked things that cannot be made straight and missing things that cannot be numbered. Robert Laurin observed: Life is full of paradoxes and anomalies that cannot be solved; and contrariwise, it is empty of so much that could give it meaning and value. Man can fly to the moon, but the flight of a bee defies all known laws of aerodynamics. Scientists have delved into the secrets of the atom, but they cannot harness lightning or store its power. Diseases such as polio and tuberculosis have been controlled, but the common cold is still unconquered. 1:16 After he had won all his academic laurels, Solomon took personal inventory. He could boast that he had more wisdom than all those who had ruled before him in Jerusalem (1Ki_4:29-31; 2Ch_1:12). His mind had absorbed an enormous fund of knowledge. And he had wisdom as well; he knew how to apply his knowledge to the practical, everyday affairs of life, to make sound judgments, and to deal judiciously with others. 1:17 Solomon reminisced about how he had disciplined himself to acquire wisdom on the one hand, and to learn about madness and folly on the other. In other words, he explored both extremes of human behavior, just in case the true meaning of life was found in either or in both. He ran the gamut of life’s experiences, but his disconsolate conclusion was that it was all a grasping for the wind. Centuries later, a young fellow named Henry Martyn sought and won top honors at Cambridge University. Yet in the hour of his academic triumph, he said, “I was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow.” It was a blessed disillusionment for, as J. W. Jowett noted, “His eyes were now lifted far above scholastic prizes to the all-satisfying prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 1:18 If intellectualism is the key to meaning in life, then our college campuses would be Camelots of peace and contentment. But they are not. Rather they are cauldrons of ferment and unrest. The timeworn caricature of a college student, swathing his head in a turkish towel and washing down aspirin with huge mugs of coffee, fits in well with Solomon’s conclusion in verse 18: For in much wisdom is much grief, And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.In other words, “The wiser you are the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.” According to this, there is some truth to the adages, “Ignorance is bliss,” and “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”