I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
Parallel Translations
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I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
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And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
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And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; it is a sore task that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 1:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ecclesiastes 3:10 I have seen the burden which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
- Genesis 3:19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”
- Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (even though eyes see no sleep day or night), then I saw all the work of God, that man can’t find out the work that is done under the sun, because however much a man labors to seek it out, yet he won’t find it. Yes even though a wise man thinks he can comprehend it, he won’t be able to find it.
- 1 Timothy 4:15 Be diligent in these things. Give yourself wholly to them, that your progress may be revealed to all.
- Ecclesiastes 1:17 I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also was a chasing after wind.
- Ecclesiastes 7:25 I turned around, and my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity, and that foolishness is madness.
- Ecclesiastes 12:12 Furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
- Psalms 111:2 Yahweh’s works are great, pondered by all those who delight in them.
- Proverbs 2:2-4 so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures:
- Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding.
- Proverbs 18:1 A man who isolates himself pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgment.
- Proverbs 18:15 The heart of the discerning gets knowledge. The ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
- Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways.
- Ecclesiastes 2:23 For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 2:26 For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Ecclesiastes 4:4 Then I saw all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
- Ecclesiastes 8:9 All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Man of nature hath a desire to know, and…
Man of nature hath a desire to know, and yet is not able to come to the perfection of knowledge, which is the punishment of sin, to humble man, and to teach him to depend only upon God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 1:13 And I gave my heart to seek…
Ecc 1:13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all [things] that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
Ver. 13. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom.] God had given Solomon a large heart, and great store of wisdom; and this made him not more idle, but more industrious, more sedulous and serious in seeking and …
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Searching out by wisdom,] i.e., By the best skill that he had, maturely and methodically, the causes, properties, and effects, with the reason of all things that are, and are done under heaven. Neither did he this in pride and curiosity (as Hugo de Sancto Victore here sharply censureth him), but soberly and modestly, setting down his disquisitions and observations of things political and natural for the use of posterity. And forasmuch as these {a} are now lost - because haply too much admired and trusted to, by those that had the use of them under the first temple, in and with the which some Jews say they were burnt - what a high price we all set upon this and the other two books of Solomon, the wisest of men, as, not Apollo, but the true God of heaven hath called him, and commended him unto us! Surely, as in the Revelation, heaven never opened but some great mystery was revealed, some divine oracle uttered; so we may be confident that the Holy Ghost never sets any penman of Scripture a work but for excellent purpose. And if we disregard it, he will complain of us as once, - "I have written for them the great things of nay law, but they were counted as a strange thing." {Hos 8:12} As for those other worthy works of Solomon (the fruits of this privy search into the natures of the creatures here mentioned), that the injury of time bereft us of, how much better may we say of them, than a godly and learned man {b} once did of Origen’s Octapla, Huius operis iacturam deplorare possumus, compensare non possumus, This great loss we may well bewail, but cannot help.
{a} 1Ki 4:32-33.
{b} Rolloc., De Vocatione, p. 130.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I gave my heart, which phrase notes his serious…
I gave my heart, which phrase notes his serious and fixed purpose, his great industry and alacrity in it,
to seek and search out, to seek diligently and accurately, by wisdom, wisely, or by the help of that wisdom wherewith God had endowed me, concerning all things that are done under heaven; concerning all the works of God and men in this lower world; the works of nature, and their causes, effects, properties, and operations; the works of Divine providence, and God’s counsels and ends in them; the work and depths of human policy in the conduct of personal, and domestical, and public affairs.
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This sore travail, this difficult and toilsome work of searching out these things,
hath God given to the sons of man; God hath inflicted this as a just punishment upon man for his eating of the tree of knowledge, that instead of that sweet and perfect knowledge which God had freely infused into man at his first creation, he should now grope after some small parcels or fragments of it, and those too not to be gotten without the sweat of his brows and brains.
