Reflections on Ecclesiastes 1

Ecclesiastes 01 (Contemporary English Version)


1. When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, and he said:
   
2. Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense. I have seen it all-- nothing makes sense!
   
3. What is there to show for all of our hard work here on this earth?
   
4. People come, and people go, but still the world never changes.
   
5. The sun comes up, the sun goes down; it hurries right back to where it started from.
   
6. The wind blows south, the wind blows north; round and round it blows over and over again.
   
7. All rivers empty into the sea, but it never spills over; one by one the rivers return to their source.
   
8. All of life is far more boring than words could ever say. Our eyes and our ears are never satisfied with what we see and hear.
   
9. Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun.
   
10. Someone might say, "Here is something new!" But it happened before, long before we were born.
    
11. No one who lived in the past is remembered anymore, and everyone yet to be born will be forgotten too.
    
12. I said these things when I lived in Jerusalem as king of Israel.
    
13. With all my wisdom I tried to understand everything that happens here on earth. And God has made this so hard for us humans to do.
    
14. I have seen it all, and everything is just as senseless as chasing the wind.
    
15. If something is crooked, it can't be made straight; if something isn't there, it can't be counted.
    
16. I said to myself, "You are by far the wisest person who has ever lived in Jerusalem. You are eager to learn, and you have learned a lot."
    
17. Then I decided to find out all I could about wisdom and foolishness. Soon I realized that this too was as senseless as chasing the wind.
    
18. The more you know, the more you hurt; the more you understand, the more you suffer.
    

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Ecclesiastes has the same writer as does Proverbs - King Solomon, son of David. But the message of the book would seem to say otherwise. Whereas in Proverbs Solomon told his son to get wisdom at any price, on the surface, at least, it seems that he gives a different message in this book. In verses 17-18 he says, "I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly; I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind. For with much wisdom is much sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases." So how are we to understand this book and its message? A key phrase that is repeated 29 times throughout the book is "under the sun." For instance, he says in verse 9, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun." As the message of the book will bear out, the futility to which Solomon refers is not total, but only 'under the sun'. In other words, apart from God, all is futile. Even the pursuit of wisdom apart from God is futile and only increases grief.

Who has not felt some of the futility of which he speaks? A generation goes and a generation comes, the sun rises and then it sets, the streams all flow to the sea but it never becomes full, all things are wearisome, and we are never satisfied by all we see or hear. We get up every day, go to our jobs, return home, have another nights sleep and then do it all again. Everything just keeps going around and around and on and on like a merry-go-round and we want to get off because of the seeming endlessness and futility of it all. This is the futility of life apart from God. But with God we find hope and meaning and purpose. The futility dissipates and life becomes fulfilling. We can face each day with enthusiasm and anticipation. But the writer of Ecclesiastes is not there yet by the end of this first chapter.