The Book of Ecclesiastes - Part 2

Greetings, everybody! Happy Sabbath to all of you. I know it's been a difficult week for some, and certainly our prayers go out for those situations people are dealing with.

I really appreciated the message in the sermonette today about dealing with discouragement, and that has a lot of application to what I'm going to talk about here as we go along. And also the song we just sang about, you know, God teach me thy way and in hours of loneliness and despair and trying to get through this life with its difficulties. It is very difficult, and there's no arguing that. And for some, it's very, very difficult, more so than for others, and certainly whatever our circumstances are, they're not easy. And that's actually, again, a big part of what I'm going to talk about today, because what I'm going to talk about today is continuing our study of the book of Ecclesiastes. And we're going to find out that there are causes for despair, things that can cause people to get very discouraged, and we need to keep the right focus to be able to get through that. Well, I'd like you to turn to the book of Ecclesiastes here at the beginning of chapter one. We really spent a lot of time on basically the first verse last time, because it basically gives the statement of authorship and what the intention of the book is. We went through trying to parse what some people argue the book is about. Some people say it's a very discouraging message, pessimistic. Other people say it's very hedonistic, just have fun and do what you want. Some people say it was kind of a combination of these from different authors all melded together. But as we went through, it's very clearly the product of a single author. Actually, God is the author, but he wrote this through a man, King Solomon, and there's a lot for us here. So I'm going to get right into it. We looked at a little bit of what this is about last time, but after this statement of authorship in verse one, by the way, I don't know if you have the outline that I gave you for the book. Basically, I'm going to try to be moving through the first section today, which in Walter Keiser's outline, he titles, Enjoying Life as a Gift of God.

And that's from the first verse, 1-1 through 2-26 through the end of chapter two.

Basically, the first two chapters. And we have here in verses one through three the introduction, and that is the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What prophet has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? That is the introduction to the book. And this vanity of vanities here is a superlative expression. It seems to denote utter emptiness.

As we talked about this earlier, the Hebrew word for vanity here is hevel, H-E-B-E-L. And it's the same as the name of Abel that was born at the beginning, which literally means breath or vapor. The idea is that there is nothing there to hold, which is why we see the word seven times paired with the phrase grasping for the wind. You'll see that as you read through the book. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Now, some take this word hevel to imply meaninglessness or pointlessness, and others opt for the sense of fleeting or quickly passing. They're not the same thing. You say, well, this is pointless or this is very fleeting. It just is here for a short time and it's gone.

There could be this transitory sense in some of the occurrences of the word, particularly in chapter nine of verse nine, I'll just reference, where emptiness and meaningless seems contrary to the point. It doesn't seem to fit there. But then there's another place in 814 where the word is used in lamenting unfair circumstances and fleeting or meaningless doesn't seem to fit. Either one of those doesn't really seem to fit in that case.

Perhaps elusive or beyond grasping, that is incomprehensible or inscrutable, fits better there. Some people opt for that. You just can't get it. But this meaning does not apply in the concluding statement in 12.8. We get down to the conclusion, vanity of vanities, always vanity. That's the conclusion. You think, well, at the end we've gone through all this and we realize that we don't understand anything. That's not what it means at all, I don't think. That doesn't really fit there, this idea of being incomprehensible, because much has been resolved by the end. So there may be different shades of meaning for hebel in the book. I actually don't really think that's probably the case. The expositor's Bible commentary takes hebel throughout the book to indicate frustration. And that does appear to fit the various circumstances.

It's all his frustration. Frustration of frustration. All you go through. The phrase all is vanity in verse 2 cannot include God as this nothing to hold in that sense. So the all here is limited, but limited to what? Verse 3, look at it says, what prophet is a man in all his labor, in which he toils under the sun. This expression under the sun occurs 28 times in the book, along with its variant under heaven, which appears three times. And considering the context of these occurrences, the phrase refers to the limitations of physical life on this earth in the here and now, as you heard about earlier. That is, while God and men dwell separately with God in heaven and men under heaven, we are under heaven, we are under the sun. Man's eternal destiny includes life on earth, ultimately in the New Jerusalem, but we will then be with God and not confined to the earth. This will inherit the whole creation, including the heavens. And moreover, the earth itself will be renewed and life upon it will be positive in every way, as God ultimately intended. So we're talking about under the sun, under heaven, and here we're talking about here and now, in this age, when man and God are apart. He's up there, we're down here, and there's a lot of problems. The frustration of life in this world is described in Ecclesiastes. It may well be what Paul had in mind in Romans 8. I'll get hold of your place here and look over at Romans 8, verse 20, real quick. Look at this, Romans chapter 8. You know, Paul is talking about the bad things we go through today. Verse 18 of Romans 8, he says, I consider the sufferings of this present time.

You're not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us. That's wonderful.

