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Ecclesiastes Ch. 1
“Life Only Under The Son”
Intro
We come now to a new book for our study, Ecclesiastes which is Greek for the Hebrew title. The word in the title is found only seven times and only in this book where it is always rendered “Preacher”, which means “a gathering for an assembly”, or a “collector”. to gather us to his words which he tells us that he; “considered and sought out and set in order many proverbs to find acceptable words so that what was written was upright; words of truth like goads and well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd” (12:9-11). My son beware of anything beyond these.
I believe there are several clues to be found in his use of repeated words and phrases:
Vanity: This word the author uses 38 times in this book. Now when we use this word in English we use it to describe a person who spends too much time in front of a mirror. But that is not what the word means in Hebrew. The name Able comes from this word which means emptiness and is rightly defined by the author in 1:14 as “grasping for the wind” (nine times in this book).
Under the sun: This phrase is used 29 times and serves to give us the perspective in which the author writes these 12 chapters. His concern is from the human point of view what he can gather from the natural mind from the visible world. He is not concerned with heaven’s perspective. It is “under the sun, and “under heaven” (three times) that he applies his wisdom to understand the complexity of mankind’s existence.
Profit: Used ten times in this book as the author uses it to ask what benefit, advantage or gain does mankind get out of his life on this earth.
Labor: Used 23 times and describes “working to the point of exhaustion while experiencing no fulfillment in the labor’’. There is an old blues song that sums up the thought here, “Work your fingers to the bone and what do you get? Bony fingers!”
Wisdom: Twenty eight times he uses this word with more than 40 references to it. In verse 13 he declares, “I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven”. It is clear that the author set out to understand one of the greatest questions man has ever asked, “What is life really all about?”
Evil and Man: Eighteen times he uses “evil” and forty eight times he uses the word “man” as he describes the injustices of living on this planet. He ponders mankind’s situations and continually comes back to the fact that something is wrong with the world.
God: Forty times in 36 verses he uses this word but what is interesting to me is that he always uses the same Hebrew word for God, “Elohim”. Not one time in those 40 uses does he ever use the covenant name “Jehovah” which describes God as eternal and self-existent and yet gracious and willing to relate to sinful man. Instead Elohim is the word that describes God only in terms of being “mighty, powerful, the glorious creator who alone is sovereign”. It is clear from this that the author believes in God but does not see how this all-powerful God has any real concern with the affairs of man. Like the deists of Benjamin Franklin’s time who saw God only as a watchmaker who wound up the world only to forget about it!
Recently I was watching a T.V. interview with Tommy Lee, former drummer of the band Motley Crew and husband of Pamela Lee Anderson. As he was asked why he had a complete Starbucks in his home his answer was, “Because I can!’ Moments later as I switched channels I caught the price tag on former Beatles star Paul Mc Cartney’s wedding to a super model 30 years his junior which was estimated at one million dollars. It was then that during a commercial spot advertising a Dateline special on starving people that the absurdity of the above two stars hit home. What has happened to the world since God proudly looked over “everything that He had made, and declared indeed it was very good?”
Clearly something has changed from “very good to emptiness”! That is the author’s pursuit and he journals for us his quest to find the answer to the meaning of life. Reading through these 12 chapters is to realize that he did not write this as fiction, nor did he write it as time went on. Instead it was his life experience that he wrote about at the end of his life. The benefit of the study of this book is that we don’t have to repeat the same mistakes as the author has and yet we too can come to the same conclusion (12:13), “Fear God and obey his commands, for this is the duty of every person.”
Vs. 1-3 Wind Collector
Vs. 1 Ok now it’s time to unveil the author; again seven times he refers to himself in this book only by the same title of the book “preacher” or as I prefer “collector.” As the word literally means a “collector or assembler of sayings”. That does not help much does it?
