PM Home Bible Study Group; February 10, 2010
Ecclesiastes 6:1-12
Theme: Solomon sums up his examination of life “under the sun” by showing the vanity of the very life people seek to make for themselves apart from God.
This evening’s passage marks the closing of Solomon’s “experimental” section of his book; and the end of his formal exploration for meaning “under the sun” (see 1:12-6:12). He has left no stone unturned in his search. And now, what follows after this will be short statements of wisdom for living in the light of what he has found.
And as painful as some of the previous observations may have been, this final one is, by far, the most painful of all. It touches on the vanity—without God—of the life that people think to be most valuable and fulfilling. The key phrase is the one found in the last verse: “For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?” (6:12). Solomon, in these brutally searching words, makes the reader face—head-on—the vanity of the life that men pursue apart from God; and leaves the reader desperate for a meaning and purpose that can come only from a source above this temporal realm of life.
He asks . . .
I. WHAT GOOD IS PROSPERITY WITHOUT ENJOYMENT? (vv. 1-2).
A. Solomon begins with “an evil which I have seen under the sun . . .” (v. 1). In giving us the narrow perspective of the “under the sun” view—that is, from a strictly secularized standpoint—he establishes what he is about to describe as “an evil”. It’s something that demonstrates how out-of-kilter life is; how it is unlike what we know, in our inward being, that things should be like. He posits a tragedy—something that, apparently, he has personally witnessed; and that is not a rare occurrence, because “it is common among men” (v. 1). He speaks of “a man whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing for himself of all he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it . . .” (v. 2). (Some scholars make the observation that this most likely implies a premature death; because the next few verses contrast this story with another about a man who lives a remarkably long life.)
B. What a tragedy this ‘tragedy’ is! And yet, we can think of many examples of it—someone who is given all that anyone could ever want from this life, and yet suddenly cut off from life and denied the ability to enjoy it. It may not even be through the sudden loss of life though. There have been many wealthy men who filled their table with a rich man’s fare; but who didn’t have the health or strength of stomach to enjoy it. It’s as if it all sits there and mocks him. Or, perhaps Solomon had often witnessed a king of a foreign land spending his life building his empire—only to be conquered by an enemy who seizes it all greedily from his hand. As Solomon adds, “a foreigner [or “an alien”] consumes it” (v. 2). It fills the belly and gratifies the lusts of someone to whom it doesn’t belong! What good are all the riches and wealth and honor of this life if there is no ability or opportunity to enjoy it? If that’s all that there is to life, then—as Solomon affirms—”This is vanity, and it is an evil affliction [or “disease”]” (v. 2).
C. This, of course, speaks to the vanity of chasing after worldly prosperity in a world where the ability to enjoy any of it is anything but secure. “Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so, Lord, when You awake, You shall despise their image” (Psalm 73:18-20). Those who seek to do so are like the rich man in Jesus’ parable; who pulled down his barns to build bigger ones in order to store his accumulated wealth. He said to his soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19). But in the end, the man could do none of those things, because God said to Him, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” (v. 20). Jesus adds, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (v. 21). What utter vanity!
II. WHAT GOOD IS A LONG LIFE WITHOUT SATISFACTION? (vv. 3-6).
A. Next, Solomon posits another kind of tragedy—a man who, quite the opposite from the above case, lives a long and seemingly prosperous life. He has all that he could want; and may even have tasted something of the rich prosperity that Solomon tasted. He is a man who “begets a hundred children” (v. 3; a sure sign in the East of rich blessedness; see Genesis 25:1-6; Judges 8:30; 2 Chronicles 11:21), “and lives many years, so that his the days of his years are many” (v. 3; another sure sign of blessedness; see Genesis 15:15; 27:7-8). But tragically, his “soul is not satisfied with goodness . . .” (v. 3). He tastes of that which this world considers blessed in a long life; and yet is not fulfilled by what he tastes. What an unspeakable tragedy! Solomon even posits that the man doesn’t even have a burial (v. 3)—which may suggest that the many children he bore held no real love for the old man; and was glad, when he was finally gone, that they could take possession of what he held on to.
B. Solomon says—in rather shocking terms—that if this life under the sun is all that there is, then “a stillborn child is better than he” (v. 3). Such a child, as Solomon says, “comes in vanity and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness” (v. 4). The stillborn has lost nothing that the long-lived man could keep; and he avoids the pain of the awareness of the pointlessness that the long-lived man suffers over many dreary and wasted years. The stillborn gains nothing; but he loses nothing. And in the end, he knows nothing of it.
