What Use Our Efforts When We Must Leave All Behind To Those Who Will Misuse It? (Ecclesiastes 2:18-23).
‘And I hated all my effort with which I exerted myself under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will be after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control (‘rule') over all that has been produced by my great efforts (‘all my labour in which I have laboured'), and in which I have shown wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.'
Another thing that perturbed him was that he would have to leave the results of all his great efforts to others. And who knew what they would do with them? What men build up, other men pull down. They have no permanence. So all his great efforts would finally have been in vain. What his wisdom had produced would eventually come to nothing. It would be dismissed by the next generation. It could not bear thinking about.
‘So I changed my way of thinking (turned about) to make my heart despair about all the efforts in which I had exerted myself under the sun. For here is a man whose efforts are with wisdom, and with knowledge, and with skill, and yet he will give it for a bequest to a man who has not exerted himself with regard to it. This also is vanity, and a great evil.'
Especially disillusioning was the fact that he having exerted himself with wisdom, understanding and skill, the one to whom it was all passed on might well treat all his hard efforts as irrelevant, looking on it as unimportant and not worth bothering about, and making no effort to maintain what had been passed on to him. The thought of this happening had changed his whole way of thinking with regard to matters. It was not only an indication of the meaninglessness of things, but a positive evil. (Thus it was not quite so meaningless after all. The writer does not deny that things have meaning, only that they have final meaning).
‘Skill.' The word is found at Ugarit, and in Akkadian sources. It can therefore no longer be described as ‘late Hebrew'. (The findings at Ugarit have made much ‘late Hebrew' into early Hebrew. Had the Preacher but known this it would have given him a good illustration).
‘For what has a man for all his efforts, and for the striving of his heart with which he exerts himself under the sun? For all his days are spent in painful effort, and his exertions are vexatious. Yes, even in the night his heart is restless. This also is vanity.'
He concludes by asking what point there is for a person to wear himself down and exert painful effort, seeking to build up for the future, when the future is so insecure and transient. The very thought of it upsets him. It makes all his exertions vexatious. It makes him unable to sleep at night. It is further evidence of the temporary nature of things, of the meaninglessness of it all.