Here’s what he does reveal about himself in this book:
Ch.1 Vs.1-12 Son of David and King of Jerusalem 1:16, Wisest of all who were before him as King (2:1-3) Indulged in every imaginable pleasure (2:4-6), Accomplished great architectural works (buildings, gardens etc.), unparalleled wealth, (12:9 Pondered and wrote many proverbs). By now you have most likely solved the mystery and concluded that it was David’s son by way Bathsheba, Solomon. You are no doubt familiar with his prayer at the start of his reign where in humility he prayed in 1 Kings 3:9, “Give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours? ”
To which God replied in verses 11-13 “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words. See, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.”
Vs. 2 Now remember what “vanity of vanities” means is emptiness or nothingness. Solomon’s summary of all that earthly life has to offer mankind as to any lasting enjoyment is zero, a big fat goose egg! This from a man who had the resources and opportunity to pursue all that his heart desired. All of this earthly life Solomon says will not satisfy you ultimately. You can gather every little gadget, pursue every single pleasure, enjoy every earthly relationship, go after every creative endeavor, follow every philosophy of life to satisfy you, says Solomon, and you will find nothing that will do so! Now it’s one thing to make a statement like this of Solomon’s, it’s quite another to discover the truth of this over a lifetime of having both the resources and opportunities to pursue their quest. Solomon comes back at the end of his life with this summation that all of life’s pursuits are, as he will say in 1:14, “grasping for the wind’.
What a vivid description that is, “Oh got some! Then you open up your hand to observe what you’ve got and discover that you have nothing.” Have you ever found yourself saying words like, “If I could just have more money, this promotion, better health, this relationship, my team win the NBA championship, then I would be happy?” Then when you get one of those things you soon see It was not what you thought it was going to be. It only leaves you, like the influence of a narcotic, wanting something more to maintain the high. Now as I studied this week about Solomon I was reminded of how I used to quote Paul’s words in Philip. 4:12 (NLT),”I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”
I used to say “I know how to live on almost nothing”, but I sure would not mind learning how to live “with everything”. You see no matter how much of something we seem to get we are never satisfied with just that. In other words, “Everything goes to nothing once nothing has gone to everything! With all of Solomon’s wealth, possessions, wisdom and accomplishments that he had over his life he says that they amounted to nothing! Now in light of this fact I have come up with two searching questions as we start Ecclesiastes:
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What caused Solomon to go down this road:
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What did he find that brought life back into focus?
The first question requires us to look outside the book of Ecclesiastes to what happened over his life. Now go back to 1Kings 3 and look at what God said right after verse 13 where he said, “And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.” In the 14th verse God continues and says, “if you follow me and obey my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.” You see Solomon, it appears, was a man with a divided love, or as James puts it in Jas. 1:8 a “double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
In the third chapter in verse three of 1 Kings we are told, “Solomon loved the LORD and followed all the instructions of his father, David, except that Solomon also, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local altars.” Oh dear Christians do you see the danger of loving the Lord and yet still worshiping at the altars of the world? Jeremiah the prophet put it this way when the Lord spoke to him concerning the divided love of the nation Israel, “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns; broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
This divided love caused immediate compromise in Solomon’s life. You see we are told in Deut 17:16-20 that when Israel chose a King it ought to be one that, “shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left…”
Solomon was now the third King of Israel and look at what 1Kings says about him, in 3:1 he “made an alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and married one of his daughters. He brought her to live in the City of David.” It is the old three-fold attack of the enemy when the believer fails to observe the word of God in their lives, POWER, PLEASURE and PROSPERITY. Although Solomon’s wisdom, we are told in 1 Kings 4:29, “excelled the wisdom of all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt”, it was not always applied to himself.
So by the time we come to the 11th chapter of the book of Kings this continual divided love has taken its toll. There we are told that, “King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites”. The number of women he loved blows us away even in light of the late Wilt Chamberlain’s (former basketball star) sinful standard. Verse three says that “he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.” The outcome of this divided love was “that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David.”
