30 Ecclesiates

It has traditionally been argued that this book was the work of Solomon. The Teacher, who is identified in Ecclesiastes as the one who reflects on his experiences in the book, is strongly associated with Solomon. Although it seems clear that Solomon's wise sayings deeply influenced this book, it is not indisputable that Solomon actually wrote this book, but nowhere explicitly does it identify Solomon by name. However, this writer drew heavily upon Solomon's wisdom in all that he wrote

Ecclesiastes focuses on how God's people should live on earth in the face of life's difficulties and enigmas (mysteries). In the end, however, the conclusion of Ecclesiastes is very similar to that of Job. Despite our inability to understand fully the good wisdom of God, our appropriate and wise human response is to "fear God and keep his commandments" That is, we are to submit to God and demonstrate our awareness of his supreme wisdom by obeying his law, trusting that he is full of wisdom and goodness in spite of the enigmas or mysteries life presents, even to those who know him.


The book of Ecclesiates is part of the bibles wisdom literature. The key thing to remember in Ecclesiates and a Key Point is the teacher is different than the author of the book ( Solomon) It’s the teacher's voice in most of the book. In the beginning of the book the author introduces us to the teacher, and he concludes the end of the book by summarizing and evaluating everything the teacher has said. The author is someone that wants us to hear all that the teacher has to say and then help us process it and form our own conclusions. So what does the teacher have to say? Well the author summarizes the basic message at the beginning and again at the end. And its meaningless, meaningless, meaning less.. hevel is the hebrew word. The teachers basic message is Hevel.. hevel.. which means meaningless.. the teacher uses this word 38 times in this book as a medaphor .. secondly it means vapor, merest breath, or smoke. He describes life as temporary or fleeting like a wisp of smoke.. also how life is like an enigman or a paradox (perceived opinion), like smoke it appears solid but when you try to grab onto it. There is nothing there.. there is so much beauty and goodness in the world. But just when you are enjoying it tragedy strikes and it all seems to blow away.. we all have a strong sense of justice, but all the time bad things happen to good people. So life is constantly unpredictable, unstable or like in the teachers words, like chasing after the wind. Meaningless.. So why does he say this? The author’s basic goal is to target all the ways we try to find or build meaning and purpose in our lives apart from God. And he lets the teacher deconstruct it. He thinks we spend most of our time investing energy and emotion into things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance . And he lets the teacher give us a hard lesson in reality.

You can see that in the opening and ending where he focuses on time and death.

So the teacher says. You can spend your whole life working and achieving because you think that makes your life meaningful. You should really stop and consider the march of time..the way that something continues to happen, develop, or make progress and is impossible to stop. For all the human effort that takes place in the world. Nothing really ever changes. Sure we have developed technology, we build nations that rise and fall, but... Go climb a mountain and see if it cares. It was there long before any of us and it will be there long after we die. No one is even going to remember you or anything you did a hundred years from now but that mountain - it will still be there, and the ocean will still be breaking on the beach, and the sun will still be rising and setting. So time will eventually erase you and me and everything we care about. And if that isn’t disheartening enough, the teacher also cant stop talking about death, all the way through the book but especially in the poem in the end. He says death is the great equalizer and it renders meaningless in most of our daily activities. It devours the wise, and the fools, and the rich, and the poor, no matter who you are, or what you have done , good or bad - we all are going to die. And its inescapable so with these two ideas in hand the teachers goes on to consider all the activities. And false hopes in what we invest our lives in to find meaning and significance .. like wealth, career, social status and pleasure. So you think working hard is going to make life worth it, think of the stress. and the tole that that takes upon you, all the anxiety and the stressful sleepless nights. And by the time you actually earn some wealth you are going to be too old to enjoy it anyway, then by the time you have to pass it onto someone, they probably just wont care about anything you have left them. Maybe you think pleasure will make life living for.. well go for it.. live for your vacation, live for the parties.. Mondays will always come.. Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless!

So what does the teacher advocate then. That we become pure heathonist - a person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life; a pleasure-seeker, or Relativism which is the belief that there's no absolute truth, only the truths that a particular individual or culture happen to believe. If you believe in relativism, then you think different people can have different views about what's moral and immoral. Well no, because that would be meaningless too. The teacher acknowledges the ideas from proverbs that living by wisdom and fear of the Lord, that these have real advantages, on the whole, life will probably go better. But the problem of living by wisdom, or fear of the Lord, there is meaningless too. They don’t guarantee a good life. Good people die tragically and horrible people live long and prosper. There are just too many exceptions. So that even wisdom is meaningless, again not meaningless but an mystery. Wisdom doesn’t work the way you think it should all the time. So what is the way forward among all the midst of this hevel. And here periodoxically the teacher discovers the key to the true enjoyment of life under the sun.

It is accepting hevel or that life is meaningless, its acknowledging everything in your life is completely and totally out of your control. About six different times in the most bleakest moments in his monologue the teacher talks about the gift of God. Like which is the enjoyment of the simple good things in life like friendship, family, a good meal or a sunny day, you cannot control these things and you certainly are not guaranteed these things. But that is the beauty of it all, when I come to adopt the trust of God. It frees me to simply enjoy my life as I actually experience it..not as I think it ought to be, because even my expectations of what my life is to be, ultimately is meaningless.. everything under the sun is hevil or meaningless!

The teachers words come to a close and the author speaks again and comes to a conclusion and evaluation of the teacher He says the teachers words are very important for us to hear. He likens them to a shephards staff, with a pointy end which might hurt when it pokes you, but he says the teacher is trying to poke you to get you to move in the right direction towards greater wisdom. The author then warns us that you can actually take the teachers words too far. And you can spend your whole life buried in books trying to find answers to live puzzles, really, don’t try, you will never get there. So instead, the author offers his own conclusion and its this. The conclusion: Fear God and keep His commands – this is the whole duty of humans; for God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil. So the author thinks its good to let the teacher challenge your falsehoods and remind you that time and death make most of life completely out of your control, but what gives life true meaning, is the hope of God’s judgment. The hope that one day God will clear away all of the meaningless in your life and bring true justice to our world. And its that hope that should fuel a life of honesty, and integrity before God, despite the fact that I remain puzzled by most of lifes mysteries. So that is the wisdom of the book of Ecclesiastes. Its dark, but it does make sense if you are in tune with God.

This book relates to Christ and the New Testament in a number of ways too. First, in his first coming, Christ, who is the wisdom of God, revealed wisdom to those who followed him. Through faith in Christ we have access to God's wisdom beyond the understanding of Old Testament believers. As Ecclesiastes calls for fear and obedience, the New Testament echoes these themes in its call to embrace the gospel of Christ as the very wisdom of God. Second, even though Christ has come, Ecclesiastes reminds us that God's elect still live as aliens in this world. Although we have been forgiven of our sins and made alive in Christ, we still live amid profound frustrations and tensions until Christ brings an end to this present evil age. Until then, the enigmas of life, or mysteries, puzzles or anything difficult to understand, are often so great that we do not even know how to pray, but we can gain confidence in our struggles knowing that the Spirit of Christ who knows the mind of God prays for us. Third, the New Testament assures us that the final judgment mentioned in this book will come when Christ returns in glory. At that time, the good wisdom of God, so often hidden from human sight now, will be clearly revealed.