Politics brings no lasting change. Oftentimes it is nothing more than a debacle of the fickle. It challenges our joy if our joy is in human kings. It appears to challenge God’s beauty if we are expecting any son of Adam other than Jesus Christ to bring hope and change. We need to guard our hearts against these realities that threaten the enjoyment of the gift of this short life. They may be dark hues in His masterpiece, but the truth is that none of these challenges put a dent in God’s beautiful plan. – Brian Borgman

Ecclesiastes 4:4-16

Envy (4:4-6) – Labor is a gift, but it becomes an idol if it is fueled by envy. The man Qoheleth has in view is skilled and works hard, but he works hard just to get on top. He is simply driven to be better and have more than his neighbor. This man sees what Jones has, wants it, and wants more. This is more than merely “keeping up with the Jones.” This is a matter of trying to leave the Joneses in the dust, choking on their fumes. But it is a vapor and trying to shepherd the wind.

But, how much enjoyment can one have making sure that all one’s competitors are beaten back down the hill of success? What is the point of being on the top bunk in a death row cell anyway?

Some might say, “You are right! No reason getting devoured in a dog-eat-dog world. I am not going to be greedy; I am going to relax and play video games!” Qoheleth says that is the response of a fool. Idleness is not the answer because it is folly and self-destructive. As we learn in Proverbs, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man” (Prov. 6:10–11).

Excessive toil may be foolish and counterproductive, but we are fools if we fold our hands, wait for a government check, and starve to death.  Qoheleth reminds us that neither the sluggard nor the envy-driven workaholic is a model for anyone. The way of wisdom is found in Ecclesiastes 4:6. Do not be consumed with envy and rivalry and work your life away because you want to be richer and better than your neighbor. But don’t sit at home and play Candy Crush all day either, boasting how non-materialistic you are. The way to really live this life which God has given you is to balance your toil with rest. Take a day off. Remember the Sabbath. Rest and relaxation are vital for enjoying the gift of life which is filled with so much labor.

“To have a heart that we can trust, and into which we can pour our griefs, our doubts, and our fears, is already to take the edge from the grief, and the sting from doubt, and the shade from fear.… Joy also demands that its joy should be shared.… A simple generous friendship will thus add to the joy and will divide the sorrow.”  – Hugh Black

Loneliness (4:7-12)  The next portrait in Qoheleth’s gallery of “challenges to enjoying the gift” is the guy who is married to his work (4:7–8). Qoheleth says he sees another vapor under the sun and that is the person who has no dependents. Perhaps this man has no spouse, certainly no son or brother. He is alone. And yet he works himself to death. There is no end to his toil. He is never satisfied with money, and he has never asked the right question, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” How much misery could be averted if only we asked ourselves the right question? Even though there was no one with whom to share his life, this lonely person devoted himself to endless labor. A lonely life is a sad life, no matter how much money a person has.

Doug Wilson observes, “A man works hard to make a pile and doesn’t stop to ask a very basic question—why am I doing this? He can’t afford to marry or have children, because they would take him away from his work. He cannot afford to have friends because all their motives would be suspect. He could buy dinner for everyone in the restaurant, but no one wants to sit with him. That’s all right, because he doesn’t want to sit with them either.” In the end, marriage to one’s work is a miserable marriage, and toil makes a lousy spouse.

The Blessing of Companionship (4:9–12) Companionship is also the gift of God, and it makes life and labor sweeter. Unless the benefits of hard work are shared with someone you love, toil has no gain. When kept within the perspectives of hebel, blessings shared become blessings doubled.

This famous passage, appropriately read at weddings, is a picture of the comfort and strength of companionship in a harsh world. There is safety in companionship. There is better profit in companionship. There is warmth in companionship. A third cord is even better. The third cord is often thought to be another person, even the Lord Himself. It is noteworthy that Qoheleth does not label companionship as hebel. Friendship is invaluable. It is the antidote to the lonely life of the workaholic.