It became so corrupt that he “went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites… built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab.” These were the gods of the people who had dwelt in the land prior to God bringing His people into the land and the worship of these gods was practiced by sacrificing humans and other abominations. How tragic it was that Solomon “clung to these in love” and not to the One who so loved Him!
What did he find that brought life back into focus?
Vs. 3 This verse answers the second of my two questions. You see it is not what he found it is rather what he didn’t find in the world. You see it is only when a man considers that there is someone ‘over the sun’ that the things “under the sun” are seen in their true light! At the end of this divided heart lifestyle he asked, “What profit has a man from all his labor..?” What’s left over for a man that finds no fulfillment in his life? As Paul wrote to Timothy that God, “gives us richly all things to enjoy”, just before saying this he said, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God.”
You see, Solomon tried everything in life apart from an obedient relationship with God and found that there was no lasting satisfaction in processions, pleasures, power or prestige. No matter what he accomplished or acquired, life was empty! Solomon, like so many of us, saw life only under the sun instead of looking, as Paul said to the Colossians in chapter 3:1-3 to, “Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Jesus asked in Matt. 16:26, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”
Solomon made the mistake as many of us do by placing the world above the Word and the outcome was a disaster in his life. If life is only measured between the limits of the earth and under the sun then what is our benefit? We all spend our lives working, laboring if you will, and in the end what will we have to show for it? Only one life to live, only life lived for God will matter! Oh dear Christian won’t you say like me the words of Solomon after completing his quest for the meaning of life, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing whether good or evil.”
Eccl. 1:4-11
“Life Only Under The Son”
“The search for emptiness (part 2)”
Vs. 4-7 Unnatural tendency
Vs. 8-11 Can’t get no satisfaction
Intro
We started this book examining Solomon’s quest for the question that at one time or another we all ask ourselves, “What is life really all about? ”Now most of us will ask that question without ever really having the resources and opportunity to pursue all that our heart desires. In other words we will always be thinking of the “greener grass on the other side of the hill! Our pursuit of this question will always be seeking the answer from the point of view of not having instead of having! That was not Solomon’s perspective.
He had it all: wealth, wisdom, wild popularity; he was a man who could clearly say as he does in verse 9,“there is nothing new under the sun.” But he was also a man who knew God but never really surrendered his heart to him, You will recall those words of the author of 1 Kings (Jeremiah) in chapter three where concerning Solomon he says, “Solomon loved the LORD and followed all the instructions of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local altars.” You see, like many of us Christians Solomon “loved the Lord but he was still worshiping at the altars of the world!”
While on vacation I started reading a very convicting book by Mark Buchanan called “Your God is Too Safe”. In it Mark brings to light that most of us Christians live in what he calls “Borderland”, that place like Solomon between “loving the Lord and still offering sacrifices at the local altars. What this produces in us is a very unsatisfied Christian life. A life described best by the words of Mark Twain’s fictional character Huckleberry Finn, for his friend Tom Sawyer concerning living with the Widow Douglas and going to Church, “I’ve tried it and it don’t work, Tom. It ain’t for me!” Folks, living the Christian life like Solomon will cause us to say, “Everything is meaningless…utterly meaningless!”
Solomon declares three areas that he has seen are utterly meaningless:
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Vs. 4-7 Nothing has changed
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Vs. 8-11 Nothing is new
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Vs. 12-18 Nothing can be understood
Vs. 4-7 Unnatural tendency: In this first section Solomon sees that “nothing has changed” as he observes the transient nature of mankind with that of the permanence of nature.
He is going to give three examples of cycles in nature as seen in:
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Vs. 5 Sun
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Vs. 6 Wind
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Vs. 7 Sea
Vs. 4 Now as we consider what Solomon is saying here it will blow your mind. We know according to Genesis 1:26 that God’s design for man in His creation was to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Yet it appears from Solomon’s perspective that nature with its cycles has eternal dominion over man. We jokingly speak of the unpredictability of weather by saying “Mother nature”. A mother gives birth to her child, she has dominion over her child’s plans and wishes. Man ought to be the one that is permanent and nature transient, mankind ought to be the one that is endless and nature ought to be that which is passing from generation to generation, But observes Solomon, it is not that way “One generation passes away, and another generation comes.”