Verse 19, for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God, we're waiting for this wonderful time to come. Verse 20, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. God subjected it in futility. He put this under futility. It's interesting because the word that's translated futility here in the New Testament, it's vanity, by the way, in the King James, frustration in the NIV. The word is mataiotes. I'll spell that M-A-T-A-I-O-T-E-S. Mataiotes. And that is the same word that is used in the Greek Septuagint version of Ecclesiastes. Wherever you see vanity in Ecclesiastes, the Hebrew there is hebel, and the Greek Septuagint has mataiotes. Vanity or frustration in the created realm is the consequence of sin early on, first of Satan and the angels who followed him, and later that of man, just after his creation and giving in to Satan. It was Adam and Eve's wrong choice in the Garden of Eden that subjugated humanity to the resultant problems of the world, but of course God ordered that. I mean, he cursed the creation at that time. And so I think that's exactly what's being talked about here by Paul. The creation was subjected to this frustration as being gone through in Ecclesiastes. It's being talked about again and again. Let's look back here to Ecclesiastes. Here we are in verse 2. It prompts the key question of verse 3. What profit? What profit? The word here means advantage or benefit. What advantage? What benefit has man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? So what Solomon is essentially asking is, what good is this life? What is the point? What is the point?

As we mentioned earlier in the introductory message, to see what Solomon is aiming at throughout the first section, we can look ahead to the section conclusion. Remember, the way to discern the whole book is to look to the end of the book to see what it's driving at, but it's broken up into sections as well that advance the argument. You can look at the end of each of these sections to see what the point being made is. We're going to consider this more when we come to it, but I'd like you to go ahead and flip ahead just to have this in mind. If you look over at the end of chapter 2, and we see verse 24, it says, Nothing is better for a man that he should eat and drink, that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. I thought that was interesting in light of what we just saw in the sermon. Elijah looked over and there was a cake and a jar of water, and he needed some rest, and that's what he needed. Nothing is better for a man that he should eat and drink, and his soul should enjoy the good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

And I'll skip verse 25 for now, but verse 26, For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. But to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. And then it says, This also is vanity and gratitude for the wind. Why does he say that? We'll look at that here in a little bit, but the point is clearly there are blessings for following God. This is where this is driving at. So what are we talking about in this whole section? It seems kind of bleak in parts here. Continuing chapter 1, we see that Solomon presents in poetic form a very bleak perspective of life in this world here in verses 4 through 11. Let's look at verses 4 through 8 right now. It says, One generation passes away, and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. The sun also rises, the sun goes down, hastens to its place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, turns around to the north, whirls about continually, and comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place in which the rivers come, there they return again. All things are full of labor. Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. His observations about the natural order impress on us the sensation of futility. First, a person's time on the earth is fleeting and seems to make no impact. People come and go, but the earth and its processes continue on and on, seemingly indifferent to man's presence, despite the global warming proponents, I might add. Second, these processes themselves can seem monotonous and meaningless, accomplishing nothing, such as a river constantly flowing to the sea, but never filling it. If characteristic of nature, where does that leave human life?

Man deems himself important on the earth, and God even decreed man's dominion over it in Genesis 1. And we see that right in Psalm 8. So what's going on? Verse 8 says here, It means that people have nothing meaningful to say in response. They can't explain it. The rest of the verse seems to say, you know, in verse 8 here, the eyes not satisfied with seeing the ear with hearing, it seems to say in context that despite all they see and hear, it's never enough to satisfy their desire to comprehend it. They can't understand it. The benefit sought in verse 3 is not to be found in this incessant relentlessness and monotony.

Verses 9 and 10, let's look at that. That which is done is what will be done. There's nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, see, this is new? It's already been in ancient times before us. There's no remembrance of former things. But verses 9 through 10 here increase the sense of despair by saying that there's nothing new under the sun. It should be recognized. This is not speaking of tangible items, particularly like new inventions. We have many gadgets today with a smartphone. You didn't have this in ancient times, despite what some people argue that man had all this high technology. These things did not exist in the past. The statement, rather, is a general one about the ways of the world. Just as nature's processes continue unabated, so to the ways of people on the earth, fleeting though they are. This is from the New American commentary on these verses. It says, the fundamental events of life, birth, marriage, work, death, etc., remain unchanged. The desire for something new is the desire for something that alters the nature of life in the world. Cars, computers, jet airplanes may have made some things easier and faster. For us, however, as for our predecessors, the sun rises and sets, the rivers run their courses, people continue their endless quest for fame, power, and happiness, even as they move steadily toward death.

