Ecclesiastes - Chapter 1
A sweeping conclusion (1-2):
Throughout the 12 chapters, Solomon (the preacher) argues one main point. It is very difficult for us as human beings to gain a grasp of life that will take us beyond anything that is futile. This is the meaning of the beginning verses of our book:
“Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher,
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”
Everything is so puzzling that it looks empty or hollow. Life is not what it seems, and not what we want it to be.
A guiding question (3):
Is there profit in work?
What profit comes from a man's labor? This word “profit” will be used 10 times in the book, and is to be found nowhere else in the Old Testament. Its use here is more general than simply the financial margin realized after costs are paid. It is used by Solomon to be more extensive. He uses the term to guide us toward the larger question as to whether there is contentment or satisfaction within us after we spend our lives working.
Life is hard. The pressing question is whether the harshness of human existence has an adequate payoff for us in the long run. The initial use here of the phrase “under the sun” is an ancient description of life as it is carved out in this world. In the entire Old Testament, only Solomon uses the phrase. It reinforces the sense of the unchanging nature of life. God in heaven does His will and we cannot change it and are many times at a loss to know what it is.
The tone of the book is set. We begin with the dual thought of our human inability to understand life's mysteries and our inability to change these life realities.
Work does not make the ultimate difference in life. We do not fully subdue the earth, no matter how hard we try. The effort wears us down, generation after generation. The preacher wonders and worries about work's value. Much of what we do is routine and may be a monotony which seems never to end. Yet we must go on working.
The constancy of creation (4-11):
The preacher takes a sweeping look at the natural world in which human life exists. In the world we have symbols of constant things, the sun, the wind, the streams. Their course is set and their path is determined and their pace is fixed.
Our meaning is blunt and simple. You will not be able to make significant change in the course of life because creation itself is stamped with a pattern that allows little, if any at all, human alteration.
The picture of creation's stability is full. It embraces the four essential elements of earth, sun, wind, and water. It ranges to all points on the compass, the east west move of the sun, the south to north course of the wind (normal in the Holy Land). The rivers flow forward and dump their waters into the sea and next year have the same supply to carry outward again.
The human response is given in three points:
Man cannot truly describe it in words.
Eye cannot see it clearly enough to be satisfied.
Ear cannot ever be filled with hearing about it.
Once more, the “labor” of trying to grasp the meaning of these life matters is vanity (remains a mystery). It is an unending task, fully beyond human understanding.
These verses end with a strong denial in 9-11. Nothing new happens in life, in creation or in personal history to break the pattern. This denial is based upon two arguments:
There is nothing new under the sun.
There is no remembrance of former things.
Any notion of novelty or newness is an illusion, based upon limited perception or faulty memory.
It is here that we begin to see the error of the thoughts of the preacher but we must remember he lived and wrote almost 1,000 years before Jesus came to earth. So the thoughts he wrote are far before the teachings of our Lord, but ARE significantly different. There may be nothing new under the sun in this world according to the preacher, but we as followers of Jesus are born again into new life through the Holy Spirit and our new life is filled with new things:
A new name (Isaiah 62:2 & Revelation 2:17)
A new community (Ephesians 2:14)
A new help from angels (Psalm 91:11)
A new commandment (John 13:34)
A new covenant (Jeremiah 31:33 & Matthew 26:28)
A new and living way to heaven (Hebrews 10:20)
A new purity (1st Cor 5:7)
A new nature (Ephesians 4:24)
A new creation in Jesus Christ (2nd Cor 5:17)
All things become new (2nd Cor 5:17 & Revelation 21:5)
Seeking wisdom (12-15):
The preacher begins to teach that wisdom was not the solution to all human problems. He has searched for wisdom in a deliberate way, setting his heart upon it, with intense focus. The search was thorough and was wide ranging (all that is done under heaven). Solomon found the wisdom he was searching for, but then found that the search did not answer all his questions as upon finding it, discovered it was insubstantial, undependable, and finally was futile. He tells us that wisdom cannot change reality.
Wisdom may finger the problem but it cannot straighten out what is crooked.
Attaining greatness (16-18):
Here is a self description which adds more to the search. He advises that he has attained greatness and gained more wisdom than any who have come before him in Jerusalem. His heart has found both wisdom and knowledge. But he has found that wisdom, once found, can increase sorrow. So he says that this answer leads him to know that wisdom's value is in doubt.
As doubtful as the preacher has become, he does not suggest it may be better to be ignorant or foolish. He has discovered through his search what wisdom cannot do. He sees the value of the wisdom he sought as slight or even futile.
Again, we must look forward to Jesus to gain the best understanding we need for our hearts. In Matthew 12:42 Jesus teaches us that while even the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon to seek out his great wisdom, that one greater than Solomon was now here and through His wisdom we move beyond futile wisdom to divine wisdom which has been given to us not from under this sun (our natural world) but given from the divine Son from above. This divine wisdom does indeed change reality.