Chuck Larsen

Solomon begins to explain his search for meaning in chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes. He begins by talking about wisdom. He thought if he just learned enough and understood the world, it would be enough to make his life meaningful. But that didn’t work. He says in Ecclesiastes 1:18, “I found out that I may as well be chasing the wind. The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.” God had once offered Solomon riches, pleasure, and glory, but instead, he asked for wisdom. God was pleased with his request and granted him wisdom. There is little disagreement that Solomon, even today, is regarded as the wisest man ever. He knew that if he were to succeed as King over Israel, he would need wisdom. God blessed him with it.

Reading through the book of Proverbs, you find true wisdom on how to live a perfectly balanced life. It deals with lust, gluttony, greed, anger, and a plethora of other relationship issues of life. It teaches us how to manage finances, deal with credit, and manage our households to glean the absolute best from each dimension of our lives. It’s truly a book of wisdom. Wisdom is more than knowledge. It’s the application of knowledge to our lives. It’s instructions on how to live a disciplined and controlled life. No one did it better than Solomon did, but this wise living left him empty when it was all said and done! The more he learned, the less satisfied he became. The more he learned, the more struggles he had in life. He got tired of living the “ought to” and the “have to” and really “should” do kind of life. It left him empty. It brought no satisfaction.

I see this frustration in T. S. Elliot’s character, J. Alfred Prufrock. This character spent his whole life balancing his finances, keeping his emotions in check, never taking a chance, or entering into potential situations that might lead to failure. He was a “proof rock.” He kept a perfect daily schedule. He was a responsible, contributing citizen. He never ate too much. He had absolutely no indulgences of any kind. Yet at the end of his life, he looked back with remorse and exasperation at the wisdom and discipline he’d practiced, much like Solomon, and knew that every joyless, disciplined way that lay ahead of him would look exactly the same. The days held no promise, no hope, for him. He sighed, “I’ve known them all before. I’ve known the mornings and the evenings and the afternoons. I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons.” He was never willing to take a chance! He was never willing to see beyond the life he was living “under the sun.” He is just like the religious leaders that Jesus encountered. They thought fulfillment would be theirs if they just kept the law. But Jesus said, “You search the law (scriptures) because you think in them you will find eternal (a meaningful) life. But it’s these very scriptures that speak of me.” In John 10:10, Jesus said, “I have come that you might experience life, and life in all its fullness.”

Living a strict, disciplined life failed to bring satisfaction to Solomon’s life. He was careful in all he did and observed every wise instruction he offered. But it left him empty. He said in Ecclesiastes 1:18, I found out it was trying to catch the wind. The wiser I was, the more worries I had. The more I learned, the heavier the burden to carry. The strict, austere life brought no purpose and meaning and left me miserable and empty inside. So he went in the complete opposite direction. He threw off all restraint and let himself indulge in every possible pleasure. He slept in. He did whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. He pitched responsibility out the window and just had a good time. He partied a lot. He threw caution to the wind and sought all the pleasures that the wealthy life might afford him. It reminds me of the Johnny Cash song “The Wanderer.” This song was actually based on this passage, and Johnny sings, “I went out there, In search of experience, To taste and to touch and to feel as much as a man can before he repents.”

In Ecclesiastes 2:1-2 he says, “I decided to enjoy myself and find out what happiness is.” He wanted to experience all that wise living had kept from him. He says, “But I found that this is useless too.” It’s no different than any excess. “I discovered that laughter is foolish, that pleasure does you no good.” It ended at the very same dead end as the pursuit of wisdom. He got no true satisfaction in it at all. Oscar Wilde was a true “died-in-the-wool” hedonist. He claimed that pleasure was the absolute greatest good in all life. But after his great fall, he confessed (and I quote), “I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. And when I was tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of new sensations. I took pleasure wherever it pleased me. I ended in utter disgrace and a complete failure. I wish I had listened to those who warned me.”

Well, Oscar, Solomon had been there and done that. These passages carry with them a strong, persuasive nature. He doesn’t want us to go that route to find that pain for ourselves. He wants us to learn from his mistakes. He explained that all pleasure is madness. He actually says, “Laughter is madness.” T. M. Moore paraphrases verse 2: “I concluded that laughter and merriment for their own sakes were madness. What did they accomplish to help me find meaning and purpose in life?” Phil Ryken closes his comments on this verse by saying, “Life is no laughing matter. Some people laugh all their way to the grave, but there is nothing funny about the deathbed of someone who dies without Christ.”

Wisdom brought no satisfaction to Solomon. Pleasure brought no satisfaction to Solomon. So he moved on. Next, he tried Alcohol. Ecclesiastes 2:3 says, “I decided to cheer myself with wine and have a good time. I thought this might be the best way people can spend their short lives on earth.” Actually, this sounds like a very popular view that’s also prevalent in our culture. “Miller time” is the best time! He then went on to mention sex, materialism, power, and prestige before he wraps up the conclusion that was the same for all his endeavors. It’s found in Ecclesiastes 2:13. It’s the same conclusion his passage began with in Chapter 1, verse 14. He says, “It was like trying to catch the wind – of no use at all!” Again, the word for wind might also be translated as “breath.” If so, as many OT Scholars suggest, it would picture our attempt to grasp our breath on a cold morning.  I remember walking corn fields in late fall looking for pheasants while carrying a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. Your breath was so visible on those early mornings that it looked like you could grab it. But, of course, you could not.

