Coverage: Ecclesiastes 1–3
Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:12–2:11, 2:18–26; Matthew 6:25–33
They say that history always repeats itself, but the problem is that no one is listening. As we look at the book of Ecclesiastes, we get to learn from someone else’s mistakes.
I remember high school science experiments involving Bunsen burners, boiling water, and burning magnesium. After the experiment we had to write up our report, and I still remember the headings: Aim, Method, Observations, and Conclusions. That’s the scientific method.
In science, finding out that something doesn’t work is success. That scientist who works out what doesn’t work might not get a Noble Prize, but they may have helped someone who will. They’ve served the scientific community and saved their time: they know now that this thing doesn’t work.
A school friend of mine topped our selective high school in the HSC and later completed a PhD in one of the hard sciences. But the thing he was trying didn’t work. He wrote up his thesis and was awarded his doctorate, but his research showed that his approach to the question was a dead end. That’s good science. He has worked as an expert in his field for many years.
So it is with the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is the report of an experiment, conducted by a genius and expert over much of his life. The experimenter had nearly unlimited resources. This is his magnum opus. This book is his written conclusion.
Over the next four Sundays, God willing, we will walk through the twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes. In chapters 1–3, the Teacher introduces himself, explains his experiment, and presents his initial findings. In chapters 4–6, he tests and refines his conclusions. In chapters 7–9, he reaffirms that wisdom is still worth pursuing despite life’s frustrations. Finally, in chapters 10–12, he urges both young and old to live soberly in light of reality and to fear God.
But let’s turn to chapter 1 verses 1 to 3, which are the “executive summary”, a report of the researcher’s findings and his assessment of the human situation.
“The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?” (NIV)
Everything the Teacher tried didn’t work. His efforts, pains, genius, and lavish expenditure didn’t achieve what he had hoped. Those who come after him should not again waste time with trying what he did.
The Teacher and His Sinful Experiment (1:1)
The first words in Ecclesiastes are by the anonymous ‘frame narrator’. He only says a few things in the Book. He’s a bit like the voice over man on TV or Radio. He introduces us to ‘the Teacher’, the son of David, king in Jerusalem”. The substance of what follows is written by ‘the Teacher’.
The word ‘Teacher’ or equivalents in our English Bibles renders the Hebrew word ‘Qohelet’ or, in the Septuagint, the Greek word, ‘Ecclesiastes’. Both these words mean ‘one who gathers a congregation or assembly.’ That is exactly what ‘teachers’ do—they gather a class, assembly, or congregation to teach them. That’s what we’ve done today: look at you all, here on a Sunday morning, gathered to listen to me!
This teacher is “son of king David” and “king in Jerusalem” (v. 1, cf. v. 12). David was the king to whom God promised an eternal dynasty, and a successor who would not just be David’s son, but the Son of God (2 Samuel 7; Psalms 2, 110). There were kings of Jerusalem long before David and Solomon—Melchizedek, for example. King David retook the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the capital of his united kingdom of Israel.
This Teacher asserts that he was wiser and wealthier than all who ruled over Jerusalem before him and all of his contemporaries (1:16; 2:9; cf. 1 Kgs 3:12-13 3:28; 1 Kgs 8:1, 22). While Solomon is never mentioned by name, he is the only Davidic king that answers that description. That was the near universal view until comparatively recently.
At some point in his life, Solomon decided to ‘experiment’ with kingship, sex and marriage, and with other gods. Solomon’s ‘experimenting’ was an exercise in open-eyed disobedience. Solomon is ‘experimenting’ like adolescents might with drugs or sex, or middle-aged men in having an affair with the secretary and riding off on a Harley. It was an exercise in sinfulness and wilful disobedience.
Around 500 years before Solomon, God had given Israel the law of the king, in Deuteronomy 17. It said: “[the King] must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ 17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. (Deut 17:16-17 NIV)
No Egyptian horses; not too much gold or silver; not too many wives. How did Solomon go with that? 1 Kings 10-11 tells us that Solomon decided to treat God’s prohibitions as a ‘to-do’ list. Solomon received 23 tonnes of gold a year, besides other receipts of gold; he had 12,000 horses that his servants imported from Egypt; he made silver as common as the stones of Jerusalem’s streets; and he collected his own harem of one thousand wives and concubines. We’d call the law of the king comprehensively broken.