Now, coming to verse 11 here, it says, there is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. Verse 11 refers probably to not remembering people. It says in the New King James, there is no remembrance of former things. It's probably there's no remembrance of those former, in other words, people, like the NIV has, nor will there be any remembrance of those who are to come, is what it should probably say here, by those who will come after. In other words, we're talking about people being forgotten, because we saw back in verse 4, you know, one generation passes away, another generation comes, and we should understand this here to mean after some time has gone by. Because, you know, at somebody's funeral, people remember them right then, but time goes by, and then another generation comes, and who remembers them? We may know various facts about even some famous people in history, but we don't remember them as like we know people now. As the as Expositor says, their names may or may not be remembered in school books, but they're thought of as little more than characters of fiction, cut off from the new generations who have their own lives to live. I mean, these people are forgotten that are dead. I mean, Solomon, we read his words now, but we don't really know him. I mean, we know what God gave him to say, and we know some bad things about him, and some good things. Moreover, as the New American commentary says, the vast majority of people never achieve lasting fame, while those who do gain nothing by it, and that is certainly the truth. Solomon is highlighting man's plight to show the need for a solution, and he will present that in due course, explaining that the answer lies in a proper relationship with God. This means living according to the whole Bible. The full biblical revelation shows that there is a way out of the monotony to experience something truly new, that will last. The same commentary, the New American commentary, just quoted, says this. I think this is a very great quote. Quote, The passage in Ecclesiastes is not a contradiction to the Gospel, but a call for it. The world is in bondage, and humanity is unable to explain, find satisfaction in, or alter it. Only the Word who came into the world from above can open the way of understanding and escape. He has done a new thing. He has created a new covenant, given the new birth, new life, and a new commandment. He gives a new name that will last forever. Everything else is old and is passing away. So, I mean, that is tremendous, because Solomon is asking, you know, is there really anything new? Somebody brought something new. It's to change this whole thing, and it was the beginning of upending it all. And that's what it's calling for here in this in this book. Then we'll move to the second part under the first major part. Again, the first major part in enjoying life is a gift from God. And we just looked at the section I should have, I should have titled that section for you that we just looked at, which was the Relentlessness of Life Illustrated. That's what we just saw in our outline, The Relentlessness of Life Illustrated.

And I just titled it, The Incestant Dilemma. That's the problem that was laid out there for us.

So now we're going to explore this a little bit more. And the second part here, which goes from verses 112 through 211 on our outline, is the Pleasures of Life Tested. The Pleasures of Life Tested, and I titled this section, Intellectualism, Hedonism, and Materialism. Intellectualism, Hedonism, and Materialism. Let's look first here at verses 12 through 18. He says, I the preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven, this burdensome task that God has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered. I commune with my heart, saying, look, I have attained greatness, have gained more wisdom than all who are before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge, and I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is grasping for the wind, for in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. So Solomon now turns to his own experience in grappling with the vanity of life. His position as a great king to whom God has given greater wisdom than anyone else made him uniquely suited to explore this issue. But still he found the study a great burden, he says here in verse 13. He deemed everything in this life to be, as he states in verse 14, vanity and grasping for the wind. And this latter expression again occurs in the Bible only in Ecclesiastes. Here found nine times, seven times in conjunction with the word vanity. I think that those go together. In verse 15, which is a proverb, you see that in verse 15 is a proverb, the statement, what is crooked cannot be made straight, does not mean that no problems can ever be straightened out today. I mean that would be very bleak. What's crooked can't be straightened. In other words, you can't fix anything. That's not what he's saying. What is he saying? What did he just mention in the previous verse? He says, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun.

In other words, he's talking about the totality of the human experience. This can't be fixed, at least not in any way that we can do it. Nobody's going to unravel this, is what he's saying. Thus, no amount, this is from the Nelson Study Bible, no amount of investigating or using the resources of earth will ever straighten out all that is crooked, twisted, perverted, or turned upside down. It just can't be undone. It's too messed up. The world is too messed up to fix.

It can't be fixed, at least humanly. And then God has subjected the world to adversity because of man's wrong choices. The world is under a curse from God. How is that going to be fixed? And his will cannot be contravened. The second line here of verse 15, and what is lacking cannot be numbered, means either, I would say, that the missing elements in the puzzle cannot be taken into account in trying to solve it because you don't know what you don't know. In other words, what is lacking to fix this can't be numbered. We have no idea even remotely how to fix this. Or that the deficiency of the elements that are essential to a solution is too vast to comprehend. In other words, what would it take? There's no way to figure out what it would take. It would take too much. It cannot be numbered what it would take to deal with this. No way. Solomon's... So what does he do here? He says that in verse 17, he says he sets out to know wisdom and the contrary approach of madness and folly.

This exploration is introduced here, but it's reflected on further in the next chapter. It's still part of the same subject, verses 12 through 17. And as with other pursuits, it proves futile.

