Ecclesiastes 1: 2-4 “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abided forever.”
Ecclesiastes is a somewhat depressing book of the Bible to read. Or, is it? On the other extreme, it is reassuring of the existence of our Creator and the salvation He offers us. Solomon describes the brevity and meaningless existence of life as we know it in our physical bodies.
Solomon, the second son of David and Bathsheba, was gifted by God to be the wisest man that ever lived (1 Kings 3: 9). He appears to be a combination, philosophically speaking, of a realist and an existentialist (even though he believes in Creator God). The reality of life to this wise man was overwhelming and challenging. He was a thinker and appears to me to have been an over-thinker.
This quote from David Gusik’s website Enduring Word helps us to grasp the scope and purpose of Ecclesiastes: “It has a spirit of hopeless despair; it has no praise or peace; it seems to promote questionable conduct. Yet these words of the Preacher show us the futility and foolishness of a life lived without an eternal perspective.”
That “eternal perspective” draws for us a summary in two words of this very powerful book of the Bible. Solomon emphasizes the brief state of life and the finality of eternity and it’s never ending state.
An analogy used many times is to compare our life span to a thin sheet of paper. How thick (or wide) would something have to be to equal eternity? Would the width of the room you’re sitting in equal eternity? How about the width of the state (or country) you happen to be in, perhaps the width of the galaxy or even the entire universe? No, we’re not there yet. Nothing offers us a comparable.
Solomon points to the relativity of all things. The human life span is relative to the age of the human race, to the age of the earth, to the age of the universe, to the age of eternity. We see no direct relation in those but in the factor of time we see opposite ends of the spectrum.
Solomon repeats himself several times in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity, all is vanity.” Apparently, he is stating, all we do in our lives is based on our pre-determined human state of being vain. Humans are not only vain of our circumstance; we are vain of our appearance, our health our religions and our social status.
Solomon draws no absolute conclusions yet numerous speculative conclusions. Without the clarity of an absolute statement, he seems to focus on an empty life (life in vain) without an eternal destination. He, of course, is no atheist. How could he be David’s son and be such?
He is an arm-chair philosopher (and I suppose many of us are) and throughout Ecclesiastes he seems to be warning us, life is all about eternity and not those things we deem as important in our earthly existence.
Bible articles often help us to gain a perspective of our smallness, weakness and frailty in the universe. We humans feel a superiority that doesn’t exist. God told Adam and Eve He would give them dominion over the beasts of the field (Genesis 1: 26).
That sounds well and good but face down a grizzly in Alaska or a mountain lion in the American west and see if you continue to believe it. I suppose He just meant Adam and Eve, not me!
This promise of God to Adam and Eve was before the “Fall of Man” in chapter three. That changed everything between God and His creation. The losing of that dominion in Genesis 1: 26
was only the beginning.
I faced a six foot diamondback rattler a couple of years ago and I never felt so helpless and vulnerable in all my life. I sure didn’t have dominion over him. Wife, Margie, said she could tell by my face I’d had an experience. His diameter was that of my upper arm and his head was the size of my fist. His eyes were as if looking into the eyes of Satan.
Solomon realized how small we are in the universe and how ignorant we are of those things that surround us. He makes the point that all things are new but have already happened. There is a saying, “History repeats itself.” George S. Patton and Karl Marx are both credited with stating that phrase. Regardless of who said it, Solomon had previously verified it.
In verse six, Solomon uses the example of the wind currents on earth. Since I’m fairly sure he did not have satellite pictures of the planet 3000 years ago, it becomes obvious God was directing his thoughts and thus, his writing. He makes the point with the wind that all things are a repeat of previous happenings. Essentially, it seems he is telling us we are simply going around in circles.
Verse seven refers to the hydrologic cycle. Everything cycles! We are (theoretically) using the same water used by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 4000 years ago. The rain falls, the water either evaporates or runs to the rivers, then to the seas to be taken up as vapor, then falls again. God was the first to recycle.
Solomon emphasizes, at times very subtly, all things stay the same. Generations come and go as the seasons come and go. He uses the two examples in verses six and seven to demonstrate the repeating of basically the same things over and over.
If mankind could simply realize a few of these basic concepts taught by Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter one, the human race might survive a little longer. Realizing all is in God’s plan further emphasizes our vulnerability. His plan, however, is a good plan for the believer.
We can either be encouraged or depressed by Ecclesiastes chapter one. Knowing, as did Solomon, God has provided a place for us to anticipate as our eternal destination is indeed comforting.
The Old Testament prophesy of a coming Messiah should have given comfort to the Jewish people but apparently fell a little short. (Numbers 24: 17, 19) When Jesus did come, they rejected Him and crucified Him. How short-sighted we humans are!
It took the world several hundred more years to accept Him as Savior and Lord. The Apostle Paul and his fellow missionaries gave it a powerful beginning but when we consider the world (as they knew it) and time, theirs was only a beginning.
Those early missionaries preached Jesus crucified for the remission of sin and resurrected. Without that saving knowledge, the world is lost. Solomon’s writings in Ecclesiastes can likely be taken as prophesy or a warning of our current day thinking of superiority.
Ecclesiastes 1: 8-9 “All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Van Yandell