To be exercised therewith; to employ themselves in the painful study of these things, which now is both their duty and their punishment. Or, as it is rendered in the margin, and by many others, to afflict them in or by it, to chastise their former curiosity, and to give them matter of continual humiliation and vexation. And therefore knowledge is so far from making men happy, that it exposeth them to trouble and infelicity.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I gave my heart - Which phrase denotes his…
I gave my heart - Which phrase denotes his serious and fixed purpose, and his great industry in it. To search - To seek diligently and accurately. By wisdom - By the help of that wisdom wherewith God had endowed me. Concerning - Concerning all the works of God and men in this lower world; the works of nature; the works of Divine providence; and the works and depths of human policy. This travel - This difficult and toilsome work of searching out these things, God hath inflicted as a just punishment upon man for his eating of the tree of knowledge. To be exercised - To employ themselves in the painful study of these things.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. And I gave my heart to seek…
Verse 13. And I gave my heart to seek and search] While Solomon was faithful to his God, he diligently cultivated his mind. His giving himself to the study of natural history, philosophy, poetry, c., are sufficient proofs of it. He had not intuitive knowledge from God but he had a capacity to obtain every kind of knowledge useful to man.
This sore travail] This is the way in which knowledge is to be acquired; and in order to investigate the operations of nature, the most laborious discussions and perplexing experiments must be instituted, and conducted to their proper results. It is God's determination that knowledge shall be acquired in no other way.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Ecc 1:13. I gave my heart — Which phrase…
Ecc 1:13. I gave my heart — Which phrase denotes his serious and fixed purpose, and his great industry in it. To search out by wisdom — To seek diligently and accurately, by the help of that wisdom wherewith God had endowed me. Concerning all things, &c. — Concerning all the works of God and men in this lower world; the works of nature; the works of divine providence; and the works and depths of human policy. This sore travail — This difficult and toilsome work of searching out these things, God hath inflicted as a just punishment upon man for his eating of the tree of knowledge. To be exercised therewith — To employ themselves in the painful study of these things.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Wisdom - As including both the powers of observation…
Wisdom - As including both the powers of observation and judgment, and the knowledge acquired thereby (1Ki 3:28; 1Ki 4:29; 1Ki 10:8, ...). It increases by exercise. Here is noted its application to people and their actions.
Travail - In the sense of toil; the word is here applied to all human occupations.
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God - God is named as אלהים 'elohı̂ym thirty-nine times in this book; a name common to the true God and to false gods, and used by believers and by idolators: but the name Yahweh, by which He is known especially to the people who are in covenant with Him, is never once used.
Perhaps the chief reason for this is that the evil which is the object of inquiry in this book is not at all unique to the chosen people. All creation Rom. 8 groans under it. The Preacher does not write of (or, to) the Hebrew race exclusively. There is no express and obvious reference to their national expectations, the events of their national history, or even to the divine oracles which were deposited with them. Hence, it was natural for the wisest and largest-hearted man of his race to take a wider range of observation than any other Hebrew writer before or after him. It became the sovereign of many peoples whose religions diverged more or less remotely from the true religion, to address himself to a more extensive sphere than that which was occupied by the twelve tribes, and to adapt his language accordingly. See the Ecc 5:1 note.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain this sore travail--namely, that of "searching out all things…
this sore travail--namely, that of "searching out all things done under heaven." Not human wisdom in general, which comes afterwards (Ecc 2:12, &c.), but laborious enquiries into, and speculations about, the works of men; for example, political science. As man is doomed to get his bread, so his knowledge, by the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:19) [GILL].
exercised--that is, disciplined; literally, "that they may thereby chastise, or humble themselves."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 13. I gave my heart] The phrase, so expressive…
13. I gave my heart] The phrase, so expressive of the spirit of an earnest seeker, is eminently characteristic of this book and meets us again in Ecc_1:17, chaps. Ecc_7:25, Ecc_8:9; Ecc_8:16. Like forms are found in Isai. 41:42; Psa_48:14. “Heart” with the Hebrews, it may be noticed, is the seat of the intellect as well as the affections, and “to give the heart” is therefore specially expressive of an act of concentrated mental energy. The all that is done under heaven (we note the variation of phrase from the “under the sun” of Ecc_1:9) takes in the whole range of human action as distinct from the cosmical phenomena of Ecc_1:5-7. The enquiry of the seeker was throughout one of ethical rather than physical investigation.