Hugh Black summarizes the blessings of friendship, “To have a heart that we can trust, and into which we can pour our griefs, our doubts, and our fears, is already to take the edge from the grief, and the sting from doubt, and the shade from fear.… Joy also demands that its joy should be shared.… A simple generous friendship will thus add to the joy and will divide the sorrow.”

Politics (4:13–16) The final challenge to enjoying the gift and to God making all things beautiful is politics. Some might think if we could get the right king, the right president, the right congress, the right parliament, then all would be well. But politics are a vapor too. With the vaporous nature of politics comes frustration with politics. Qoheleth, who knew politics, admits that one kind of politician is better than another. The poor man comes from the people and knows the plight of the people. He is a common man, but he is also a wise man.

The old foolish king doesn’t listen to anybody, won’t receive counsel, and assumes the “riff raff” doesn’t know anything. The poor wise man is a real success story…..He has humble origins but ascends to the throne. His approval ratings are through the roof. Everybody loves this guy. The phrase “no end to all the people, to all who were before them” could refer to the king’s popularity.

But the reality is that “today’s hero is tomorrow’s bum.” The sentiment that “happy days are here again” is a vapor. The reign of a good king is as temporary as a breath. It is true that some rulers are better than others.  We should want good, wise, righteous leaders. We should resist tyrants. But presidents come and presidents go. The “great hope” for the next election will have his disaffected followers in time. They will want a fresh face.

Politics brings no lasting change. Oftentimes it is nothing more than a debacle of the fickle. It challenges our joy if our joy is in human kings. It appears to challenge God’s beauty if we are expecting any son of Adam other than Jesus Christ to bring hope and change. We need to guard our hearts against these realities that threaten the enjoyment of the gift of this short life. They may be dark hues in His masterpiece, but the truth is that none of these challenges put a dent in God’s beautiful plan.

We should not ignore oppression or injustice. We should not tolerate envy, greed, or isolation. We should not be consumed in politics as if it were our only hope or only interest. Instead, we should receive rest and companionship as gifts from God’s gracious hand. With grateful hearts, we should look to Him alone. As David said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Ps. 20:7). –Brian Borgman

SOLI DEO GLORIA!

Recommended Resources:   “Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches us to Live in Light of the End” By David Gibson. ;    “Don’t Waste Your Breath: Ecclesiastes and the Joy of a Fleeting Life”  By Brian Borgman

…Although wisdom is better than folly, wisdom encounters a massive limitation: it cannot stop death. The wise man dies just like the fool. The end of hebel is death. Death is the sudden period at the end of the vapor. “Yes, it is better to be able to see where you are going (be wise) but don’t expect wisdom to save you from the fate common to all living things.” –Brian Borgman

Ecclesiastes 2:12-26 

Death Comes to Us All (2:12–17) The investigation continues. This section (2:12–16) resumes the discussion from 1:16–18. Qoheleth is going to “face” wisdom, madness, and folly. Why does Qoheleth include madness and folly? He is probably reminding us of the inclusive nature of his investigation; nothing was off the table. Qoheleth is not going to kick wisdom to the curb. He will not give up on wisdom.

“For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done” (2:12b)….In context this line states that there is little chance that humans will behave with greater wisdom than their first ancestor, Adam, who came directly from the hand of God.” Perhaps Qoheleth is suggesting that “nobody is going to come along and solve the mystery……Who can do more than he has done in exploring this mystery?” Solomon describes what he saw: “Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness” (2:13).

Qoheleth’s diagnosis: wisdom is the only way to get the advantage. He knows wisdom has its limitations, but at the end of the day, he refuses to give up on wisdom. “Limited it may be, but it is still indispensable.… As God’s gift it is light; as man’s possession it is sight.” Wisdom is not only light, but it is also sight. The wise person, says Solomon, “has his eyes in his head,” which is to say that he can see. The fool, on the other hand, “walks in darkness” (cf. Prov. 4:18–19; 22:3).  As Qoheleth turns to ponder, and maybe even reassess wisdom and folly, his conclusion is crystal clear: wisdom is better than folly just as sure as light is better than darkness and sight is better than blindness.

