Year One, November 1

Vanity of Vanities! All Is Vanity1

In the book of Ecclesiastes, or The Preacher, Solomon has left us his own biography. It is the life of a seeker after pleasure, the history of Solomon the prodigal, written by Solomon the preacher. In this first chapter, he gives us the introduction and the theme of its sad contents. It has well been called the saddest book in all the Bible.

  

Ecclesiastes 1:1-15

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,

vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

This is Solomon speaking as the wise man, but we would love it better to hear the voice of Solomon the saint, who said, “Your love is better than wine.”2 “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”3 How dark are the forbidden ways! How sweet are the roads of holy fellowship!

3 What does man gain by all the toil

at which he toils under the sun?

4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,

but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,

and hastens to the place where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south

and goes around to the north;

around and around goes the wind,

and on its circuits the wind returns.

7 All streams run to the sea,

but the sea is not full;

to the place where the streams flow,

there they flow again.

8 All things are full of weariness;

a man cannot utter it;

the eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 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.

10 Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things,

nor will there be any remembrance 

of later things yet to be

among those who come after.

“As much as if he said, ‘It is all a weary-go-round.’  This system of things is an everlasting self-repetition and it is quite sickening. One generation goes, another comes. The sun rises, and the sun goes down. That was what the sun did yesterday, and what I expect it will do tomorrow. The wind blows north, and the wind blows south; and this is all it has been doing for these thousands of years. The rivers run into the sea, and it would be some relief to find that sea growing fuller; to spot the clear waters wetting the dry pebbles on the seashore, and reaching up to the green fields, and floating the boats and fishes up in the forest. But we are denied even that inconvenient novelty, because even after many streams and rivers have tumbled worlds of water into the sea, its tide will not overstep its boundary. The flood rises, but still refuses to cross its border.

“Words themselves are weariness. It would tire us to list their endless variations and their busy similarities that make up this endless weariness of existence. There are no novelties, no wonders, no discoveries. This universe does not provide an eye full or an arm full of newness to we who inhabit it. The present only repeats the past; the future will repeat them both. The inventions of today are the forgotten arts of yesterday; our children will forget our wisdom, only to have the pleasure of fishing up, as new geniuses, our outdated truisms. There is no new thing under the sun and yet no peace.

“Never ending responsibilities and momentary pleasures, the same atoms with minor alterations, sameness and yet constant change, make up this boring assortment. Woe is me for this weary world!”4

12I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. (Solomon began his search by looking for supreme delight in knowledge, but his quest was useless. Had he used his efforts to know Christ, he would have found that knowledge to be a fountain of delight.)  It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,

and what is lacking cannot be counted.

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¹ Ecclesiastes 1:2

² Song of Solomon 1:2

³ Song of Solomon 2:4

⁴ From the Royal Preacher: Lectures on Ecclesiastes by James Hamilton (1814-1867).