BLOG

Ecclesiastes, part 2, The Preacher's Prologue

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11 introduces Koheleth as a philosopher (wisdom teacher) speaking with Solomonic authority who declares that all human striving is hevel—real but fleeting. By observing generational turnover, natural cycles, sensory exhaustion, and the erasure of memory, he exposes the absence of lasting profit “under the sun.” The passage does not deny God or the value of a meaningful life, but insists that nothing in human effort secures permanence. It prepares the reader for a sustained inquiry into how one should live wisely in view of his limited time on earth.

Ecclesiastes 1:1 begins the Prologue,

¹ The words of the preacher [koheleth], the son of David, king in Jerusalem

The Koheleth is the preacher, the one calling for the people to assemble to hear a word. It invokes Solomonic authority as “Son of David, king in Jerusalem,” but is probably not Solomon himself, but a later descendant of King David, who was inspired by Solomon’s wisdom. The Koheleth speaks not as a seer who hears God’s word directly, but as one who has lived, observed, and tested wise principles in real life.

Ecclesiastes 1:2 gives his main thesis:

² “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

Today a vain person is one who is prideful or self-absorbed, but biblical “vanity” has to do with the fleeting nature of mortal man’s temporary years spent “under the sun.” Everything man pursues is real, yet everything is fleeting, elusive, and uncontrollable in the end. This verse functions like a headline over the entire book.

Posing the Central Philosophical Question

Ecclesiastes 1:3, 4 asserts the central question:

³ What advantage [yitron, “profit, surplus, lasting gain”] does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? ⁴ A generation [dor, “an age, a revolution of time”] goes and a generation [dor] comes, but the earth remains forever [olam, “indefinitely, a hidden/unknown period of time”].

Here Koheleth asks a commercial question applied to existence: After all the effort, what remains that death cannot erase? This question drives the entire investigation. The Apostle Paul, who was well schooled in philosophy, took up the challenge in Colossians 3:1-3,

¹ Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth [i.e., under the sun”]. ³ For you have died and your life is hidden [the meaning of olam] with Christ in God.

Paul’s Philosophy (Wisdom)

Paul says that the old man of flesh, mortal and bound to earthly corruption since Adam’s sin, is dead, having been crucified with Christ. Therefore, we are to seek heavenly things to gain true and lasting profit. Paul writes again in 2 Corinthians 4:18,

¹⁸ while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Paul equated the “old man” with “things which are seen.” He equated the “new man” with “things which are not seen.” For this reason, he wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:16,

¹⁶ Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.

Again, Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:17-19,

¹⁷ Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. ¹⁸ Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, ¹⁹ storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

Jesus’ Philosophy (Wisdom)

Jesus too affirmed this in Matthew 6:19-21,

¹⁹ Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal, ²¹ for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus warned that storing up wealth on earth is futile and spiritually dangerous, because it ties the heart to what decay and death will inevitably take away—whereas true treasure is found in trusting God and investing in what is eternal.

The problem is not wealth but trust. Wealth is untrustworthy because it cannot secure permanence; death renders accumulation futile. It is not that labor and earthly wealth are valueless, but that it should be converted to heavenly currency as a store of true value that transcends mortality. So we read in Proverbs 23:23,

²³ Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom and instruction and understanding.

Shakespeare’s Philosophy (Wisdom)

Even Shakespeare drew on the questions raised in Ecclesiastes. He wrote in his play, As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII,

“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…”

The irony is that humans are temporary actors on the earth and that the stage itself outlasts the actors.

It is clear that New Testament philosophy, which sets forth divine wisdom, can be viewed as a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes. It has a pessimistic view of earth-bound wealth and values, but a very optimistic view of heavenly riches.

Cycles Without Progress

Ecclesiastes 1:5–7 says,

⁵ Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place it rises there again. ⁶ Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; and on its circular courses the wind returns. ⁷ All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.

The sun, the wind, and the rivers show movement without accumulation and activity without resolution. The Preacher suggests that earthly things (i.e., natural things) do not advance toward some meaningful goal but repeat endlessly with no apparent progress. So also is the man who sets his mind on earthly values.

Human Weariness

Ecclesiastes 1:8 says,

⁸ All things are wearisome; man is not able to tell [explain] it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.

Three senses are invoked: Speech (words), Sight, and Hearing. Despite constant stimulation, desire is never satisfied, and curiosity is never completed. Human experience produces fatigue, not fulfillment. The pursuit of money and pleasure never brings satisfaction. Men always want more than what they have.

The Illusion of Novelty

Ecclesiastes 1:9–10 continues,

⁹ That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. ¹⁰ Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”? Already it has existed for ages which were before us.

Koheleth does not deny new forms, but new essence. Technology changes, but patterns do not. Human hopes repeat, and failures recur. What feels unprecedented is usually forgotten precedent. New things are only discoveries that were already built into nature, waiting to be uncovered. God invents; man discovers.

One of the greatest scientists of all time, Nikola Tesla, repeatedly insisted that he was not an “inventor” in the modern, creative sense, but rather a discoverer of principles that already exist in nature. He believed human beings do not create fundamentally new things; they uncover and apply laws that are already there.

Fading Memories

Ecclesiastes 1:11 says,

¹¹ There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also of the later things which will occur; there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.

Meaning tied to remembrance is fragile—memory itself is hevel, “vanity.” Even greatness fades. Their names, achievements, their lives are all forgotten in dusty history books that few read in later generations. Ecclesiastes 2:16 speaks of those “under the sun,” saying,

¹⁶ For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die!

However, Psalm 112:6 says, “the righteous will be remembered forever.” Proverbs 10:7 says, “the memory of the righteous is blessed.” Malachi 3:16 says,

¹⁶ Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name.

The NT affirms that God’s remembrance overrides human forgetfulness. Scripture distinguishes between human remembrance, which fades, and Divine remembrance, which is permanent. The righteous may be forgotten on earth, but they are never forgotten by God.

This is the Prologue of the book of Ecclesiastes. Mortality and corruption limit earthly values and wealth to temporary times frames. Such pessimism, in the end, is rooted in Adam’s original sin. Fortunately, the prophets have pointed out a new path, a new way of life by which we have hope. It is the way to transcend and overcome the weight of earth’s gravity which holds us to temporal things and transient values.