…Although wisdom is better than folly, wisdom encounters a massive limitation: it cannot stop death. The wise man dies just like the fool. The end of hebel is death. Death is the sudden period at the end of the vapor. “Yes, it is better to be able to see where you are going but don’t expect wisdom to save you from the fate common to all living things.” This is most troubling to our tour guide. He does not like where this journey has led.

Paraphrasing Qoheleth’s reflections in 2:16 on the inevitable sound like this: “If I die just like the fool who couldn’t care less, then why have I spent so much time being wise? As I reflected on this, it was vapor! The fool is vapor. His folly is vapor. The wise man is vapor. His wisdom is vapor. Both will die, both will be forgotten.”  After this sobering reflection, Qoheleth summarizes his investigation so far…. “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vapor and a striving after wind” (2:17).

There are a few observations about Solomon’s startling statement. “So I hated life!” ……But why are his feelings so strong?……The expression of hatred for this life is more a mark of piety than a mark of bitterness. If Qoheleth had not felt the deep pain of hebel, then the curse wouldn’t have been a curse. Qoheleth’s bubble burst, and the joy got sucked right out of his life. He looked at his toil, he looked at his wisdom, he thought he had grasped the reward, and it became hateful to him because in the end, it was simply a breath. Nothing lasts. In addition, the toil was grievous. Everything is still vapor, and all the efforts and attainments are a great vexation to the spirit because it is still an impossible task. The hunger for more, the hunger for permanence, and the hunger for significance and reward don’t just linger. They consume this brief blip on the screen we call life. The hunger is never satisfied. When we think it is, it is satisfying like Chinese food is filling. We just hunger again in half an hour. Qoheleth felt the pain of hebel deeply.

The conclusion is powerful: it is good for man to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, eating, drinking, and laboring under the sun. He should recognize that those simple pleasures are from the hand of God; they are indeed gifts from Him. “What spoils them is our hunger to get out of them more than what they can give.”…. ). If we live life, eating, drinking, and working, without recognizing that these are God’s gifts to us; if we live life and think these things are rewards to be earned rather than gifts to be enjoyed, then hebel will crush us with disappointment.

Life’s Like a Can of Peaches (2:18–23) For all who missed it the first time, Qoheleth shouts it again: “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun” (2:18).….. Qoheleth describes that reality from an adult perspective. Expectations are built up. Then once they come and go, disappointment sets in. The feeling of no satisfaction falls. Depression is the result. Is all the anticipation worth such a letdown?……To make matters worse, Qoheleth is also aware that everything he toiled for, everything he acquired will be left to someone who comes after him. There is the realization that his life will end, but life will continue, and he does not know what will come after him (2:12, 18; 3:22; 6:12; 7:14; 9:3; 10:14). All his attainments will go to someone. At this point Qoheleth is tormented by this great unknown. “Who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? He will have control over all that I toiled for.” This too is hebel (2:19). At this point, hebel is not just breath but the frustration that it brings.

Qoheleth is in deep despair about the fruit of his labor under the sun, knowing that his legacy will be left to one who did not earn it, will not appreciate it, and may even mismanage it”……All the grief, all the labor, all the sleepless nights, and then it is all gone. But there is hope in his last statement of verse 23. He says, “For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.”  Yes, there is hope and it is this: “Qohelet’s despair is also hebel. It does not endure forever.  Qohelet’s disappointment turns to acceptance when he learns to appreciate the ability God gives us to find enjoyment in our work.” In other words, the disappointment is a breath and in grasping that reality, he is empowered to see the joy of a fleeting life and all it entails……Wisdom has shed its light and brought him to a more solid perspective.

As the first leg of the ride comes to an end, Qoheleth tells us, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind” (2:24–26). This is far more spiritual than it sounds……The conclusion is powerful: it is good for man to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, eating, drinking, and laboring under the sun. He should recognize that those simple pleasures are from the hand of God; they are indeed gifts from Him. “What spoils them is our hunger to get out of them more than what they can give.”

