Ecclesiastes 2

Ecclesiastes 2:12-16

Schoem having pronounced all vanity, and particularly knowledge and learning, which he must so far from giving himself joy of, that he found the increase of it did not increase his sorrow; in this chapter, he goes on to show what reason he had to be fed of this world, and with what little reason the myth of men are found of it. 1. He shows, that there is no true happiness and satisfaction to be had in mirth and pleasure, and the delight of sense, ver. 1—11. 2.

His re-confidence the pretensions of wisdom, and allieus: it to be an excellent useful thing; yet for it illeged with such divinations of its words, that it proves insufficient to make a man happy, ver. 12—16. 3. He inspires him for the business and wealth of this world will go towards making men happy, and concludes, from his own experience, that, to those who set their hearts upon it, it is vanity and vexation of spirit, ver. 17—23. and if there be any good in it, it is only to those that he may to it, ver. 24—26.

Before Chud S27.

1. Said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold, this also is vanity. 2. I said ‘of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doth it? 3. ‘I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wise (I yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what man that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven, if all the days of their life. 4. ‘I made me great works, I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards. 5. I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. 6. I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. 7. I got me servants and maidens, and had I servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were in Jerusalem before me. 8. ‘I gathered me also River and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings, and of the provinces: I got me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. 9. So ‘I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. 10. And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy: for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and ’this was my portion of all my labour. 11. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrongful, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold, ‘all our vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

2. 1—11. Since the pursuit of wisdom disappointed all his hopes, behold the fathom changed, and that happiness sought in the indulgences of sense, and the flowery paths of pleasure, which the regions of science could now give.

3. In mirth the jocund hours are passed; no joy withheld, no excitement forgotten; the poignancy of wit, and sights of humour, keep the gay circle in a hurlt of laughter: in dance and songs; and all the delights of the sons of men, the live-long day is spent; whilst mother’s enchanting burial, with vast variety of instruments, pours forth a flood of harmony, and pleasure reigns throughout the palaces of Sion: but is this man’s proper good? no, in no wise; the event declared it: behold this eye is vanity, poor and unsatisfactory. I said of laughter, It is mad; it diserts the soul from the ways of science godliness; and what can be greater madness, than for momentary mirth to plunge our souls into eternal mourning: What doth it? is can scarce afford a transient respite from present griefs; for even in laughter, often the heart is sad; and the end of that mirth, which tends to blunt the edge of Divine convictions, or to dissipate the impressions which God’s word hath made on our minds, must be havesuch: the time will come when none of these can afford the least satisfaction; the witty jell can no longer brighten the countenance, ghastly in the convulsions of death; the songs of vanity are pangs to the ear, that, lying on the bed of sickness, can scarce bear the lightest foot that treads the floor; and the gay circle can afford no delight to the eye ready to close in death.

4. From wine he tried to find the joy which pleasure had denied: the board is filled; the sparkling glass goes round; and though with reluctance he descended from the intellectual pleasures of a man, to the enjoyments of a beall, he resolved to try the experiment, and to lay hold of folly; yet even when he made the attempt, he could not soberly but condemn the indulgence, and corpseled to ablation from greater excelsa, and keep folly, as it were, at bay, acquainting himself yet with wisdom; maintaining such a guard over his appetite, that he might not be enslaved by drunkenness or excess, and only take enough to satisfy him what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the sun, all the days of their life; and as he owns the attempt folly, so he found it; for to seek from the intoxication of our bodies, any real good to our souls, must be indeed the foolishness of folly.

5. The board is cleared, the songs of mirth are silent, another scheme of happiness pursued, and promising greater satisfaction: the noble plans are drawn, the materials ready, the gorgeous palace risks majestical to steer; the vineyards planned, the gardens laid out with table, the learns extended, the woods

disposed Before Chall of the S. 10.

Adopted with nicest judgment; the taxes, for fruit or straw, requisiter of their kind; large pieces of water collected for use and beauty, to please the eye and fortified the soil; a vast retinue ever waived his commands in all the various offices of his household; and far from being impoverished with all his works, his income exceeded his expense: his treasuries were filled; his cabinet fixed with jewels, and whatever was requisite and curious; and from the distant provinces the richest presents courted his acceptance, sent from tributary kings, or governors, or from such as sought solution of their difficulties, or counted in their emergence from his transcendent wisdom. Thus in riches, magnificence, and splendor, he quite obfuscated all his pretensions; and still his wisdom remained; amidst all his other pursuits he kept possession of himself, and was not so reduced by any of them, as not to be able to form a right judgment of them; though he gave the most unbounded scope to the gratification of his defense, kept back his heart from no joy, called his pleasures with the highest relish of delight, and enjoyed all the fruits of the labours without a disappointment, or check to allay the satisfaction: yet on the reverse, revolving all his works, the thought, the care, the expense they call him, and how little real happiness they afforded him, he solemnly declares all to be vanity and vexation of spirit; and neither the employment, nor enjoyment under the sun, afforded the least real profit. They must look higher than the sun who would secure substantial good.

11. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done. 12. Then I saw that wisdom excelled folly, as far as light excelled darkness. 13. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also, that one event happened to them all. 14. Then said I in my heart, As it happened to the fool, so it happened to me; so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to the man, so it happened to

Behold this wisest of men.