In other words, Solomon, the richest and smartest person on earth, studied first-hand doing stupidity and folly. He did his PhD in being a moron and disobeying God’s word. He did it so you don’t have to. His sinful stupidity ruined his own life and those he drew into his orbit, split the kingdom of Israel and sowed the seeds of the Babylonian exile. But at least he wrote down Ecclesiastes, so we can learn from and avoid his folly.
In Ecclesiastes 2:8, Solomon refers to his acquisition of his harem—the delights of a man’s heart. This is what sinful kings always did (cf. Genesis 6): it’s still what men who don’t fear God do when able. Think of Solomon as filling a posh private girls finishing school with 700 princesses, wives of royal birth from all over the world, and 300 concubines—sexual partners with no property rights. Like Hugh Hefner on steroids, Solomon set up his Playboy mansion. Ignoring God’s word and God’s design for marriage, Solomon created his own reality TV show, a mixture of Royal Married At First Sight with the Hunger Games. Solomon is the Golden Bachelor, and sadly none of the unfortunate girls condemned to marry him had the opportunity to get evicted. These poor women lived as prisoners in Solomon’s hell-house of jealousy and rivalry, wedded to aging king Solomon as he experiments with them and uses them. No wonder Solomon says he couldn’t find a woman in a thousand who met his ideal—that was his own stupid fault! 1 Kings 11:4 tells us:
As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God. (NIV)
With his abundance of ability and resources, Solomon went from one potential source of meaning and fulfillment to another: knowledge, wisdom, wealth, building and garden projects, botany, zoology, pleasure, wine, women, song, slaves, international trade—on a full tilt search for lasting achievement and satisfaction.
His Conclusion: Vapour (1:2)
And his conclusion was “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Each of those possible sources of fulfillment proved to be a dead end. After Solomon can say of every human experience, “I’ve been there and done that”. It didn’t work.
Chapter 1 verse 2: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
Solomon’s verdict on everything he achieved was “habel” and the superlative, “habēl habaliym”.
The word “habel”—translated “meaningless” in the NIV and “vanity” in the ESV and “futility” in the CSB—is most accurately translated “vapour”. Everything Solomon tried and for which he strived was mist, ephemeral, smoke, temporary, passing: it blows away and doesn’t remain. The NIVs “meaningless” is a paraphrase. It works sometimes, but not always, and less and less as we go through Ecclesiastes. And the superlative, habēl habaliym, is not “utterly meaningless” but “vapour of vapours”, the wispiest of vapour, and a striving after the wind. It’s like trying to catch and keep the wind. It slips through your fingers. You can’t keep it, it doesn’t stay, and you have nothing lasting at the end of it after all you did to get it.
Solomon’s foolish program (v. 3)
Solomon reveals the guiding question of his enquiry in verse 3: What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun? What is to be gained from our labourious toil in this world? The answer is vapour.
At one level, of course there is benefit from our work. If we do not work, neither shall we eat (2 Thess 3:6-15). We must earn our food, build homes, and wear clothes. But the Teacher is looking for a deeper, longer lasting advantage and benefit than simply food, drink, shelter.
‘Labour’ here refers to all human endeavours, exertions, and pursuits, our dreams and desires, our reason for living. Labour and toil inevitably involve pain and suffering. We give our blood, sweat, and tears to these pursuits. This difficulty and trouble is an outcome of the fall and the curse (Gen 3:16-19).
Solomon is conducting his observations ‘under the sun’ (v 3, and 13 times over all). He knows that there is ‘God in heaven’ who has subjected our lives to burdensome futility and vexation. At different points he ‘ups periscope’ to consider his observations in the light of God. Life ‘under the sun’ and ‘God in heaven’ are not mutually exclusive. Solomon works with both realities: observation of life ‘under the sun’; and the conviction that there is a ‘God in heaven’ (5:2).