“For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment” (2:25). If we live life, eating, drinking, and working, without recognizing that these are God’s gifts to us; if we live life and think these things are rewards to be earned rather than gifts to be enjoyed, then hebel will crush us with disappointment. “For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy” (2:26). The one who has received God’s favor, God gives the gift of not only wisdom and knowledge but also enjoyment. The capacity to enjoy the gifts of God is a gift from God, “but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God” (2:26). Doug Wilson makes a key observation: “The message here is twofold. God is the One who gives things, and God is the One who gives the power to enjoy things. These are distinct gifts … just as a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever. The believer is given both, which is simply another way of saying that he is given the capacity for enjoyment.”

This is the first corner of the puzzle. It is a powerful remedy for the despair caused by hebel. Life is a gift from God. Labor is a gift from God. Food and drink are gifts from God. Each gift is given to us to enjoy. Life is brief. It is a passing shadow; it is a fleeting moment. But it is a gift. The last line of the corner piece, “This also is vanity and a striving after wind” (2:26), reminds us that the enjoyment of these gifts is also a breath. Thus, the reality of briefly enjoying these gifts is not designed to bring another disappointment. It is designed to launch us into the relentless, vigorous pursuit of God in the enjoyment of these vaporous gifts. Don’t waste your breath!                     –Brian Borgman

We will either learn this lesson from Ecclesiastes, or else we will learn it from our own melancholy experience. Just ask Tom Brady, the star quarterback of football’s New England Patriots, who wanted to know, ‘Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, “Hey man, this is what is.” I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Men, I think, “It’s got to be more than this.” I mean this isn’t, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be.’ When the interviewer asked, ‘What’s the answer?’ Brady could only say, ‘I wish I knew. I wish I knew.’……….

Our unsatisfied longings are a spiritual clue that we were made to enjoy the pleasures of God. This world leaves us with what social critic Andrew Delbanco has described as an ‘unslaked craving for transcendence’. This is by design. If we were able to find lasting satisfaction in earthly pleasure then we would never see our need for God. But satisfaction does not come in the pleasures themselves; it is always sold separately. Our dissatisfaction should point us back to God—not away from Him, but toward Him.-Phil Ryken

Soli Deo Gloria!

Recommended Resources: 

“Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches us to Live in Light of the End” By David Gibson

“Don’t Waste Your Breath: Ecclesiastes and the Joy of a Fleeting Life” By Brian Borgman

Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:11 – The Hebel of Analysis & The Good Life

If we won’t live forever, or even long enough to make a lasting difference to the world, how then should we live? -David Gibson

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Qohelet’s idea that everything is a “breath” , a mist, a puff of wind, a vapor is a common Biblical idea we find in passages such as Psalm 39:5-6, 11, Psalms 144:3-4. Qohel’s portrayal of life is this: Everything is a breath. He will take the rest of the book to unpack what he means. Here are some ways to think about it:

Life is Short – The book of Ecclesiastes is a meditation on what it means for our lives to be like a whisper spoken in the wind: here one minute and carried away forever the next.

Life Is Elusive – But the smoke in front of your eyes is not just transient; it is also elusive…… Ecclesiastes is a meditation on how life seems to elude our grasp in terms of lasting significance. If we try to gain control of the world and our lives by what we can understand and by what we can do, we find that the control we seek eludes us……How much control do you really have over whether your job is secure, or how healthy you will be, or what will happen to interest rates and house prices, over whom you will meet and what you will be doing in ten years’ time?……. When we consider the brevity of our lives set against the millennia of the earth, we know that what the Preacher says is true. Except, of course, in everyday life we pretend it isn’t. We imagine we will live forever, or at the very least that someone else will get cancer, not us. We think our lives are built with granite, not sand. We pretend we’re in control….And so Ecclesiastes sets out to demolish our pretense by confronting us with reality.

Qoheleth then asks the programmatic question of the book, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (1:3).

This question in many ways shapes the book and is developed throughout. The question, “What does a man gain?” sets the agenda….

The question itself, “What advantage or benefit or profit does a man have in all his work?” is not a philosophical question, but rather it is a practical one. It is focused on the reality that in this vaporous life we labor and then ask, “will it last?”…….Why spend a life toiling away when it is so short and nothing we do appears to last?

