The preacher knows prosperity experimentally far better than poverty. Moreover, by observation he is more familiar with men of wealth than with poor men, and, therefore, he returns to a declaration of the sorrows of the wealthy. A man possessing, cannot possess. Lacking nothing of all he desires, yet he cannot eat thereof. That is to say, he has a craving and desire within him which none of these things can appease. If a man be surrounded by children and yet at last have no burial, it would be better if he had never been born. Though he continue for two millenniums and enjoy no good during their passing, what advantage is there in it, for death is the final goal? In a pregnant phrase he expresses the emptiness of wealth. Wandering desire tells the story of the life of restless attempt to possess the best by the use of material things. After all, man is man, and nothing more, and there is no value in his contending with the Mightier One. If the afterward of life be uncertain, who can tell what is good for its experience? Evidently the thought of the preacher is that the mar; a man possesses under the sun, the more profoundly conscious does he become of the vanity and vexation of it all.
Ecclesiastes 6:1-12
1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:
2 A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
3 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
4 For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
5 Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.
6 Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?
7 All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetitea is not filled.
8 For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.
10 That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
11 Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?
12 For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, allb the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?