this sore travail] The words express the feeling with which the writer looked back on his inquiry. It had led to no satisfying result, and the first occurrence of the name of God in the book is coupled with the thought that this profitless search was His appointment. He gave the desire but, so the preacher murmurs in his real or seeming pessimism, not the full Truth in which only the desire can rest. The word for “travail” is peculiar to this book. That for “exercised” is formed from the same root.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) Gave my heart.—The phrase occurs again in this…
(13) Gave my heart.—The phrase occurs again in this book (Ecc_1:17; Ecc_7:25; Ecc_8:9; Ecc_8:16) and often elsewhere. (See Dan_10:12; 2Ch_11:16, &c) The heart among the Hebrews is regarded as the seat, not merely of the feelings, but of the intellectual faculties, and so the word is constantly used in what follows. “I gave my heart” is the same as “I applied my mind.”
To seek.—Deu_13:14; Lev_10:16.
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Search out.—Num_14:36; Num_14:38; Ecc_7:25.
Travail.—The word occurs again in this book (Ecc_2:23; Ecc_2:26; Ecc_3:10; Ecc_4:8; Ecc_5:3; Ecc_5:14; Ecc_8:16) but no-where else in the Old Testament, though kindred forms are common. The word itself is common in Rabbinical Hebrew, in the sense of business.
“To afflict them” (margin). This is too strong a translation; better, to travail therein.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain I gave my heart (ver. 17; Ecc_7:25; Dan_10:12) The…
I gave my heart (ver. 17; Ecc_7:25; Dan_10:12) The heart, in the Hebrew conception, was the seat, not of the affections only, but of the understanding and intellectual faculties generally. So the expression here is equivalent to "I applied my mind." To seek and search out. The two words are not synonymous. The former verb (vrD; darash) implies penetrating into the depth of an object before one; the other word (rWT, tur) taking a comprehensive survey of matters further away; so that two methods and scopes of investigation are signified. By wisdom; ejn th sofia (Septuagint). Wisdom was the means or instrument by which he carried on his researches, which were directed, not merely to the collecting of facts, but to investigating the causes and conditions of things. Concerning all things that are done under heaven; i.e. men"s actions and conduct, political, social, and private life. We have "under the sun" in ver. 9, and again in ver. 14. Here there is no question of physical matters, the phenomena of the material world, but only of human circumstances and interests. This sore travail (rather, this is a sore travail that) God hath given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. The word rendered "travail" (yni, inyan) occurs often in this book (e.g., Ecc_2:23, Ecc_2:26, etc.) and nowhere else in the Old Testament. The same root is found in the word translated "exercised;" hence Wright has, "It is a woeful exercise which God has given to the sons of men wherewith to exercise themselves." If we keep to the word "travail," we may render, "to travail therein." It implies distracting business, engrossing occupation. Septuagint, perispasmon; Vulgate, occupationem. Man feels himself constrained to make this laborious investigation, yet the result is most unsatisfactory, as the next verse shows. "God" is here Elohim, and so throughout the book, the name Jehovah (the God of the covenant, the God of Israel) never once occurring. Those who regard Solomon as the author of the book account for this on the plea that the king, in his latest years, reflecting sadly on his backsliding and fall, shrank from uttering with his polluted lips the adorable Name once so often used with filial reverence and beloved. But the true reason is found in the design of Koheleth, which was to set forth, not so much Israel"s position under the covenant, as the condition of man in the face of the God of nature. The idiosyncrasies and peculiar features of the chosen people are not the subject of his essay; he deals with a wider sphere; his theme is man in his relation to Divine providence; and for this power he uses that name, common alike to the true and false religions, Elohim, applied to the Supreme Being by believers and idolaters.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain I gave my heart to seek and search out…
Ecc_1:13-14
I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven.