Now this brings me to a side point as it deals with mankind’s transient existence. We all at some time or other want to leave our “mark” upon the world. So we dream of being famous or wealthy so that in the coming generations someone will pick up a book and read our names in it as if that is really going to matter to us at the time. How “empty” is that in the scheme of things? Consider the home run record of Roger Marris once thought invincible topped by Saint Louis slugger Mark Mc Guire then again just last year again by Barry Bonds.
At first I could not even remember Mark’s name! Human history marches on with wave after wave of mankind’s rise and fall. Those that were who’s who in their day will soon just be the Who of tomorrow. You see, even in mankind’s so-called great achievements, the persons who accomplished them are soon forgotten.
A man was walking through a graveyard one day reading the interesting words people choose for their tombstones when he paused to read this one. “Remember, friend, as you pass by as you are now, so once was I, as I am now, you too shall be, prepare for death and follow me.” Underneath these words of warning was a handwritten reply, “To follow you I’m not content until I know which way you went!”
Now we know according to 2 Peter 3 the earth will not abide forever:
Yet from Solomon’s view “under the sun,” the house remained but the tenants continued to change! Solomon could well have written the Pink Floyd lyric “All we are is just another brick in the wall.
Vs. 5 Solomon observes the cycle of the sun rising in the east and literally “panting” its way across the sky to the western horizon. Now of course Solomon is speaking of the earth’s rotation upon its axis, which causes this effect. Back Genesis 1:4 we are told that God “divided the light from the darkness, calling the light Day, and the darkness He called Night” and it has been doing the same ever since. Ps, 19:4-6 declares that God, “has set a tabernacle for the sun. Its rising is from one end of heaven, And its circuit to the other end; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.” Then in Ps. 104:19 we are told, “The sun knows its going down.”
The sage “Pink Floyd” in their song called “Time” said it this way, “You run and run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking and racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death.”
Vs. 6 From the cycle of the sun Solomon now moves to the cycle of the winds. Nowadays these are known by the scientific term “atmospheric circulation,” or by the familiar terms of jet streams or air streams, which we can observe by looking at satellite photos. Solomon even tells us in which direction the circuit runs, South to North whirling around, something that was not discovered until 100’s of years later. The cause of such movement is a change in barometric pressure caused by the fluctuation of heat which causes highs and lows where cold air comes in to fill the void where hot air has risen.
Here is Solomon’s point, the wind is constantly moving yet it is still consistent the same day after day year after year. We hear it, see its effects and over the centuries it has continued to do the same. Man has come and gone because the constantly changing wind is changeless, Ps. 135:7 declares that God, “releases the wind from his storehouses.”
Vs. 7 The final cycle that Solomon speaks of is called the “hydrologic cycle” or water cycle which through evaporation maintains the ratio 97% of water that is in the oceans to .0001 percent which remains in our atmosphere enough for about 10 days of rain. The cooperation of the atmospheric circulation with that of the hydrologic cycle makes it possible for the water to continue to circulate but the level of the seas not to change. The sun upon the ocean causes the water to vaporize or turn into a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen which goes up to form clouds that are carried by the winds over land masses. When they begin to cool water, hail or snow falls, which runs into streams, rivers and lakes, they in turn run back into the seas, then the process starts all over.
Solomon’s point is that in nature we see motion without promotion and thus nature has to it a monotony that to his understanding is eternal. Like some great unthinking machine that just continues on and on. Nature does not create, it does not think, feel or communicate. It’s boring. Yet, man who according to Genesis was created in the image of God who can think, feel and communicate does not go on in this life. Something has gone wrong is his point! What has happened that has brought this death upon us? Well we are going to find out that it was SIN!