‘Under the sun’ signals that Solomon with all his resources is observing, experimenting, and experiencing life as it is now. His experimenting happens in time and space on earth and in human society: Solomon observes both natural and human phenomena. However, for the purposes of analysis, life under the sun is observed with God temporarily removed from the equation: We might call this ‘methodological naturalism’. However, the phrase “under heaven”, used 3 times (1:13; 2:3; 3:1), brings back an awareness that God is in heaven.
I like to spoil endings: I like to read the last chapter of a book; to watch movies where I know the ending; to know the outcome of a rugby league match before I watch it—so I don’t waste emotional energy on a lost cause. The ending of Ecclesiastes returns us to God’s instruction, and obedience to receive meaning in the midst of vapour. The voice over man says:
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. wFear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.3 14 For xGod will bring every deed into judgment, with4 every secret thing, whether good or evil. (NIV)
As we go, Solomon will remind us about the final judgement. Even though most of the time, he gives us an “under the sun” perspective, sometimes Solomon pops up the periscope and reminds us of the heavenly, eternal perspective: God will call the past to account in chapter 3 (3:15), and bring everyone into judgement in chapter 11 (11:9), both the righteous and the wicked (3:17).
The very existence of the book of Ecclesiastes is an indication of Solomon’s repentance, of his return to the Yahweh after his apostasy.
In chapters 1 to 3, Solomon gives us two poems, which convey basic realities about life. The first is in chapter 1 verses 4-7. The second is in chapter 3 verses 1 to 8.
The First Poem: Endless Cycles (1:4–7)
Solomon describes generations coming and going. The sun rises and sets. The wind blows in circuits. Streams run into the sea, yet the sea is never full. Nature repeats itself and humanity does the same. One generation replaces another, and soon all are forgotten under the sun.
All this is true. We imagine our lives leave deep marks on history in our world, but under the sun even the great and powerful only leave footprints in sand washed away overnight. The reality is that our great grandchildren probably won’t even know our names. From this perspective, there is no ultimate advance — only repetition.
Paul makes a similar observation about our fallen world, but adds the factor of God in heaven, in Romans 8:20-21: 20 For the creation pwas subjected to futility, not willingly, but qbecause of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption.
The Second Poem: A Time for Everything (3:1–8)
The second poem, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, was put to music by 60s rock band, “The Byrds”, with their jingle jangle 12 string guitars. It describes how life under the sun actually is: there will be a time for everything, whether it is good or bad. Some things we like and welcome: others we prefer to avoid. For every good thing that we hope for and accept with joy there is a bad thing that we dread and fear. Yet both the good and the bad come to us in their own time from God.
God sends both prosperity and adversity. We must reckon with our experiences of grief, loss, and death, as much as our joys. We must learn from every season—both the painful and the joyous—and trust the sovereign God who sends them.
At the end of his life, Solomon has come to understand the great and ultimate human problem: human work under the sun is necessary and painful, and death renders all that we work for elusive vapour. Death is the great event that renders all our pursuits a vapour. Death says, ‘Why are you wasting your time with that stuff?'
To state the bleedingly obvious, we all die. To quote both the 70s rock band Kansas and the important 80s teen movie, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, we are “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind”. Or as Bill and Ted expounded it to Socrates, ‘Dust’, ‘Wind’, ‘Dude’.
To quote Paul Kelly: “You might have a happy family, nice house fine car. You might be successful in real estate, even be a football star. You might have a prime-time TV show, seen in every home and bar, but you can’t take it with you.”
Chapter 2 verse 16:
For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!
Or chapter 3 verse 20:
“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return”.
God in Genesis 3 decreed painful toil for the man and pain in childbirth for the woman, crowned for both with the punishment of death. The wages of sin is death: thereafter, we must toil to exist: it is both necessary and painful, and its joys and fruits are ephemeral.
Solomon gave himself to work in this world. He produced great building and other tangible projects. He sought to build his household through his harem. He found temporary joy in these pursuits (2:10). But after the fleeting joy goes away, he experiences vexation. Chapter 2 verses 17 and 18
17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless (vaprous), a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.
Solomon must leave everything for which he has toiled to others. They didn’t work for it, but they get it. And they might be foolish, and waste it (2:18-22). Just like you cannot hold onto wind, so you cannot hold onto our labour and its fruits under the sun.