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The mysteries of human life
Now, there has never been any book which can be compared to this marvellous book of Ecclesiastes. It is the laboratory in which the penitent gathers bitter herbs, the garden in which the wise man gathers sweet flowers. It is the laboratory to which the greatest sage of old times deliberately puts his hand and his head to try experiments, in order to get a little acquaintance with the mysteries of human life. The scale upon which he experimented is as vast as the power of man; as we may see when we consider the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, the speculations of Priestley, the anatomists among the bones, and the geologists among the stones, as also that most sublime of men, full of animal life, sensual desire, and full of wisdom, who obtained a knowledge of all times. What was the object of his experiments? They were deliberately entered upon to try what life could do for his soul, and he tried it in the most philosophical way. How splendid to read his experiment. I builded me a house. How many men thus see if they can satisfy the desires of their souls. I know of one man who built one of the greatest houses of modern times, and when he had finished it he said, If I could find as much pleasure in pulling it down as I have done in rearing, I would begin to pull it down. The charm was in the experiment, and not in the thing which was got. So Solomon tried houses; and we know the style in which he built. The very cedars of Lebanon trembled, for there was to be an axe among them; the far-off stones were to be brought, for there was a king building. He tried gardening also--the loveliest of all human pleasures, the sweetest and most innocent, the most lasting, and one from which men get more pure pleasure than anything else. Then he tried society. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. And then he came to the result of all his experiments: It is all vanity and vexation of spirit. Now, it is a subject worth pondering upon, what is meant by this endless search; whether there be a remedy for this perpetual discontent, and where it is to be found. We never do meet with a contented people. The more cultivated they are, the more real will be the discontent. In which country of Europe do you suppose are there the most suicides--the stupidest or the most cultivated? You will say in the former, of course; but you are entirely wrong. The most elevated districts are more disturbed than others. Solomon also tried whether books and study would give him what he sought; and he came down with a great library and among his parchments, but eventually comes to the conclusion that much study is a weariness to the flesh. Now, it will be found that there are more suicides in Prussia than in Spain; for these reasons, that in one country, they think, and in the other they drink; in one country they lead, and in the other they are driven. Wherever there is but a little looking into its problems, according to the ability they have for making experiments, there is the same result. I envy the souls that never are weary. Is there anything much more touching than this great desire which is upon me, this impatience of the dull routine of things, this great clement of weariness, of always seeing the same things over and over again I It is so wonderful! Solomon had seen all the wonderful things that were-to be seen, and come to the conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun. Ask a man who is perpetually reading and studying, and he will tell you he gets fearfully weary: he finds the same stereotyped state of things. We toil and fever after wealth, and leave it to somebody, we know not what sort of person he may be--whether a fool or not. We put by a little, and know not what manner of person will have it. We rejoice in building up something beautiful and commanding, and know not what kind of creature will inhabit it. We erect a house, perhaps, to be occupied by beggars; we leave an orchard to be used by fools, gather books to be scattered over the world: or, perhaps, we collect a magnificent gallery of pictures, and leave them to a progeny who cannot understand them. Looking at his own work, and of the labour which his hand had wrought, Solomon said, as he walked through his palaces, This is a weariness to the flesh. He was conscious of understanding the infinite forms of human weariness; such was the result of his analysis of the experiments he made in Jerusalem, and he ends by showing that nothing would satisfy him. In the effort to get quit of this fearful discontent, men are always trying to get something new, to get something that will satisfy them. One man says he will retire, and fancies for himself some little island in the sweet Mediterranean Sea, where the scene is ever fair, the sky ever blue--where the women are beautiful and never commonplace, and the men classical in contour, and the children sweet little cherubs, never growing vulgar. He dreams of some sweet paradise, and he goes to find it. But he finds that black care, all haunting care, in the saddle behind the horseman. The man carries himself wheresoever he goes. How touching to read of the humble experiment of poor Charles Lamb, longing for the day when he should have nothing to do, no longer confined to the hateful India House, sitting and working sadly and wearyingly at those ledgers, The thing that has been will be, when I have stood at the banks and other places and seen the marble-like figures who have toiled there: such fearful repetition, the manner in which they spend their lives, in adding up the day-books, counting up the figures, with a view to the dividends! What would poor Lamb have given to get out of this condition? What a tragedy that was when he went down to Brighton to enjoy himself, and lay down the burden of his daily routine for a little while; when the coach got half-way and met the one coming in the opposite direction, he got out of the one he was in and stepped into the other! That was vanity and vexation of spirit. What was the secret of Byron, of the strange opinions of that spoiled child of fashion? Now, all this weariness comes very much out of the impatience of the condition by which we are surrounded. Then the majority of people are so fond of the proprieties of life, asking the ordinary questions and receiving the eternal answers. Where have you been? Where are you going? What has happened? So that everything even in friendship gets tiresome. (G. Dawson.)