1. Re-affirming his purseful wisdom, though he had found it uninhabiting; he might perhaps have overlooked something, or been hastily in his conclusion; at least he was reduced to this, because on reflection he was convinced that all his other schemes of happiness were comparatively madness and folly, and the pleasures of science as much superior to the joys of death, as light excelled darkness: and in all his decisions we may safely acquiesce; nor vainly affix by our own experience, to prove their things madness and folly, which one, so much abler both to make the experiment, and so much wider to determine upon the case, hath already resolved.

2. The repeated trial confirmed his former conclusion; for though wise men seem to have some advantages over fools, yet all their forefight often stands them in as little thread as the fool’s blunders: One event happened to them all, their bodies liable to the same diseases, the same disasters attend them both, the same grave awaits them, and when dead, they will be alike forgotten; even he himself, great as wise, was not exempt from this common fate, As it happened to the fool, so it happened to me, even to me, as the original emphatically expresses it; and therefore he concludes, Why was I then more wise? Why take to much pains? What profit is there of my labour, when I stand on the same level, and am exposed to the same disasters to others? Then I said, this also is vanity, and the purseful or worldly wisdom unprofitable and useless. Let all the proud of this world, on learning, abilities, wealth, or fashion, hear and weigh this mortifying truth, The fool and the beggar in the grave must be their equals; there no distinction is known, but what Divine grace makes alone.

3. Therefore I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 18. ¶ Yes, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 19. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. 20. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun. 21. For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity: yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This

also is vanity, and a great evil. 22. For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart wherein he hath laboured under the sun. 23. For all his days are fortress, and his travel grief; yea, his heart taketh not reft in the night. This is also vanity. 24. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. 25. For who can eat, who else can haften hereunto more than I? 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight, wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the dinner he giveth travel, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 2:17-26

There seems to be something of impatience as, well as dissatisfaction, expressed in these words.

1. He appears heartily tired of all the schemes he had pursued, and the works in which he had been engaged; nor only he hated his labour, was disappointed in, and weary of the varieties he had bought, but hated life itself, because of the troubles and vexations with which it is embittered, and wanted a reft he could not find on earth. In despair he quitted all his toils, closed his books, dismissed his builders, forbade his pleasures; and, now afflicted no happiness could he found beneath the sun, began, with holy indifference about creature expiates, to seek the substantial bliss, which is to be found in a better world. Nite, It is happy for us, when the conviction of the insufficiency of the creature, leads us up to the all sufficiency of the Creator. God in Christ is the only portion which can fill the reftless desires of an immoral soul.

2. He gives substantial reasons why he was tired of life and its toils. The work under the sun was grievous, v. 17. not only the employments of the body, but the more fatiguing application of the mind, the labour of wisdom, knowledge, and equity, v. 21. how to trestle the business of our stature with greatest advantage and integrity; the care and concern about which occasions many fortress, through the disappointments and perplexities in which we are involved; and what in the day death thus anastomally on our minds, at night driven sleep from our eyelids: such a vanity and vexation of spirit do they find this world to be who are most occupied in it. And for whom do they toil? not for themselves, but for those who come after them, v. 18. At death all must be left behind, to one who enters into possession of what call him no pains, v. 21. and light come, light go, or he takes it as his portion, v. 21. and thinks he has thereby obtained a prescription to be idle and useless in his generation; for who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool who inherits the fruit of their labour? The estate raised by equity and prudence, is perhaps wafted in extravagance; and what the wise laboured all their days to reft, the fool that follows wantonly pulls down, v. 19. as was the case with Solomon himself; and perhaps he in the spirit of prophecy foresaw how unworthy Rehobson would prove. What therefore hath a man of all his labour? nothing that yields him substantial joy, or abiding his election.

3. He declares what is the proper use of creature comforts: To enjoy them in moderation, possess them with thankfulness, and improve them to God’s glory; and this must be the gift of God, who alone can give us a heart to spend freely, what we have gained willing; with a sense of his love enable us to relish the good he believes, and make even our worldly enjoyments the means of drawing us nearer to his blessed self: to this Solomon hastened, v. 25. and the wise will seek to follow his example.

4. He concludes with observing the misery of the wicked, who have no heart to use aright the bleedings God bellows upon them: They are cursed with perpetual anxiety and toil, both to amass and to preserve their gains; they have no comfort in them, but pine in the midst of plenty; and uncharitable and cruel, have no heart to open their stores for the relief of the needy; till God at last cuts them off, or takes them them what they so abuse, to give it to others who will employ their abundance to a better purpose: and this also is vanity and vexation of spirit to the wicked, who cannot bear the thoughts of paring with his possessions; and grieves at the prospect of seeing his beloved riches liberally spent, or in the hands of those who will devere them to the glory of God, and the good of their fellow-creatures.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-20

18. Behold, that which I have seen: it is good and comely for me to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun, + all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion. 19. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God. 20. For he shall not much remember the days of his life: because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.

Solomon, in the view of the vanity of riches, makes the same conclusion he had done before, chap. iii. 12. that the best use of them is the moderate enjoyment of them, without starving ourselves with overousness, or killing ourselves with labour and care. All our days it is good to rejoice in the fruit of our souls; it is our portion in this life, and cannot be enjoyed hereafter. The possessions themselves are God’s gifts, and therefore in gratitude to the giver, to be used cheerfully; and the heart to do so, he must give also, or else he cannot have any comfort in them; and this will tend to make the days of our pilgrimage less tedious: whilst, in answer to our prayers, God is pleaded to kill us with food and gladness, make us forget our travel and disappointments; and with thankfulness to him, and cheerfulness of heart, to hold on our way, advancing to our journey’s end in peace and comfort, till he at last admits us into his eternal rest.