Vs. 8-11 Can’t get no satisfaction
Vs. 8 Now if nothing ever changes then says Solomon there is nothing really new and that makes life a burden. It seems that Solomon discovered why mankind continually searches for something new, the weariness of life. The trouble with this is that because man is constantly looking for something new it causes him more labor to obtain it, thus there is a never ending cycle to man’s labor. The eye says, “I wish I could see that!” then the moment it has seen what it desired it presses to see something more.
I came across this the other day:
“The average 70 year old man has spent 24 years sleeping, 14 years working, 8 years in amusements, 6 years at the dinner table, 5 years in transportation, 4 years in communication, 3 years in education, 2 years reading and 4 years in miscellaneous pursuits. Of those miscellaneous pursuits he spent 45 minutes in Church on Sunday and 5 minutes in prayer a day. Add those up and you get a totally unimpressive 5 months he gave to God in his 70 years.”
The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing! How many hours a week do we waste in front of the “one eyed bandit?’ Now you all know what is fueling the entertainment industry in our country, the hunger of mankind for something new, something they have not heard or seen before. Now have you ever noticed that as soon as one network comes up with something new all the others rush to do the same? We have been inundated with “reality based” shows over the last two years. This is why talk radio and gossip T.V. is so popular: the thirst that we have for something to get us beyond the mundane life of the routine. “Hey, pastor, why are we like this?
”Well I think old Solomon hits it on the head in chapter 3:15 when he says that God, “has put eternity in their hearts.” Mankind has a vacuum for things eternal and those are the things that Paul says can not be fulfilled with what the eye and ear can perceive.In 1 Cor. 2: 9 Paul says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” If you want to have your senses blown out love God!
Vs. 9 Even with all the new advancements science and technology have made, that which has been will be! Life is just a recalculation of applying God’s laws of nature to benefit mankind. Hey folks we now have DVD’s and palm pockets and I still can’t get my VCR to program to tape the right shows!
Vs. 10-11 The proof of the fact that there is nothing new is to be found in two places:
Vs. 10 History: Solomon says, “Just when you think you have discovered something new, someone comes along and says we have had that for years.” Just take a look at fashion, the clothes that were twenty years ago are now back in. The hair cuts popular in the twenties are again popular. The trouble is just when long hair is going to be popular again I won’t be able to grow it long.
Vs. 11 Faulty memories: Why do things appear new? Well we have just forgotten what was once. The only people who think they have something new are the ones whose memory or experience is so limited that what they are experiencing is for the first time or those who like seeing a movie years ago have forgotten that they have seen it.
Someone once said, “Methods have many principles, few methods may change but principles never do!” One ancient stoic philosopher put it this way, “They that come after us will see nothing new, and they who came before us have seen nothing more than we have seen!” Life apart from a relationship with Jesus is an empty pursuit because the more things change the more they stay the same.
“Life Only Under The Son”
“A scavenger hunt for emptiness”
Vs. 12-18 We’ve fallen and we can’t get up
Intro
Solomon looked out upon the created world in which we live and saw that something was wrong as it related to mankind. The sun, wind and seas operated as some giant machine left in the ON position and forgotten. As such he realized that they have no soul or spirit, they can not communicate, create nor have a conscience yet they are seemingly eternal. While mankind, clearly their superior in creation, is transient, “one generation passes away and another comes.”Since mankind could not out last creation perhaps Solomon thought we could outlive it. Yet again he saw that nothing truly satisfied the longing of the human heart.
Now remember that these are Solomon’s observations and though he possessed the means as well as the opportunity to pursue this investigation, still his perspective was “under the sun”, During Solomon’s reign Israel fought no wars and the prosperity and popularity of the nation was at its zenith. So in this book we are going to read about Solomon’s 40-year quest for the answer to this question. Jeremiah who wrote about Solomon in 1st Kings records his spiritual decline but has nothing to say about his quest nor what his final outcome was. Except for an ancient Jewish historian who recorded that, “When King Solomon was sitting upon the throne of his kingdom, his heart became greatly elated with riches, and he transgressed the commandment of the Word of God; and he gathered many houses, and chariots, and riders, and he amassed much gold and silver, and he married wives from foreign nations.
Whereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against him and he drove him from the throne of his kingdom, and took away the ring from his hand, in order that he should roam and wander about in the world, to reprove it; and he went about the provincial towns and cities in the land of Israel, weeping and lamenting, and saying, “I am Coheleth (the preacher), whose name was formerly called Solomon, who was King over Israel in Jerusalem.”We can’t be sure to the authenticity of that document but Ecclesiastes does agree with what happened to him. So for most of its 12 chapters we are just going to look at blackness or nothingness until the very end when we are going to see the great jewel, “that apart from an active relationship with God life has no meaning it just doesn’t make sense.”
Vs. 12-18 We’ve fallen and we can’t get up, So in the rest of chapter one, after Solomon has given us the summation of his quest, “Everything is meaningless…utterly meaningless? And before he gives us the details of it all, as he lists two things that made him uniquely qualified to undertake this:
Vs. 12-15 Position:
Vs. 12 King over Israel: Solomon had a unique perspective that no one else in the world had, he was the King of Israel. As I said during his 40 year reign he amassed the greatest wealth at a time when it did not need to be used to defend the nation. Furthermore, because of his reputation as the wisest man in the world, other nations were sending delegations to check him out. So he had a knowledge of other cultures and places that was unsurpassed. Solomon had a monopoly on life as he alone had the resources necessary to experiment with any and everything to see “what made life worth living”. Like the kid who is winning big at the Milton Bradley game “Monopoly,” Solomon could say, “Physical pleasures, (I’ll buy it!) great costly building projects, (I’ll buy it!)”, expensive possessions, (I’ll buy it!)
Vs, 13 Investigator: Not only could he buy it, he made sure that he researched it well enough.
He uses two different words to describe his research:
“Seek” which means to get to the root of the matter and “Search” which means to explore all sides! Notice that his investigation was exhaustive as he applied this wisdom to “all that is done under heaven.”
Vs. 13b So as the man who had the means both to purchase and investigate “what made life worth living”, Solomon’s summation is interesting. First based upon the words, “this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man,” the scope of his summation deals with the nature of man. You see the word “man” here is the word Adam. Solomon is saying that based upon his unique ability to pursue and investigate what makes life worth living, something is broken, something is missing! To make sure that you and I understand what he is saying he clarifies it by saying that all of mankind’s effort in trying to find out what makes life worth living is just grasping for the wind, (verse 14). Then in verse 15 he gives us a little proverb that tells you that concerning finding out what makes life worth living, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered,”So what is Solomon saying to us?
Well he is saying, “Mankind is broken and needs to be fixed.” On our own folks, as far as finding “what makes life worth living”, we are just hopelessly broke, “bankrupt” if you will. Not only are we broken beyond the ability to get what can’t be found, we are what Solomon is making this observation about. Saying nothing new “under the sun”, he has left out a relationship with God. You see folks, when we are put into the quest for “what makes life worth living”, that which is lost, even if from our perspective it is hopeless!
Vs. 16-18 Practice: Solomon did not just set about this quest for “what makes life worth living”, he pursued it every moment of every day. He attained “greatness” by its pursuit, gained more wisdom than all who were before him, in fact he did understand great wisdom and knowledge. In other words it was not because of a lack of effort, no he set his heart to know wisdom, madness and folly on this matter. Yet still it was grasping for the wind! His conclusion, even with all this practice and searching for the answer to “what makes life worth living” was twofold:
Vs. 17 UNEXPLAINABLE: “Grasping for the wind’. Some things, Solomon concludes, no matter how much you try to make sense out of them just can not be explained! Apart from God he could not find any way of explaining what made life worth living.
Vs. 18 UNENDING: “he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” The more he applied himself to understanding “what made life worth living”, the more the lack of answers “under the sun” bummed him out. He started to think it was better for him never to have started to seek out the answer to begin with! The more he knew the more he knew how much he didn’t know.
