‘Vanity of vanities,' says the Preacher, ‘all is vanity.'
This is a reference to the whole of man's existence on earth. It signals the completion of what was commenced in Ecclesiastes 1:2, and the sum total of what the human mind can achieve. All that is done, or happens, on earth has been seen to be finally meaningless, temporary and transient. All hope of meaning and worth therefore depends on living before God and the final event just described, that the spirit returns to the God Who gave it. It depends on the fact that on death man is drawn back up to God and His mysterious everlastingness, (something that will one day gain clearer light in the coming and teaching of Jesus, and in His final conquest of death). But meanwhile all that is on earth is, and remains, ‘total vanity'.