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Ecclesiastes, part 5, Fellowship with God Gives Meaning

Ecclesiastes 2:12 says,

¹² So I turned to consider wisdom, madness and folly; for what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done? ¹³ And I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. ¹⁴ The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I know that one fate befalls them both.

The problem with wisdom is not that it is on the level of folly but that both wisdom and folly are subject to the same mortality that Adam’s sin imposed upon the world. So “one fate befalls them both.” So even a wise king may have a fool for a son, and foolishness thus succeeds wisdom. Life goes on as if earlier wisdom had never existed.

No new experiment remains that might explain or reverse this. No new insight is available. Human inquiry has reached a ceiling and can go no further. Koheleth is not anti-wisdom. Wisdom does give clarity, foresight, and skill, affording a better quality of life. Light vs. darkness is not an illusion but is a real distinction. Wisdom and folly are certainly not equal.

Those who are wise have eyes “in his head,” so he has the ability to perceive things that are hidden from fools. Fools remain in the dark with no guidance from wisdom. Nonetheless, the life of a wise man ends just as surely as the fool’s life ends. Wisdom may guide life well, but it cannot preserve life. Death is the great equalizer.

Remembrance

Ecclesiastes 2:15, 16 continues,

¹⁵ Then I said to myself, “As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?” So I said to myself, “This too is vanity.” 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!

Wisdom does not secure remembrance. Achievement does not guarantee honor. Time ignores the distinctions. Most of the wise men in history were forgotten along with the fools, even though history books have left a record of certain men deemed great. This is their legacy. Yet most people in history were either illiterate or ignorant of history, focusing fully on their own circumstances and how to make a living. Of what value was it to them to know the greatness of Alexander the Great or Cyrus the Great? History has bored those whose lives remained unaffected by dead kings in the past.

So Koheleth concludes in Ecclesiastes 2:17,

¹⁷ So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.

Koheleth speaks of the mortality of worldly wisdom (philosophy) and the memories of men. We know, of course, that God remembers all things and will hold all men accountable for the deeds that they did during their mortal sojourn on earth. The prophet Zechariah is the prophet of God’s remembrance, holding Jerusalem accountable.

Malachi 3:16-18 tells us how God has a Book of Remembrance to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous. Though most men know nothing of those righteous in God’s sight, God Himself does not forget them. Their legacy is not recorded in the history books, because their earthly deeds were made immortal by building and supporting the Kingdom of God.

Hence, recognition is deferred to the emergence of His Kingdom—the fifth (“stone”) kingdom prophesied in the second chapter of Daniel. When it crushes the previous kingdoms, “the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found” (Daniel 2:35).

For the present, those with godly wisdom seem foolish in the eyes of the world, yet in the end, they will receive honor that will endure beyond time itself. Their legacy, forgotten by the world, will be all that is remembered in time to come. Their support of King Jesus’ right to rule all that He created, their labor to bring the light of Christ to dark places, and their desire to cultivate a direct relationship with Christ will prevail and endure as their legacy in the ages to come.

The Futility of Labor

Ecclesiastes 2:18-20 says,

¹⁸ Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. ¹⁹ And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. ²⁰ Therefore I despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.

Solomon himself left his son Rehoboam with untold wealth, magnificent buildings, and the temple which God had glorified by His presence. Yet Rehoboam was a fool, following the advice of his young friends rather than the advice of those who were older and wiser. When the Israelites asked for a reduction in taxes, he told them in 1 Kings 12:11,

¹¹ “Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”

His foolishness split the kingdom, and from then on only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin continued in submission to the Davidic line of kings. The rest of the tribes anointed an Ephraimite, Jeroboam, as their king (1 Kings 12:20). The kingdom was never again reunited, though the prophets foresaw a future time of reunification under David’s greater Son.

Rehoboam’s foolishness, though decreed by God on account of Solomon’s permissive idolatry, served to delay the Kingdom. In the interim, four beast empires were destined to rule the earth. The fifth was then to arise having Christ as its King, and those who are wise have been given the revelation to see the progressive steps toward its establishment. God’s Kingdom arises as the dawn, a progressive increase of light until the sun breaks over the horizon and the day begins.

The great wealth that Solomon accumulated was in vain. 1 Kings 14:25, 26 says,

²⁵ Now it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. ²⁶ He took away the treasures of the king’s house, and he took everything, even taking all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

Though Solomon had used this gold to beautify God’s House, it was all in vain, a brief puff of wind in history. In a moment, his legacy vanished. Worse yet, his labor only added to the wealth of Egypt. History records that Shishak (or Sheshonq) also took hostages from 150-156 (153?) communities in Judah and Israel and brought them back to Egypt. Professor A. H. Sayce writes of the figures on Shishak’s Karnak relief:

“The prisoners represented on the wall are fair-complexioned, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and might have been taken straight out of an Irish village.”

Source—Prof. A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament (London: Religious Tract Society, 1891), chapter on the Israelites and neighboring peoples.

Ecclesiastes 2:21-23 continues,

²¹ When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill, then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil. ²² For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun? ²³ Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.

Solomon’s problem, in part, was his foolish son. Yet the Bible makes it clear that the root problem was Solomon’s own foolishness. Before Solomon died, the prophet Ahijah declared, “Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give you [Jeroboam] ten tribes… because they have forsaken Me and have worshiped Ashtoreth…” (1 Kings 11:31-33).

In other words, Solomon followed worldly wisdom and abandoned godly wisdom. He thought his many marriages would solidify foreign alliances, regardless of their idolatry. His peaceful kingdom came at the cost of idolatry. It was good politics but the secured peace was mortal.

No Enjoyment Apart from God

After declaring that “I hated life” (Ecclesiastes 2:17), Koheleth reorients his thinking in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26,

²⁴ There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell [ra-aw, “perceive”] himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him? ²⁶ For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God’s sight. This too is vanity and striving after wind.

Here we move from vanity to true wisdom. Koheleth is not endorsing hedonism but is redefining enjoyment as received from God as a gift, not produced by one’s labor. Joy is no longer a goal but a gift. Though eating and drinking is temporal, it is legitimate when seen as a gift from God. Men may consume without God, but they cannot truly enjoy without God.

This is why the Apostle could write his Epistle of Joy (Philippians), though his outward circumstances were unpleasant. Nonetheless, he had godly Joy through His relationship and fellowship with Christ.

This overturns Epicurean logic: Pleasure is not engineered; it is granted. This is not prosperity theology. It is relational theology. Pleasure comes when we eat and drink with God. Meaning is not found in enjoyment. Meaning is found in God. True joy is in shared experience (fellowship).

Thus, despair ends not by solving mortality but by accepting dependence upon a sovereign God and by a relationship with God that transcends mortality.

By contrast, the sinner accumulates but does not enjoy. His labor becomes transfer, not fulfillment. Note the irony here. The sinner becomes a means, not an end. To a sinner who is not in fellowship with God in his labor, it is all vanity, because he is out of fellowship with God. The fruits of his labor are given to another as God sees fit—“one who is good in God’s sight,” that is, according to the will of God.

Therefore, only God can give meaning to a mortal life.