Doesn’t the curse and the reality of hebel nullify any advantage in our labor? This life of labor under the sun seems like building sandcastles. We work, and work, and work. Then comes a wave! “How long do sandcastles last? And how much control do we have over the castle we have constructed?….While we are toiling, we feel like we are accomplishing something, that we are in control. But it is an illusion. The next wave proves it. Qoheleth wants that to lie heavy on us for a while. He won’t give an easy answer. He wants us to feel his pain. To twist the knife a little deeper, he gives us a poem about the cyclical nature of this world. Nature is teaching us something. – Brian Borman

“A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever” (Eccl. 1:4).

Life Is Repetitive – The Preacher pictures the momentary and elusive nature of human life with a beautiful rhythmic pattern to his poetry. Read Ecclesiastes 1:4–10 aloud and feel the lyrical tilt with its tidal ebb and flow. That’s the point. Everything either goes around and around, or comes and goes; it rises and sets; what has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; what is present will soon be past.

In verses 5–8 the Preacher focuses on a threefold pattern in the world that is matched by a threefold pattern in human experience. The activities of sun, wind, and water follow the same course as the activities of speaking, seeing, and hearing. The point is that the world itself doesn’t seem to go or get anywhere, for everything is cyclical rather than linear, so why should humans get anywhere?

The sun chases its tail. The wind goes to the south and comes back around again to the north. Streams flow into the sea, and the water evaporates, and then streams flow into the sea again and it is never full. So is the world, and so it will always be. So is humankind, and so we will always be……..

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. (1:9)

The Preacher’s perspective is this: humans long to come across something in their lives that will break the constant repetitive cycle, something to say or see or hear that will be truly new and therefore significant—​​​but there is nothing. No such thing exists……

A new government is still a government, and we’re all familiar with those…..A new baby is still a baby, and the world has always been full of them. Even landing on the moon is still a form of adventure and exploration that has been with us since humans have walked the earth… He doesn’t mean no “new” things are ever invented in the world, for clearly that is not true. He means there is nothing new we can ever discover to break the cycle and so satisfy us……

Prepare to Die – The Preacher has answered his own question by pointing to the cyclical comings and goings of the world. His answer is that people do not gain from their labor and toil because ultimately they are going to die and be forgotten. Life stretches ahead of the young employee with dreams of a fulfilling career and a happy family; but it will all come and go. She is going to die and will not be remembered….

In the book, the Preacher is not commenting on what life is like without Christ. He is not saying this repetitive roundabout is what life is like from a secularist perspective. This is not what the world feels like from the viewpoint of existential nihilism, or postmodern navel gazing. It’s just what the world is like. It’s reality. It’s the same for everyone, Christian or non-Christian, adherent or atheist: we each live under the sun…..

We do the same things over and over again in a world repeating itself over and over again, and then we die, only to be followed by our children who will do the same things in the same way and then meet the same end. Being a Christian doesn’t stop this being true. Rather, it should make us the first to stop pretending that it isn’t true. That is the Preacher’s aim……In these days, under the sun, it is unavoidably true that we live in a world where we will soon be dead.

Learn to Live -The Preacher wants us to let the reality of our death sink into our bones and lodge itself deep in our hearts. But that’s because he’s writing a book about what it means to live. He wants the consequences of our fast-approaching disappearance from the earth to work their way out into all the realities of the way we see the world and the way we view ourselves within that world.

The single question that animates him is this: If we won’t live forever, or even long enough to make a lasting difference to the world, how then should we live?

It takes the whole of Ecclesiastes to answer that question, and I want to unpack it in the successive chapters of this book…. the Preacher is going to show us what we should, and should not, expect out of life. He is not just saying there’s no gain after we’ve chased the wind; he will insist there’s no need for the chase in the first place. There is no gain to be had under the sun, and that’s precisely the point. None need be sought. -David Gibson

Recommended Resources: 

“Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches us to Live in Light of the End”

By David Gibson

“Don’t Waste Your Breath: Ecclesiastes and the Joy of a Fleeting Life”

By Brian Borgman

Soli Deo Gloria