The pursuit of wisdom and knowledge
1. This wisdom and knowledge, if a man is determined to go far beyond his fellows in the acquisition of it, must be discovered, and examined, and appropriated, by much study: and this, as Solomon observes, is a weariness of the flesh. The incessant stretch of the minds faculties, frequent harassing and anxious perplexity, studious days and sleepless nights, must be his portion, who sets his heart on the attainment of unusual eminence, in science in general, or in any of its various departments.
2. In this pursuit, as in others, there are many disappointments to be expected, to fret, and mortify, and irritate the spirit:--such as, experiments failing, some of them perhaps long-continued, promising, and costly;--facts turning out contradictory, and unsettling or overturning favourite theories;--the means of prosecuting a train of discovery falling short, at the very moment, it may be, when they are most desirable;--trifling and worthless results arising, after much labour, long-tried patience, and sanguine expectation;--the anticipated honour and pleasure of introducing a new and important invention or discovery, the product of the experiments and investigations of years, lost on the very eve of arrival, by the priority of an unknown competitor.
3. There are some parts of knowledge which are, in their very nature, painful and distressing. In a world where sin reigns, many must be the scenes of misery, many the afflicting occurrences and facts, which present themselves to the observant and investigating mind, that is in quest of general and extensive information. They abound both in the past and present history of mankind. They are fitted to fill the heart with grief and sorrow: and the more a mans knowledge extends,--the more he reads, and hears, and observes, the more copious will this source of bitterness become.
4. There is to be taken into account the mortification of pride that must be experienced, in consequence of the limited nature o! the human faculties.
5. There is a similar feeling of mortification, arising from the very circumstance, that, with all the knowledge and wisdom that are acquired, there is still a blank,--still a consciousness of want and deficiency, in regard to true happiness.
6. The man of much wisdom and increased knowledge, generally, if not universally, becomes the marked object of the scorn of some, and the envy of others. Some depreciate his studies and all their results, laugh at them, and hold them up to contempt and ridicule. Others are stung with secret jealousy; which is the odious parent of all the hidden arts of detraction and calumny, and of injurious and unworthy attempts to deprive him of his well-earned honours, and to cast him down from his excellency.
7. The man who occupies his powers in the pursuit and acquisition of human wisdom alone, careless of God, and uninfluenced by regard to His authority and to His glory, is leaving eternity a wretched blank; has no solid and satisfactory support in the anticipation of it, when the thought intrudes itself upon his mind; and is treasuring up grief and sorrow for the close of his career. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Ecc 1:13. - Heb 12:10.
Ecclesiastes
TWO VIEWS OF LIFE
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Ecc 1:13. - Heb 12:10.
These two texts set before us human life as it looks to two observers. The former admits that God shapes it; but to him it seems sore travail, the expenditure of much trouble and efforts; the results of which seem to be nothing beyond profitless exercise. There is an immense activity and nothing to show for it at the end but wearied limbs. The other observer sees, at least, as much of sorrow and trouble as the former, but he believes in the ‘Father of spirits,’ and in a hereafter; and these, of course, bring a meaning and a wider purpose into the ‘sore travail,’ and make it, not futile but, profitable to our highest good.
