The Strand Study Bible

ECCLESIASTES ECCLESIASTES to “live to labor” (Gen 2:4-8 and II Thess 3:6-12), He warned us not to “labor to live” (not to get too caught up in toiling over the temporal - Lk 12:13-34 and I Tim 6:6-10). We are to work to live, not live better. Working to live better may be what the world emphasizes, but it is not what God emphasizes. 1:1 If Solomon was a preacher , then Ecclesiastes was his sermon. Matthew Henry in Matthew Henry’s Commentary called the book of Ecclesiastes: …a recantation-sermon, in which the preacher sadly laments his own folly and mistake. 1 King Solomon, speaking in the first person, offered his readers solid advice about how to cope with the apparent “meaninglessness” of life. Despite his privileged position as a wise and wealthy king, Solomon failed to truly enjoy his life. He therefore presented to his readers a sermon called Seven Steps to Better Living ( Eccl 2:24 & 3:12 & 4:6 & 4:8-11 & 4:12 & 7:8a – 10 & 9:4 ), instructing them how to enjoy life despite the apparent “meaninglessness” of it. Solomon’s sermon title: ‘ Tis better to learn from my mistakes than to make them all yourself ’ 1:2 Ecclesiastes is a “look at a life” after it’s already been lived… a “look at a life” not lived for God. Thus you could rightly say about the book of Ecclesiastes that it is a book of regret… regret for not having lived for God ( all is vanity ). NOTE – This word ( vanity ) means “ that which soon vanishes away, like a vapor or wind ”. Solomon admitted that the pursuit of life under the sun (here on earth) is meaningless, that is, it is like “ chasing the wind; chasing that which is futile or worthless ; chasing that which is of no value or profit ” (Jms 4:14 and II Cor 4:17,18 ). According to Solomon, man, like the elements around him, seemed to be perpetually toiling (vs 4-11). Yet for all his labor there appears to remain no abiding results (Eccl 2:17-22 & 3:9 & 5:13-17). Although Solomon warned us, “all is vanity” (vs 2), yet multitudes will refuse to heed his warning, thus conducting the same dangerous experiment, and it prove fatal to them all. 1:3 This expression ( under the sun ) is a term Solomon used to describe the “observable.” It is found 29 times within Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is occupied with the “observable” things man does apart from God. It was written for the sole purpose of showing mankind that every effort to be happy in possessing the earth ends in nothing, and that life is meaningless apart from God. 1:4 For six thousand years man has done nothing but experience the ceaseless cycles of nature, which illustrate the futility of life. And while the earth continues to go round and round, man, for whom this earth was made, passes quietly into eternity with very little notice. 1:6 One of the most stunning evidences for theistic psychology is the inspiration of Scripture and the great number of scientific truths that have lain buried within its pages, only to be discovered by man within the last few centuries or even years. Take for example Solomon’s statement “ according to his circuits .” Up until satellite imaging fifty years ago, no one was able to prove that the wind “ whirleth about continually... according to his circuits .” Yet Solomon penned the facts almost 3000 years before it was proven ( Job 38:4 ). 1:7 Again, there was no way of knowing 3000 years ago that “ all the rivers run into the sea .” Nor was there any way of knowing that the clouds got her rain through evaporation and precipitation of the seas and the oceans (Job 36:27-29 and Amos 9:6). Interestingly enough, the rivers of the world pour into the oceans at 186,240 cubic miles of water per year. If the amount of water that flows into our oceans from our rivers flowed all at once, it would cover the entire earth to a depth of three feet. Aren’t you glad God controls the firmament above and the oceans below through the process of evaporation and precipitation ( Gen 1:6 a,b )? 1:9 Take the Darwinian theory of evolution (the theoretical idea that living things have originated gradually as a result of the interplay of chance and selection), which so profoundly reshaped the way twentieth century men viewed themselves, God and their place in the universe, for an example. The theory is not new. Its theoretical roots can be traced as far back as the Greek poet Homer (c. 700 BC) who, though blind, taught through his poems that man was considered a mixture of both water and earth (solid and fluid elements). It is not surprising then that within one hundred years after Homer influenced the Grecian people with his theoretical evolutionary philosophy that the father of atheism, Thales of Miletus (c. 600 BC), arose to saturate Grecian thinking with his Ionian science of nature. Together these two men (Homer and Thales), along with their educated guesses, influenced the father of evolution, Anaximander of Miletus (c. 550 BC), who taught that life was possibly generated by material process from sea slime (pre-biotic soup). Then, one hundred years later, Empedocles (c. 450 BC), yet another natural philosopher from Greece, wrote his selectionist theory for the design of organisms. Atheistic evolution, spawned by men who expressed the theoretical proposition that life in all its diverse manifestations is not the creation of the gods (the gods had been declared unnecessary by the Grecian philosophers by c. 500 BC) but a purely natural phenomenon, reached its most perfect expression in the philosophies of the so-called Atomists such as Democritus and Epicurus (341-270 BC). All of which preceded Charles Darwin by some two thousand years. Alas, there is no new thing under the sun . The human experience is nothing more than... been there, done that. Ecclesiastes 1:12 Subject Head There is a stark contrast between “ living to learn ” and “ learning to live .” Whereas God urges us to “learn to live” (Rom 12:1-2), He warns us not to “live to learn” (not to get too caught up in intellectualism, which leads to intellectual obesity). We are to learn to live, not live to learn. Higher education may be what the world emphasizes, but it is not what God emphasizes. Remember, God used “ unlearned and ignorant men ” to change the world ( Acts 4:13b ), not learned and arrogant men ( I Cor 1:27-28 ). 1:13 Solomon called seeking and searching out the answer to all things “ sore travail .” For example, have you ever considered the “toil” it took for humanistic evolutionists to come up with the theory of evolution? According to these very hard working individuals, everything started 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. According to them: A bundle of energy , smaller than an atom, suddenly erupted, sending hydrogen atoms throughout the universe. Thus, within a fraction of a second the Big Bang created all the energy that has since existed. 1005