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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King Solomon, son of King David, is thought to be the writer of Ecclesiastes. God gave Solomon great wisdom, and with his heightened insight he recognized that in whatever man pursues there is a futility to it. This futility is based largely on the transitory nature of life. Generations come and go as does the accomplishments of each generation. He asks the question, "What does a man gain for all his efforts he labors at under the sun?" (1:3)

Literally, gain refers to what is left over. So the question is, in what way is man further ahead in whatever he does? Solomon's implied answer to this question of gain is none. After all man's effort, at the end of his life he is really no further ahead. Most of his accomplishments will not carry over to the next generation and will soon be forgotten. Even with Solomon's great wisdom he concluded that "this too is a pursuit of the wind." He seemed to doubt that he was actually better off with his wisdom because "with much wisdom is much sorrow." (1:18)

No experience is completely satisfying. There is always the desire for more. All things are wearisome. Nor is there anything that is really new, for it has all existed before. Man can apply his mind to the human condition, but in the end, "What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted." (1:15)
So is Solomon a pessimist or simply a realist? Let's stick with him a bit more to fully see where he is going with all this.