In chapter 1, verse 18 here is another proverb. Solomon confesses that wisdom and knowledge, despite their advantages, bring pain and grief. Consider that the more that we learn about the world, the worse we realize it is. It's not a happy picture. We think, oh, I'm going to know, I'm going to learn more. Well, there's a lot more to be depressed about, the more you know. And also, it's often recognized that the more we know, the more aware we are of how much we don't know. And that's very frustrating. It is frustrating in that sense. You think, I'm going to study this, and I'm going to learn it, and I'm going to know more about it. And what you find out is, man, there's just too much to learn here. I never will learn all this. It's frustrating. The answers to the big questions of life elude even the brightest minds, certainly in the world. And that's really what he was talking about, life under the sun here, apart from God. Now, a problem for us in reading Solomon's discussion of wisdom here is we immediately think of ultimate godly wisdom. He says, I'm pursuing wisdom, and later he'll say, my wisdom remains with me, and all these kind of things. And we think about godly wisdom from the Bible. But Solomon had a vast store of earthly wisdom and knowledge to draw from in considering man's condition. Author Tommy Nelson stated this in his book, A Life Well Lived, study of the book of Ecclesiastes, page 24. Now, the wisdom Solomon is talking about in context is not the wisdom of God and His Word. It is wisdom derived from exploring human knowledge, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, history, logic, and rhetoric, the best ideas that man has invented or discovered. But in the end, all an educated man can do is die an educated failure. All the learning in the world won't help you change the human heart, and how true that is. The expositor's Bible commentary says in its introduction to Ecclesiastes that the book is not against serious thinking. It is itself a deep and thoughtful work, but it demands a recognition of the limitations of human philosophy. You know, human reasoning is only going to take you so far that we all have to know that. Certainly Solomon does at length turn to godly wisdom in instructing us to fear God, obey Him, and receive His blessings in routine living. We see that at the very end of this section, and we're going to see it again in the various other conclusions at the end of the book. He's going to turn to that.

But why didn't he realize that to start with? You know, Solomon grew up with the truth under the tutelage of his father David. He didn't start with a godless mindset. Indeed, God gave him increased wisdom and understanding. But godly knowledge and wisdom are not enough for rationalizing life's problems and coping well with them. We need God's direct intervention in our hearts and minds and in our circumstances. And even with the spiritual perspective we may have now, it is not easy to endure the difficulties of life. When you think, I understand the Bible, I understand God's truth, that doesn't make it easy to endure the difficulties of life. We saw that with Elijah. He was going through. And we can't understand all the reasons behind what we and other human beings have to go through. Why does this have to happen to me or to them or whoever? Why do we have to bear these particular difficulties? And sometimes we may throw up our hands and ask, what is the point of this present life? What is the point? But over time, we come to trust more deeply in God's guidance and care, even though we don't know all the answers. That's a big key. We don't know. We have to trust the one who does know. And we heard about that earlier, too. Moreover, in Solomon's case, it seems likely that he had already begun his drift away from God when he was pondering these issues. That was part of his problem. He'd gone away from God and he was confused in his mind and he's having to explore all this. So he likely had to relearn some spiritual lessons. In any case, Solomon's wisdom and knowledge carried him only so far. Hard questions and circumstances remained unresolved and he initially tried to tackle these intellectually.

But even though he was well-equipped, the effort proved ultimately fruitless. Let's look here in chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. Continuing on, he says, I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure.

For surely this also was vanity. I said of laughter, madness, and of mirth. What does it accomplish? I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine and while guiding my heart with wisdom and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made my works great. I built myself houses, planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds. It says in the New King James, but that probably should be translated to something else. We'll get back to that in a minute. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me.

Also, my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure thing. That didn't sound very wise. From my heart rejoiced in all my labor and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor which I had toiled. And indeed, all was vanity and grasping for the win. There was no profit under the sun. This was all worthless. There was no point. What was the point? You know, in this investigation, remember in verse 17, he had said, I set my heart to no wisdom and madness and folly. And here he plunges into his pursuit of that. He calls it madness and folly, mirth. There was a lot of mirth in Solomon's day because life at Solomon's Court was just one big party. It was one ongoing party. Walter Kaiser says in his book on Ecclesiastes, quote, With what hilarity and laughter must the palace halls have echoed as Solomon, his courtiers and his guests exchanged jokes, drank wine, listened to the witty merrymakers from all over the region, and feasted bountifully each day on what the Bible says in 1 Kings 4, 22 through 23, 30 measures of fine flour, 60 measures of meal, 10 fat oxen, 20 oxen from the pastures, 100 sheep, in addition to hearts, roebucks, fallow deer, and fat and fowl. Continuing, Kaiser says, some estimates suggest that it would take 30 or 40,000 people to consume that much food each day. Think about that. What we're talking about here is not just a few guys getting together. We're talking about 30 or 40,000 people feasting every day. This was unbelievable how wealthy this man and his kingdom were. And all the people that were able to enjoy that. No wonder 1 Kings 4, 20 says, Judah and Israel were as many as the sand which is by the sea and multitude eating and drinking and making merry. The country was pretty blessed. The whole plan, this is still Kaiser, was to sample mirth, pleasure, wine and folly until he could determine what was good for the sons of man.

Solomon sought central gratification while he says, guiding my heart with wisdom. That's what he says he was doing. This is surprising. For the extent of the King's hedonistic exercise seems to have been rather foolish. And did we know from other scripture reports about him that he overindulged in more than food and wine. How does he maintain that there was any wisdom guiding his heart?

