Ecclesiastes 2
SEEKING to find happiness and rest, if that were possible apart from the knowledge of redemption, Solomon with his great wealth and power, and his wisdom too, tried mirth; but says he, I said of laughter, madness, and of mirth, what availeth it? He sought how to gain by wine, and how to lay hold on folly (verse 3), until he should see what might be good for the children of men, but pleasure does not satisfy.
He tried great works,-houses, vineyards, gardens and parks (so read instead of "orchards") and planted trees in them of every kind of fruit; he made ponds of water to supply the trees (verses 4-6); but there was no satisfaction in such things.
He acquired servants and maidens, and had servants born in his house; he had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all that had been in Jerusalem before him; he gathered silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces,-which we may suppose consisted of ivory, sandalwood, precious stones, spices, apes, peacocks and the like (1 Kings 10; 2 Chronicles 9); he got singers of both sexes, and a wife and concubines (for this is believed to be the correct reading of the last 8 words of verse 8). But these possessions gave no lasting joy.
He became great, and increased more than all that had been before him in Jerusalem, and his wisdom remained with him. He got whatever he wished for, and this in no half-hearted way (verse 10). And then he looked at all he had gained, and considered the labor he had put in to get it; and, behold, all was vanity and pursuit of the wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
Again he turns to consider wisdom and madness and folly; nothing that might lead to happiness without God does he miss (verse 12). He sees that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness, but one event happens to them all (verse 14). They died and are forgotten, the wise man even as the fool (verse 16).
Thinking of all this, he hated life, and he hated all his labor and toil because he must leave all his possessions to the man who should be after him, who might be a wise man or a fool (verses 17-19).
What, says he, will man have of all his labor, and of the striving (rather than vexation) of his heart, wherewith he has wearied himself under the sun? All his days are sorrows, and his travail vexation; even in the night his heart taketh no rest (verses 22, 23).
He pauses to consider God, and decides that there is nothing good for man but eating and drinking and enjoying good. For God, he concludes, gives to those who are good in His sight wisdom, knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He gives travail (the hardest of labor) to gather and help up, that he may give to him that is good in God's sight.
We may surely thank God for this book, written to show to man the folly of trying to find happiness in the world. There is no true and abiding happiness apart from the knowledge of redemption through Christ.
Messages of God’s Love 11/6/1932