One of the best poetic descriptions of the failure of alcohol or drugs to bring significant meaning and happiness in life was written by A. E. Houseman a century ago. Next to Rudyard Kipling’s verse, Houseman was my favorite poet. He writes, “And alcohol does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man. (In the preface to Paradise Lost, Milton explains that he hopes to explain why God does what He does in this world.) Alcohol, man, alcohol is the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think. Look into the pewter pot to see the world as the world’s not. And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past: The mischief is that ’twill not last. Oh I have been to Ludlow fair (the place where alcohol was brewed) And left my necktie God knows where, and carried halfway home, or near, Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: Then the world seemed none so bad, And I myself a sterling lad; And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, happy till I woke again. Then I saw the morning sky: Heigho, the tale was all a lie; the world, it was the old world yet, I was I, my things were wet; and nothing now remained to do but begin the game anew.”

Wine failed, and so did wealth. No one had the wealth that Solomon had. What exactly was Solomon’s net worth? Exactly how rich was he? One commentator argues that there has never been a human in history that had so much gold and silver. He ruled in Israel for 40 years, and it has been estimated that he brought in 1.1 billion dollars each year. The kings of Arabia and the governors of the surrounding provinces all brought tribute money to Solomon as well as nations as far away as Egypt and Ethiopia. He also collected heavy taxes from his own people. Gold, silver, ivory, apes, monkeys, and peacocks were received every three years from his business partnership with Hiram, King of Tyre. No one has ever had Solomon’s wealth. Yet it, too, left him unsatisfied. Neither wine nor wealth will make life satisfying in the long run. We’re created with a deeper need, and that’s communion with the God who made us. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In Him do we find purpose, meaning, and true satisfaction as we walk the trails in this valley of tears.

People with money often tell us it won’t make you happy. But I always think, “I’d like to find that out for myself.” In Ecclesiastes 2:16-18, Solomon says he hated life, work, and wealth. Then, he proceeds to explain why he hated it all. He gave three reasons. First, he hated it because you can’t keep it! A Jewish proverb says, “There are no pockets in shrouds.” Of course, the American saying equivalent to that is, you’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul! I know that you can’t eat money. But in our society, it will buy what you need to eat. It won’t keep you warm but will pay the utility bills. One writer called money something that “may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven and as a universal provider of everything except happiness.” Solomon lost his happiness when he sought to find meaning and purpose in wealth! It’s the case for us all.

The second reason Solomon hated it all was that you can’t protect it. Since there are no pockets in shrouds and no U-Hauls with hearses, we have to leave everything behind. We have no idea what’s going to happen to it when we’re gone. Solomon spent years building a united kingdom. He brought all twelve tribes together to rule the world under a unified nation that became the greatest country, the wealthiest country, and the most powerful country in the world. Yet, when he died, he left it to his children. Solomon didn’t know what would happen to the kingdom when he died, but he knew it would be out of his hands. Rehoboam, his son, destroyed it all! He also killed all of Solomon’s other sons! (See 1 Kings 11:41f). I would argue that it doesn’t make a lot of difference how specific you get in your will you can’t protect any of it when you’re gone. Solomon resigned himself to this truth. We all must learn to cooperate with the inevitable.

The third reason that Solomon hated all this and felt such great despair is that he realized that we can never fully enjoy it all as we should. The more we have the greater the responsibility. The more we have the more we need to worry about. It takes hard work, dedication, and a lifetime spent in grief, travail and often many anxious and sleepless nights. For what? Ecclesiastes 2:22 says, “What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?” Then he finally lifts the veil of depression and despair in verse 24 when he says that God is the great giver of it all and one of the greatest gifts he gives us when we enter into a faith relationship with Him, is the gift of joy and contentment with our lot in life. Warren Wiersbe says, “Apart from God, there can be no true enjoyment of blessings or enrichment of life. It is good to have the things that money can buy, provided you don’t lose the things that money can’t buy.” Money can’t buy me love, but God offers it freely on the cross of Calvary: God so loved the world, that’s us! We need but to receive it. John tells us that all who receives Him, Jesus; they are blessed with the gift of becoming children of God.

Francis Schaffer said that the popular music of our generation will reveal the climate and nature and wisdom of each generation. As I’ve been studying through Ecclesiastes, I’ve been relating the truths written by Solomon over 3000 years ago to songs I remember in my own generation. It seems there are plenty of songs that attempt to do what Solomon did, find meaning and purpose in life, but come up with the same answer: vanity of vanities. It’s useless, and under the sun, there is no true meaning and purpose from the purely human perspective. Every evaluation in every generation of man’s purpose in life always leads to the same conclusion:

“The Answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…” Peter, Paul & Mary.
“You may as well try to catch the wind…” Donovan
“It’s dust in the wind; everything is dust in the wind…” Kansas

In Ecclesiastes 2:17, Solomon wrote: “Everything is meaningless, like chasing the wind.” (New Living) “I had been chasing the wind.” (Good News) “…Everything here on earth is useless, like chasing the wind.” (New Century) “When I looked, I saw nothing but smoke, smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it, nothing” (The Message). From man’s perspective, that’s absolutely true. But God has a plan and a purpose for all life! The conclusion of it all is one must trust God. In a trusting relationship with Him, it will all come together. Man will never understand the puzzle of life outside of a personal relationship with God. Further, man will never really find fulfillment in life outside of a relationship with God. So, in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, Solomon concludes with several observations. “So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that this pleasure is from the hand of God. For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?” Even in the middle of much despair, confusion, and disillusionment we can find joy.

There was an old cartoon in which a publisher tried to convince Charles Dickens to change the opening sentence in one of his most famous novels, “A tale of two cities.” “Mr. Dickens, either it was the best of times or it was the worst of times. It can’t be both.” Phil Ryken says, “But of course it can be both, and often is. We live in a world that is cursed by sin (see Genesis 3:17–19), but it is also a world that God created essentially good (see Genesis 1–2) and that he has visited in the flesh and is working to redeem through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. Thus we experience joy as well as sorrow, especially if we know God in a personal and saving way.”