seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Ecclesiastes 1:1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
the more knowledge, the more grief.
a. Ecclesiastes 1:1 Or the leader of the assembly; also in verses 2 and 12
Oh I remember hearing about this book. I have to say... I sped right through this both times before. I mean, one thing I dislike more than poems is depression..... and Solomon seems to have a major issue. Now if I read it with a teacher to student tilt..... He could just be saying man really needs to step up. After all, the gift of choice does come with some responsibility. Adam and Eve could have had God as their next door neighbor.... who better to borrow a cup of sugar from than the creator Himself. But they chose to indulge rather than obey..... and they met God..... He talked directly to them. So now... God's prized creations have a new leader.... Solomon.... [second] Son of David and Bathsheba.
This is from enduringword.com.
The words of the Preacher: The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the most unusual and perhaps most difficult to understand books of the Bible. It has a spirit of hopeless despair; it has no praise or peace; it seems to promote questionable conduct. Yet these words of the Preacher show us the futility and foolishness of a life lived without an eternal perspective.
This is from the easy English site.
The words ‘in this world’ show what the Teacher is thinking. (The Hebrew words say ‘under the sun’.) The Teacher speaks about people who think only about their life in this world. He shows what their life is like for them here. They have left God out of their lives. People cannot trust that anyone or anything in this world will make them completely happy. They cannot achieve anything that will last. And soon, their life ends. Work is hard. And although you work during your whole life this seems to have no real reward. The Teacher thinks in the end that this is a puzzle. We cannot understand it.
Everything that existed in the past will continue to exist. People will continue to do everything that they have done before. The Teacher is describing events to us. They will happen in this way if we think about the world without God. Then nothing can change. This is different from what the Israelites believed. They believed that God controls human history. God can change people and events. One example is Joseph. His brothers had intended to hurt him. But Joseph believed that God had a purpose for him. God intended him to save lives in Egypt (Genesis 50:20).
People often think that they have found new things. People may invent something that is new. But they use what God has created. And people soon forget what happened in the past. They do not remember people who lived before them. The word ‘people’ can also mean ‘things’. So people also forget things. And they forget events that were in the past. People always want something ‘new’.
Here it seems that the Teacher was King Solomon. He decided that he would try to discover the purpose of our lives. He would think very carefully about people’s experience. He wanted to search for purpose, but it was very difficult. God has given a strong desire to everyone. They all want to discover the truth about why we live in this world. And God wants people to discover the truth. He is the only answer to the purpose of our lives. So people are not peaceful without God.
People cannot expect to control the wind. In the same way, they cannot expect to understand all that happens in the world.
The words say that people cannot do everything. Sometimes they cannot change their circumstances. People must realise that they cannot know everything.
The Teacher said that he had become very wise. He was wiser than the kings who had ruled before him. He knew a lot about wise behaviour. He knew a lot of facts about the world. But he wanted to understand more. He wanted to be really wise all the time. And he wanted to understand what stupid behaviour and foolish behaviour meant. Although he searched carefully he was not successful. He felt like somebody who was trying to catch the wind. It was an impossible task.
Every single day.... something happens that brings me to prayer. I've had that luxury since I was a twelve. Still I get really confused.... by life..... I mean why bother saving a child from abortion only to find out 17 years later she has ovarian cancer and will never conceive a child of her own. I have a modern day experience type take on Solomon. I'm pretty sure he heard from Bathsheba that he was not her first son. Her first son died shortly after birth. Did Solomon hear how his father, David, seduced/raped Bathsheba? Was it seduction or was it rape? Did Bathsheba moan to her second son about how she lost the first son? Did Solomon know why the first son passed? Did Bathsheba and David do something to Solomon's brother to cover up the murder of Bathsheba's husband Uriah and the affair that brought on Uriah's death? Did that knowledge leave Solomon lonely and depressed?
NOPE..... all that, according to one preacher, doesn't matter..... what matters is the "wise" king Solomon is attempting to show humans what life would be like without God in our lives. Now I don't know how Solomon would live without God.... I mean someone had to create the stuff like earth, sky, wind, and seas before Solomon got bored and depressed about it all. Someone had to put the sun in the sky before Solomon could complain about its daily arrival in the east and departure in the west. But this book is about life without God, all creation aside.... about living a daily life without God.
I know a man who is suffering from depression..... that man says the Bible is fiction. Solomon says that might be wise to discuss.