C. What’s more, the long-lived man gains no advantage in the end. In fact, he never gets the one thing that the stillborn has. “Though [the stillborn child] has not seen the sun or known anything, this has more rest than that man” (v. 5). It doesn’t make any difference, under the sun, if the long-lived man lives exceptionally long—even astonishingly long! The longest-living man in human history was Methuselah, who lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27). And if we were to extend that and double it, so that we could say with Solomon, “even if he lives a thousand years twice” (v. 6), the long-lived man still gains no advantage over the child who dies with ‘rest’ in his mother’s womb “under the sun”; because as Solomon asks, “Do not all go to one place?” (v. 6l; see also Ecclesiastes 3:18-21). What vanity it is if you gain nothing through a long life over one who never even gets to live to see the sun at all! Even more, what a grievous disadvantage it is to have lived! Wouldn’t the realization of it all rob a man of what little satisfaction he could draw from the vanity under the sun?
III. WHAT GOOD IS PRUDENCE WITHOUT FULFILLMENT? (vv. 7-9).
A. Solomon scarcely lets us catch our breath before he strikes us with another blow. Perhaps a man could have heard Solomon speak of the value of one’s labor (see 5:18-20) and think that, at least, I can have value in the work of my hands. And yet, he points out that “All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not satisfied” (v. 7). The body is fed to keep on working; but the soul is left hungry—perhaps to leave the man only feeling more and more like a cog in a machine or a rat on a wheel. Fulfillment, where it is most needed, is never achieved; and the next day, the man wakes up hungry again (see 4:6-8).
B. The prudent man can’t help thinking about it. But what good does thinking do? Can anyone solve the puzzle and find the meaning and purpose of it all? Does it make his work-load any lighter to think about it? Do philosophers get special discounts in the grocery line? “What more has the wise man than the fool?” he asks (v. 8). Does the fool who does nothing, or who does foolishly with what he has, end up a richer ‘corpse’ than the wise? Or even more, suppose someone lives wisely with what he has—meager as it may be. Suppose he budgets himself well, and keeps and preserves the little he has for a rainy day. Does he, in the end, gain anything over the wasteful fool “under the sun”? “What does the poor man have, who knows how to walk before the living?” (v. 8). How is that satisfying to the soul?
C. Perhaps, someone may conclude, it’s best to just be content with what we have—and to give up imagining a better life for one’s self. Do you have food? Eat it. Do you have a roof over your head? Be warm under it. Do you have a few things to make life easier? Use them. Don’t try to grasp after the imaginary “good life”. Just accept that thing are what they are. “Better”, Solomon says, “is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire” (v. 9). Better to lay one’s hands on what one sees than to let them hang empty at one’s side while longing for what one doesn’t have. But even this is a dead-end street; because even what one can lay their hands on must, in the end, be left behind. “This also is vanity and grasping after wind” (v. 8).
IV. WHAT GOOD IS EXISTANCE WITHOUT PURPOSE? (vv. 10-12).
A. Solomon concludes that, from a strictly “under the sun” view—when all the implications are played-out—it all leaves a man in spiritually unbearable pain and emptiness. And yet, if he simply resorts to blind fatalism, the pain still isn’t eased. “Whatever one is,” he may say, “he has been named already . . .” (v. 10). Whatever will be will be; and who can do anything about it? “For it is known that he is man; and he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he” (v. 10). Can the clay get into an argument with the potter—and even hope to win?
B. And suppose that he could, in the power of his reasoning, arrive at a sense of purpose to it all? Many have attempted to do so. In fact, whole systems of philosophy have been built around the existential stand; in which a man simply chooses his own path and declares life to have the meaning he chooses for it to have. And yet, this too is a silly effort to pull one’s own self up by one’s own bootstraps. “Since there are so many things that increase vanity, how is man the better? For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?” (vv. 11-12). Even if we think we can do this—and dare to imagine ourselves to be god-like in such a way way—we still aren’t God. Things that we seek to award meaning to are still outside of our control. “Who can tell a man what happened after him under the sun?” (v. 12).
* * * * * * * * * *
God lets us know in his word that which man seems so very resistant to accept—that our days of life are numbered, and that the number of those days is known only to Him. As Psalm 90:9-12 says, “For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” And yet, tragically, so few people apply their few days to the pursuit of true wisdom. Man’s days are a mere shadow (Psalm 102:11), and are as temporary as the grass that withers and the flower that fades (Psalm 103:15-16). He is like a mere breath (Psalm 144:4), and his life vanishes as easily as a vapor (James 4:14). And yet, rather than redeeming the times (Ephesians 5:16), he squanders his days on earth in the mad chase after that which is destined for destruction in the long-term (2 Peter 3;10), and that easily slips from his grasp in the short-term (Proverbs 27:24).
As our Lord Himself has asked, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Oh how much we need to repent of the narrow view “under the sun”, and give Him His proper place over our lives! Only then does life cease to be “vanity”!