What seems to be implied is that Solomon, and this is the only thing that makes sense to me, is that Solomon never wholly abandoned himself to mindless dissipation. He didn't just get drunk and not think about it and he was just stoned out of his mind or something. It was never like that. Rather, as he experimented with various pleasures, he was always thinking them over, considering their worth in making life better and fulfilling man's longings. And again, we should realize that the wisdom Solomon speaks of here is not ultimate godly wisdom, but rather the height of human reason employed in examining all of life's opportunities. Solomon came to recognize that living for the sake of pleasure is pointless. It involves a degree of madness in trying to escape the real world with its problems. For after one has this period of fun, the problems are still there.

You think, oh, I'll do this and escape. No, you won't. The problems are still there, and depending on one's choice of amusements, the problems could be greatly magnified.

So you may not really just escape problems, you may create new problems. Consider, though, that at the conclusion of this section, we saw it in verses 24 through 26 of chapter 2, Solomon will advocate finding enjoyment in life. He will advocate joy and finding joy. Yet, as he will make clear, and especially in the book's overall conclusion, this comes in the context of a right relationship with God. Experience his blessings within the proper boundaries of a life that is committed to him. We will never find fulfillment in pursuing enjoyment for its own sake. You know, people are always saying, I'm trying to do this to be happy. If you're trying to be happy, you won't be happy. Pursuing enjoyment or happiness, trying to do that for its own sake, is not going to happen. True joy and happiness is the byproduct of a life properly devoted to God. Solomon next moves on to material pursuits, we saw.

Accomplishments, amassing wealth, and luxuries. We saw that in verses 4 through 11. It starts from all the things he built and made and did. He says the great building projects and acquisitions here were for himself, using the word myself six times in this section. I did this for myself, and I did this for myself. And so this was just a different way of pursuing personal pleasure.

That was what this was. He was doing all these great works, but it was really to satisfy his own desires in that sense. And in verse 8, now, we come to where the new King James has, the delights of the sons of men and musical instruments of all kinds.

In particular, notice the word and there is in italics. That word is an interpolated word. It's not in the actual Hebrew. This translation, which is close to the earlier King James rendering, does follow the traditional Jewish interpretation. But that may be because they were trying to have this be more polite here. The Hebrew words render musical instruments, shada, weshidot, or used nowhere else in the Old Testament. They're actually a matter of dispute.

Other versions translate the phrase, and the Green's literal translation says, concubine and concubines. The NIV says, a harem is what's being talked about here. Expositor says of shida and its plural form, shidot, that that is a Canaanite word of similar form is used to translate the Egyptian word for concubine in a letter of Pharaoh Ammanifis III. So there is a context for this being translated, concubine. And shida may be derived from the Hebrew root shad, which means breast. And those who see Solomon's harem here in mind leave out the and. So, you know, taking the concubines to be among the delights of the sons of men, a few other translations have been proposed. But in any case, we know from 1 Kings 11.3 that a vast number of women, 700 wives, 300 concubines, were certainly included in Solomon's statement in verse 10 here, whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold from my heart any pleasure. He just dove right in.

Now Solomon's statement in verse 9 that his wisdom remained with him does not mean he was acting wisely. It could mean that he always retained wisdom in his head despite what he did. That is, he always knew better. Or the statement may have the same sense as that about guiding his heart with wisdom in verse 3, referring to him always evaluating his worldly pursuits and gains. In other words, he was always thinking over the things he was doing, considering whether or not they brought fulfillment. That's the wisdom, you know, that he's talking about in that sense. And he acknowledges in verse 11, they did not bring fulfillment, being vanity and grasping for the wind. All that money can buy does not buy happiness. Solomon's mention in verse 9 of being the greatest and wealthiest is important in this regard. The Holman Old Testament commentary says in its note in verse 9, if the most powerful and wealthy man in the world could not find happiness and possessions apart from God, then the futility of pursuing such things becomes evident for the rest of us.

The lesson is similar to what Solomon learned about being the wisest man in the world.

He's the wisest, he's the richest. None of this was helped him. He just made it miserable. So we think we're going to, you know, if we start pursuing these things, that's going to help us to be happy. It's not. Now, it's not wrong to enjoy the physical blessings that God provides or engage in lawful material pursuits. But these must not become the focus of our lives. Moreover, we must live life to God's glory, not our own. And that commentary, the Holman Old Testament commentary, had a good quote, I thought, from the Renaissance author Thomas Akepis.

You don't usually hear him quoted very much, but I like this quote. He said, Let temporal things be used, but things eternal desired. You cannot be satisfied with any temporal good, because you were not created to enjoy these alone. Although you should possess all created good, yet you could not be happy therewith nor blessed. But in God, who created all things, consists your whole blessedness. And that is true. We must have the right foundation and parameters trusting in God's promises. Then we come to the third part here. The third part of this first section under enjoying life is a gift from God, and that is the purposes of life examined.