I. Note first the Preacher’s gloomy half-truth.
The word rendered in our text ‘travail’ is a favourite one with the writer. It means occupation which costs effort and causes trouble. The phrase ‘to be exercised therewith,’ rather means to fatigue themselves, so that life as looked upon by the Preacher consists of effort without result but weariness.
If he knew it at all, it was very imperfectly and dimly; and whatever may be thought of teaching on that subject which appears in the formal conclusion of the book, the belief in a future state certainly exercises no influence on its earlier portions. These represent phases through which the writer passes on his way to his conclusion. He does believe in ‘God,’ but, very significantly, he never uses the sacred name ‘Lord.’ He has shaken himself free, or he wishes to represent a character who has shaken himself free from Revelation, and is fighting the problem of life, its meaning and worth, without any help from Law, or Prophet, or Psalm. He does retain belief in what he calls ‘God,’ but his pure Theism, with little, if any, faith in a future life, is a creed which has no power of unravelling the perplexed mysteries of life, and of answering the question, ‘What does it all mean?’ With keen and cynical vision he looks out not only over men, as in this first chapter, but over nature; and what mainly strikes him is the enormous amount of work that is being done, and the tragical poverty of its results. The question with which he begins his book is, ‘What profit hath a man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun?’ And for answer he looks at the sun rising and going down, and being in the same place after its journey through the heavens; and he hears the wind continually howling and yet returning again to its circuits; and the waters now running as rivers into the sea and again drawn up in vapours, and once more falling in rain and running as waters. This wearisome monotony of intense activity in nature is paralleled by all that is done by man under heaven, and the net result of all is ‘Vanity and a strife after wind.’
The writer proceeds to confirm his dreary conclusion by a piece of autobiography put into the mouth of Solomon. He is represented as flinging himself into mirth and pleasure, into luxury and debauchery, and as satisfying every hunger for any joy, and as being pulled up short in the midst of his rioting by the conviction, like a funeral bell, tolling in his mind that all was vanity. ‘He gave himself to wisdom, and madness, and folly’; and in all he found but one result-enormous effort and no profit. There seemed to be a time for everything, and a kind of demonic power in men compelling them to toil as with equal energy, now at building up, and now at destroying. But to every purpose he saw that there was ‘time and judgment,’ and therefore, ‘the misery of man was great upon him.’ To his jaundiced eye the effort of life appeared like the play of the wind in the desert, always busy, but sometime busy in heaping the sands in hillocks, and sometimes as busy in levelling them to a plain.
We may regard such a view of humanity as grotesquely pessimistic; but there is no doubt that many of us do make of life little more than what the Preacher thought it. It is not only the victims of civilisation who are forced to wearisome monotony of toil which barely yields daily bread; but we see all around us men and women wearing out their lives in the race after a false happiness, gaining nothing by the race but weariness. What shall we say of the man who, in the desire to win wealth, or reputation, lives laborious days of cramping effort in one direction, and allows all the better part of his nature to be atrophied, and die, and passes, untasted, brooks by the way, the modest joys and delights that run through the dustiest lives. What is the difference between a squirrel in the cage who only makes his prison go round the faster by his swift race, and the man who lives toilsome days for transitory objects which he may never attain? In the old days every prison was furnished with a tread-mill, on which the prisoner being set was bound to step up on each tread of the revolving wheel, not in order to rise, but in order to prevent him from breaking his legs. How many men around us are on such a mill, and how many of them have fastened themselves on it, and by their own misreading and misuse of life have turned it into a dreary monotony of resultless toil. The Preacher may be more ingenious than sound in his pessimism, but let us not forget that every godless man does make of life ‘Vanity and strife after wind.’
