Ecclesiastes 1
This book, whose name means "preacher" or strictly, a "framer of assemblies," is in a marked way the opposite of the Proverbs. There God is owned: in fact it is the book of wisdom from God for man. But in the book we commence with today, we find man having his own experience on earth. It is an interesting fact to note in this connection, that the covenant name of God, Jehovah (translated generally The LORD in the ordinary Bible), is not once found in Ecclesiastes, though it is 87 times in Proverbs.
Solomon was used by God to write three books of which this is the second, and the purpose of this one is to show that it is vain for man to seek happiness in the world, ruined as it is by sin since our first parents listened to Satan in the garden of Eden. We may glance at the beginning of Ecclesiastes, and then at the end (verses 13, 14 of chapter 12) to learn the conclusion that the writer reached,—that man, apart from any trace of knowledge of redemption cannot find rest or happiness in the world.
Bearing in mind, then, that Ecclesiastes is not wisdom from God for man, as in the Proverbs, but man's experience apart from the knowledge of God, we begin our study of this book. Fitly, at the beginning is the conclusion that all is vanity, indeed vanity of vanities. The dictionary defines vanity as "empty of real worth and of capacity to satisfy the more profound wants of human nature."
Verse 8 tells its own story of man seeking pleasure: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. Solomon had applied his heart to seek and to search out by wisdom greater than anyone else had, concerning all that is done under the heavens (verse 13). He had seen all the works that are done under the sun, and he affirms that all is vanity and vexation of spirit (or pursuit of the wind, as in the New Translation). What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is wanting cannot be numbered (verse 15).
Pursuing his thought, Solomon declares that the knowledge of wisdom, and of madness and folly (to obtain happiness apart from God) is a striving after the wind, for in much wisdom is much vexation, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow. Such is the best of man's experience, with the greatest wisdom ever known in man, can find here. How can man, an exile from paradise, find happiness in a ruined creation? (See Genesis 3:24; 4:16-22).
Messages of God’s Love 10/30/1932