And I've actually titled this part, the frustration of death. That's where we go next. Let's look at verses 12 through 23. He says, I, the preacher, I'm sorry, chapter 2, verse 12, then I turn myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. Notice he's been exploring wisdom and madness and folly, and now he says, I turn myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness, yet I myself perceive that the same event happens to them all. They're all going to die. So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why then was I more wise?

Again, what is the point? I said in my heart, this also is vanity. Verse 16, for there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool. Therefore, I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Then I hated all my labor, which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who'll come after me, and who knows whether he'll be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.

Therefore, I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun.

For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill. Yet he must leave his heritage to a man who is not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart, with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome, even in the night his heart takes no rest." You can't sleep, because you can't get it, and it's just so frustrating. This also is frustration, is vanity. This is utter vanity. So, you know, Solomon said he set his heart to know madness and folly. Now he says, I turn to consider in verse 12, wisdom and madness and folly, literally to see or to behold these. In the latter case, he is reflecting on what his search has revealed. That's what he's doing now. The second part of verse 12, where he says, for what can the man do who succeeds the king, only what's already been done, it seems to mean that no one is going to come along with some great new investigation on the matter that might overturn Solomon's conclusions, for he has seen and done it all. Nobody is going to come along and say, well, I got it figured out better, because I can check all the... I can do a better experiment. No, Solomon says, I've explored it to the full, and nobody's going to come along and come up with something else. So, what has Solomon come to see? First, he says in verse 13, wisdom is better than folly. It just is. A wise man can see where he's going, what he's doing, making sense of life's choices, while the thoughtless fool can't figure anything out. He suffers more for it. A thinking person can see certain ways of living have advantages over others, even in a worldly sense, you know. It's better to tell the truth than to get caught up in lies. Tommy Nelson writes, it's better to work hard than to be lazy. Would anyone doubt that? It's better to be faithful to your mate than bring catastrophe to your home. So, it's best in life to live wisely and morally. It's just smarter, wiser to not do things that would bring about your destruction. Second, however, this will not shield us of what Solomon learned here. This will not shield us from what is inevitable for everyone. Death, the great equalizer.

Whether wise or fool, all will die, and as time passes, be forgotten, he says. The Holman Old Testament commentary says on verse 15, if it is true that death will overtake both the fool and the wise, what is the point of trying so hard to be good? This question occurs to many good people who quit trying to be good and decide to go wild by engaging in reckless and destructive behavior. Others pride themselves on continuing to be good and conclude erroneously that dependence on God is not necessary. You know, I'm just going to be a good person.

You know, or they hold on to it only superficially. The reality of death, as the quote here says, arrests both these types of good people from thinking their own efforts will bring them lasting fulfillment apart from God and apart from His redemption. With the stark awareness that this grand quest for wisdom was just as the waywardness of fools, vanity, and grasping for the win, Solomon came to hate this life. He just hated it. It was distressing to him, for there was no escaping. There was no escaping it and escaping this realization. And what of his great accomplishments and acquisitions? He came to hate these two because it all seemed so pointless. Death would force him to pass these on to others. Solomon finds no satisfaction in bequeathing a legacy, for there's no way of knowing whether the legacy, which is intended to carry on the memory of his great deeds, will be perpetuated or squandered. But more fundamentally, he finds it frustrating that a person who works so hard for something cannot continue enjoying it but must pass it on to others who have not worked for it at all. Not only did Solomon's impressive intellect, vast wealth, and great works not leave him to happiness, they actually led him to despair, utter despair, to days of sorrow and fretful nights. Solomon's description of seeking into hopelessness and depression pulls the reader down with him. In verse 22, he essentially repeats the opening question of 1-3. What gain is there for all of man's efforts under the sun? All seems so utterly pointless. Only now, at this lowest bleakest point, is he ready to begin presenting the solution to this dark and seemingly unsolvable dilemma. We see that in the ending here, which is the section conclusion, verses 24-26. Nothing is better for man that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. It's probably a mistranslation. I'm going to give you a key here. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God. Verse 25 may also be a mistranslation for who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I. See that in a second. For God gives wisdom and knowledge to a man who is good in his sight, but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the winny thing. Well, it's just vanity because it's so arbitrary. What is actually he's what is he actually saying here? You know, having some to some to the depths of despair, a light at last dawned in Solomon's thinking. He'd been striving of his own accord to essentially force meaning and happiness from life. He's going to get in there and he's going to find it. He's going to find that happiness. He's going to find that enjoyment. He's going to get in there and he's going to get it from it. He's going to take it from life, but it doesn't work that way. Rather, Solomon at last comes to see that we must embrace the enjoyment in everyday life, knowing that it is from the hand of God. You know, we just we take life as it comes. There's bad things. There's good things. And we enjoy the good things as we receive them. This is the first of similar refrains in Ecclesiastes. As mentioned in the introduction of the book, some of these, some take these out of context as advocating a life of mere pleasure seeking.

But the proper context reveals a God-centered focus.

Indeed, the very fact of accepting good things in life as coming from God implies a life of faith.