But at the end of his life, what can Solomon do about his wasted life and work? Like a victim of a bushfire or a flood, he is left scraping around in the dust and mud to salvage something from this disaster. He now seeks some mitigation of his despair. He looks for something good to hang on to under the sun.
The mitigation and provisional solution Solomon returns to is this: A man might enjoy his toil and its fruits in the present.
Chapter 3 verse 22: 22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot (3:22).
Solomon’s mitigation of the disaster is this: be present, be in the moment, practice mindfulness. Enjoy the work that you are doing, building your household. Enjoy the process even if you can’t keep the end result. Take joy in the journey, even if the destination leaves you cold.
What he has come to is something of a first-world solution. We might look at it as, “Seek job satisfaction”, even if the result doesn’t remain. But this provisional solution doesn’t last long at all, as we will see in chapters 4 to 6. In chapters 4-6, Solomon submits his own thesis—enjoy the moment—to various tests, which end up poking holes in the mitigation that he has found.
But we see in chapters 1 to 3 that Solomon does not consistently maintain his ‘methodological naturalism’. Sometimes he ups periscope to peer into the heavenly world, which he knows is there, and to consider how the fact that God is in heaven affects and influences his thesis.
We see this in 3:11:
He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
We as humans have what the animals do not have. We have the privilege and curse of wanting to live forever. Made in the image of God, every human longs to reach beyond what we have in this mortal life. We long for eternity. This life is not enough.
Albert Camus said, “life is a sustained protest against death”. The eternity in our hearts drives us to want more than the concessions of enjoying the moment and living in the present. Augustine famously said: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” (Augustine, Confessions, 1.1). Our souls are restless until they find rest in God, who placed eternity in our hearts. C.S. Lewis said that: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” (Mere Christianity, Reprint New York: HarperColins, 2001, 136-7).
The teacher has some confidence in God and his purposes. He sees that in the midst of his life under the sun, the knowledge of God and his purposes is like a shaft of light probing the darkness. However, the teacher is unclear on the details. Chapter 3 verse 14:
4 I know that everything God does will endure for ever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. (NIV)
Our hope in this ephemeral life lies in the purposes of God. Unlike what Solomon has built, everything that God does will last into eternity. Solomon always knew, despite his sinful experimentation, that the answer was to be found in the fear of God. Now, after he has wasted his life, he seems to return to what he always know.
Death is not the end, but resurrection from the dead is our end. What the Old Testament promised, Jesus Christ has brought into the present: the resurrection of dead humanity, to receive a new resurrection body. Jesus himself is the prototype, the proof of concept, of human resurrection. Our work here on earth is not meaningless, because of the great day of judgment and the resurrection of the dead renders it eternally meaningful. So in 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul concludes.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58 NIV)
Our lives are not meaningless and futile, though they are vapour. And though our work is vapour under the sun, our work is not from God’s perspective. The answer lies not under the sun, but above it, in heaven, with God. We can only find our ultimate satisfaction, purpose, and lasting joy in God in his renewed heaven and earth.
Solomon threw himself into every possible experience and pleasure to see what was worth doing under the sun. He became the yardstick for human splendour for later generations (6:29). He set his heart on the ephemeral riches of this world and toiled with some success to amass them (e.g. Eccles 2:18-20). But one greater than Solomon has come and told us the folly of setting one’s heart on this world’s riches. Riches in this present age are “uncertain” (1 Tim 6:17). Solomon made the mistake of investing in earthly riches. It didn’t satisfy, even when he succeeded. Jesus, the wise man greater than Solomon (Matt 12:42), sharpens the warning and provides the way to avoid Solomon’s disaster: as of first priority, we mut seek first the kingdom of our Heavenly Father (6:33). We must use our God given abilities, resources, and wisdom to further Christ’s eternal kingdom and pursue the righteousness Jesus Christ holds out to us. Jesus says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (6:25 ). Our heavenly Father is able and willing to give us what we need to pursue God’s kingdom and righteousness, so we can give ourselves fully to it. “Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Let’s pray.