II. The higher truth which completes the Preacher’ s.
Of course the fragmentary sentence in our second text needs to be completed from the context, and so completed will stand, ‘God chastens us for our profit, that we should be partakers of His holiness.’ Now let us consider for a moment the thought that the true meaning of life is discipline. I say discipline rather than ‘chastening,’ for chastening simply implies the fact of pain, whereas discipline includes the wholesome purpose of pain. The true meaning of life is not to be found by estimating its sorrows or its joys, but by trying to estimate the effects of either upon us. The true value of life, and the meaning of all its tears and of all its joys, is what it makes us. If the enormous effort which struck the Preacher issues in strengthened muscles and braced limbs, it is not ‘vanity.’ He who carries away with him out of life a character moulded as God would have it, does not go in all points ‘naked as he came.’ He bears a developed self, and that is the greatest treasure that a man can carry out of multitudinous toils of the busiest life. If we would think less of our hard work and of our heavy sorrows, and more of the loving purpose which appoints them all, we should find life less difficult, less toilsome, less mysterious. That one thought taken to our hearts, and honestly applied to everything that befalls us, would untie many a riddle, would wipe away many a tear, would bring peace and patience into many a heart, and would make still brighter many a gladness. Without it our lives are a chaos; with it they would become an ordered world.
But the recognition of the hand that ministers the discipline is needed to complete the peacefulness of faith. It would be a dreary world if we could only think of some inscrutable or impersonal power that inflicted the discipline; but if in its sharpest pangs we give ‘reverence to the Father of spirits,’ we shall ‘live.’ Of course, a loving father sees to his children’s education, and a loving child cannot but believe that the father’s single purpose in all his discipline is his good. The good that is sought to be attained by the sharpest chastisement is better than the good that is given by weak indulgence. When the father’s hand wields the rod, and a loving child receives the strokes, they may sting, but they do not wound. The ‘fathers of our flesh chasten us after their own pleasure,’ and there may be error and arbitrariness in their action; and the child may sometimes nourish a right sense of injustice, but ‘the Father of spirits’ makes no mistakes, and never strikes too hard. ‘He for our profit’ carries with it the declaration that the deep heart of God doth not willingly afflict, and seeks in afflicting for nothing but His children’s good.
Nor are these all the truths by which the New Testament completes and supersedes the Preacher’s pessimism, for our text closes by unveiling the highest profit which discipline is meant to secure to us as being that we should be ‘partakers of His holiness.’ The Biblical conception of holiness in God is that of separation from and elevation above the creature. Man’s holiness is separation from the world and dedication to God. He is separated from the world by moral perfection yet more than by His other attributes, and men who have yielded themselves to Him will share in that characteristic. This assimilation to His nature is the highest ‘profit’ to which we can attain, and all the purpose of His chastening is to make us more completely like Himself. ‘The fathers of our flesh’ chasten with a view to the brief earthly life, but His chastening looks onwards beyond the days of ‘strife and vanity’ to a calm eternity.
Thus, then, the immortality which glimmered doubtfully in the end of his book before the eyes of the Preacher is the natural inference for the Christian thought of moral discipline as the great purpose of life. No doubt it might be possible for a man to believe in the supreme importance of character, and in all the discipline of life as subsidiary to its development, and yet not believe in another world, where all that was tendency, often thwarted, should be accomplished result, and the schooling ended the rod should be broken. But such a position will be very rare and very absurd. To recognise moral discipline as the greatest purpose of life, gives quite overwhelming probability to a future. Surely God does not take such pains with us in order to make no more of us than He makes of us in this world. Surely human life becomes ‘confusion worse confounded’ if it is carefully, sedulously, continuously tended, checked, inspired, developed by all the various experiences of sorrow and joy, and then, at death, broken short off, as a man might break a stick across his knee, and the fragments tossed aside and forgotten. If we can say, ‘He for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness,’ we have the right to say ‘We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:13 God has dealt a tragic existence: The grim…
1:13 God has dealt a tragic existence: The grim realities of human experience remind us of the Fall in Eden (Gen 3). Ecclesiastes does not dodge depressing descriptions of death, oppression, and loneliness; it meets them head-on and incorporates them into realistic conclusions.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.