In His providence and abiding care. I mean, that's what you're understanding there. If you're just saying, you know, this is the gift of God, that's what you come to see. That means you trust that there is a God who cares for us and gives us things and takes, you know, His interest in us. Moreover, verse 26 makes clear that God's gifts are ultimately intended for those classed as good and not for sinners. He says this is the good are going to be blessed and the sinners are going to have to give everything to the good people in the end. And we'll consider that, you know, more in just a second. But before that, let's look at these two textual difficulties I mentioned here in verses 24 and 25. The wording of verse 24 in most versions does not represent the actual Hebrew here. The New King James Version, for instance, says, nothing is better for a man than that he should.

The word rendered better is tob, which simply means good. Now, that could have the comparative sense of better if it's paired with a short preposition that would mean than. You can say good than and that means better than. Okay, but here there is no word for than. And that word is not present. And it's an italic, so you can see in the New King James, meaning it's an assumed word here. Most scholars believe this word must have originally been part of the Hebrew text but has dropped out at some point because they see other instances of the refrain, like in 312 and 815, that do have the than. So the better than is there. So they think it should be here, but it's not here. And Dr. Kaiser points out there is no evidence that supports that assumption, that it should be here, even though the translators of most English versions adopted it. He says they reason that the point of koeleth, that is the preacher, is that nothing is left for mankind but to try calmly to enjoy the present. In other words, it's so bad and the only thing we can do is just take what we get. That's what he's saying here. That is not what he's saying. I don't believe and that's not what the Hebrew says. He says that the best man could do is get some physical pleasure out of life while he can. But again, that's based on an assumed reading, not the actual one.

The structure of the other refrain verses is worth considering, but it's not determinative. You can look at the other instances of the refrain and say, well, that's interesting because all the various occurrences of the other refrain in other places, they are not all the same. I want you to understand that. These other places where the refrain occur are not all the same. They have differences and the differences have some little different shade of meaning in them and that's the case probably here as well.

Also, the phrase, for a man, if you see here in 224, it is better, you know, for a man, it says, for a man should actually be in man because the Hebrew preposition here is bei, not lei. Lei would be four or two, but it's bei which is in. I mean bei rasit, in the beginning. It's in. Bei means inside.

That's what it means. And so what is actually being talked, and by the way, in the other occurrences of the refrain in 612 and 815, it uses lei, uses lei which means four. Here, it's a different word, but they translate it the same. These are a little careful thing, but it could pack a lot of difference. So rather than assume that the meaning and, you know, the missing and altered text here, we should consider whether the wording here makes sense like it is.

The Holmen Old Testament commentary says on this verse, a literal rendering of this verse is, there is nothing in man to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. Or we could say it this way. They quote Kaiser here, there is not a good in man, or there is not a good inherent in man. This is a powerful statement that we humans can't create anything good on our own, the commentary says, we are dependent on God for any lasting goodness or fulfillment.

And Kaiser goes on to say, thus we must conclude that even the most mundane and earthly things of life do not lie within man's grasp to donate to himself. The source of all good, contrary to the expectations of most systems of humanism and idealism, cannot be located in man. He doesn't have it, as the saying goes. It is all beyond him.

Rather, it must come from God. Man must get accustomed to realizing that if he is to receive satisfaction from his food and drink, that satisfaction, like all satisfaction, will have to come from the hand of God. We didn't realize this. We think of all these good things that we have, or God's gift to us, but it's not just all the good things that are God's gift to us. It's the very ability to enjoy them is God's gift to us.

The very ability to be satisfied these things is God's gift to us. We can't come up with that on our own. The wording of verse 25, by the way, is also disputed. The NKJV has, for who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I? The difficulty here is in the words more than I. The Hebrew here, which is Memeni, is generally understood to read outside me or without me.

So you say, you know, but that seems strange. It seems odd that Solomon would be saying, for who can have enjoyment outside me? But it's conceivable that he means beyond me, so more than I. So who can have enjoyment outside me? Who can have enjoyment beyond me, meaning more than I? But that would be a very unusual construction. But if that is the meaning of the verse, then it would seem Solomon is saying that he's the person best suited to analyzing the matter.

However, most scholars believe that the phrase in question should not be rendered without me, but without him. As in the NIV, referring to God, who can have enjoyment without him. They point to this rendering in the Greek Septuagint. The Greek Septuagint says without him, and they generally argue for amending the Hebrew here. But another scholar says there's a certain suffix that you don't have to amend the Hebrew, and you still can translate it without him. And I think that makes probably the most sense, because it and that's from Tyndale commentary. He says that, but if you will look in verse 26, the beginning says, for God gives the word God, there is an italics.

It's not in the original text. It should be read it as for he gives.

Well, that only really makes sense if the previous verse was talking about God.

So who can have enjoyment apart from him? So it follows well if the subject of verse 25 is God. So the proper perspective here, brethren, is realizing our total dependence on God, not just for gifts to enjoy, but for the ability to enjoy them truly and to be content.

The same idea is expressed in the conclusion of the next section of the book, which states that God gives people the power to enjoy what he gives. That's in chapter 5 verse 10. It says, God gives people power to enjoy. Implied in all this is a relationship with God, which becomes more explicit in chapter 2 and verse 26.

It was noted earlier that the verse makes clear that God's gifts are intended for those who are good in his sight. A broader scriptural overview reveals that these are the upright people who follow God's ways in line with the directives given at the end of Ecclesiastes. Dear God and keep his commandments, this is man's all. And the whole Bible also reveals that any goodness in man is not his own, but is from God. So the goodness itself is only going to come from God. You can't just be a good person. You're only really going to be a good person if the goodness is God helping you to be that person. Those who are upright are so because God has redeemed them and empowered them to obey him. If they persist in his ways, he blesses them yet further. It is stated here that he rewards them with wisdom and knowledge and joy. So they get wisdom. They get knowledge. They get joy. This is different from Solomon's earlier statements about human beings searching out wisdom, being a burdensome task, being given to them by God in chapter 1 verse 13. That referred to human learning by experimentation, observation, learning lessons the hard way. In the present statement of chapter 2 verse 26, Solomon is referring to the blessing of learning from God his wisdom and truth, including how to live and how to be happy. Solomon the preacher is advocating, as the expositor's Bible commentary says, the life of faith which does not understand everything but looks for the hand of God in the events of daily life. A useful parallel, and I would recommend it to is 1 Timothy 6, 6 through 19, with its reminder that we are to be content with food and clothing, realizing that God gives us richly everything to enjoy. The walk with God means we can ask for his wisdom to use life rightly and his knowledge to understand such of his ways as he may disclose to us and thus experience the joy of fulfillment despite life's difficulties. Because again, brethren, life is difficult, and the only way to get through it with joy is with God, with true joy.

Solomon follows in verse 26 with a warning against living contrary to God as a sinner, and this should dispel the notion that the message of the book is that we should cast off moral restraints and live hedonistically doing whatever we want to do. Unlike that of the righteous, the sinner's burden of trying to find fulfillment in life is unrelieved.

For the righteous, there's a relief, but for the unrighteous, there is not a relief.

Moreover, any apparent success of the wicked is only temporary, as all they gather and collect will ultimately go to the righteous. There's some other references for that. Proverbs 13, 22, Proverbs 28, 8, Job 27, 16-17, say the same thing. All these things that the worldly people gather up, it's all going to go to the righteous. This is sometimes the outcome in life today. Sometimes the bad guys get theirs and the good guys get what they deserve.

Sometimes it works out that way today. But the ultimate view here, and brethren, what we're looking for in this season we're coming up on now, the ultimate view here is not life under the sun here in this present toil. The ultimate view here is of the future kingdom of God when all will be set right, far from a morose vision limited to the inequities of the present. Ecclesiastes in several places looks forward to the time when right will prevail. This, again, is a position of faith, trusting in God's promises of what is to come. It answers the dilemma of leaving one's possessions and achievements to others because of death that we just saw in chapter 2 verses 18 through 21. Think, well, what good is it? I did all this stuff and it went to other people and I was forgotten? No, the righteous will ultimately be resurrected and will inherit all things far beyond anything that they ever gathered in this life, that they ever built, that they ever did. They're going to experience so much more as Paul said it. I consider that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared to the glory which will be revealed in us and that this futility is only temporary is what Paul is talking about. It goes right to this message here in Ecclesiastes. Now, some think that the last sentence here in this section, 2.26, the last section, this also is vanity and grasping for the wind because he just says, well, you know, God gives good people stuff and the bad people give to the good people. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. They think that refers to God's gifts to the righteous and the task he has given center, both of them, as some hopeless comment on the arbitrariness of what God gives people. God gives people some good things, some bad. But there is no arbitrariness here at all.

The righteous are rewarded and sinners must relinquish what they have to the righteous.

This is not vanity. This is perfectly just. There is clear value in serving God. The conclusion of vanity and grasping for the wind here refers only to the plight of the wicked. That last sentence is referring only to the wicked having to give their stuff to the righteous.

They strive and strive in heaping up acquisitions to themselves, but all for not, as it's ultimately going to someone else. Now, the words, this also that you see here, as Tyndale commentary notes, may be translated this indeed. For the Hebrew, gam, here, also may be used for emphasis, as well as for addition. And that is to say that after having called all these other things, vanity and grasping for the wind, Solomon says of the striving of the wicked, this indeed is vanity and grasping for the wind. You think you're going to do all this and be a bad person and it's all going to work out for you. It is not. And there's so much in this book.

It's just a masterful, utterly masterful composition. And we will continue with it in our next examination. I don't know if that'll be my next message, but we certainly will get back to this soon because I think it's very valid for this season. Remember the Jews read this at the Feast of Tamarnechles, and it's good to reflect on these things before we partake of our enjoyment, because our enjoyment. And when we pray, we can ask God to help us enjoy what he's given us, these wonderful gifts.