CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 2:12. What can the man do that cometh after the King?] What will my successor do? He will probably, like the rest of the world, follow the well-worn path of sin and folly—even that which hath been already done—fulfilled in Rehoboam.
Ecclesiastes 2:16. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool!] This is an inexpressible burst of feeling—a deep regret that it should be so. It is a question painfully asked of the Supreme Wisdom, not in anger but in grief.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 2:12-16
PRACTICAL WISDOM
The Royal Preacher had exercised his wisdom on speculative subjects: he now applies it to the practical matters of human life. Of such wisdom, or philosophical prudence, we learn—
I. That it possesses high Absolute Value. Of all earthly treasures, wisdom has the greatest worth. This is a truth at once evident to every reflecting mind. The perception of it is quick as vision. “Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly,” &c. Such wisdom may be compared to the light.
1. Like light, wisdom is a revealing power. Without light, our knowledge of nature would be scanty. We could only have knowledge of near objects. The distant glories of the universe are completely veiled to the blind. But light reveals them—makes all things manifest. So wisdom reveals to man the true state of things around him—his position in the world—the conditions of earthly happiness. He is thus able to form the most sagacious plans, and to use expedients for the maintenance of his life, for avoiding dangers, and varying his pleasures. In physical endowments, man is inferior to the lower animals, but he obtains supremacy over them by that wisdom which reveals to him more of that world in which he lives.
2. Like light, wisdom is a guiding power. “The wise man’s eyes are in his head.” The eyes of the wise man are where they ought to be—the lofty windows of the palace of the soul, through which she takes a large survey of the outward world, and the scene of man. The eyes of the mind, like those of the body, serve both to inform and direct. Every truth of nature or of man, that we discover, becomes for us a rule of action or duty. The facts revealed to the understanding guide us in our way through the world. He who walks in darkness runs the risk of stumbling. All nature is against the fool.
3. Like light, wisdom is a vitalising power. Light is absolutely necessary to the growth and preservation of all kinds of life. The light of the day not only warms, but fertilises. The sun is a source of energy, performing all the work of this lower world. So practical wisdom is the real strength of man’s life here. Folly is darkness—a dull negation—unproductive of vitality or beauty—generates fear. The ignorant are the victims of unnecessary fears, as we see from the history of superstition. Wisdom is a light to quicken all things necessary for man as an inhabitant of this world. It supplies that vital energy by which we do our work. By the life-giving power of wisdom, man conquers nature, by directing her forces to serve his own uses. The dull existence of the fool is not worthy of the name of life. We learn of this practical wisdom—
II. That it is complicated with certain facts giving rise to painful doubts and questionings. The superiority of wisdom to folly is beyond dispute. It is at once apparent. Like the light, this truth is its own evidence. But there are attendant facts which lead to painful doubts and questionings as to whether wisdom, on the whole, has such a superior advantage; or whether, in the upshot of things, the wise man is better off than the fool.
1. We are not sure that posterity will preserve the fruits of our work and wisdom. Men labour that they may increase their earthly joys, amass wealth, and accomplish some wise designs; but how often are the fruits of their anxious toil spoiled and wasted by those who come after! As the custom of the world is folly, the Royal Preacher could only expect that his successor would be a foolish man—according to the general type. Every worker upon merely human principles, no matter how accomplished, must say at last, “I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought.” The fact, that what we have gathered with such labour and pains may thus be wasted and dissipated by others, is enough to make the wisest serious and sad. The speech acquires a painful hue of reflectiveness, and the contemplation of life becomes a distress.
2. All our diligence and wisdom cannot avail to save us from oblivion. “There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever.” It is not intended to deny all posthumous fame. Some names will live through the whole range of time, names like Moses—the earliest in literature, and sounding through the endless songs of heaven. But the great bulk of mankind are not remembered by posterity—the wise and the fool alike are soon forgotten: “One Cæsar lives, a thousand are forgot.” Even if we live in fame ever so long, and are at last forgotten; when compared with eternity, this is equivalent to oblivion.
3. All our wisdom cannot save us from the common doom of the race. “One event happeneth to all.” Our wisdom and skill cannot save us from accidents, pains, and from that sum of all fears and distresses—death. The terrible necessity of death awaits alike the foolish and the wise. We take pains to gather knowledge, and the maxims of wisdom; death comes, and our fancied superiority over others vanishes. If there be no future, the most sagacious of men may mournfully ask at the close of life, “Why was I then more wise?” The wise and foolish appear to go out of life in the same manner. All differences are lost in the darkness of the tomb. Let us learn—that heavenly wisdom is complicated with no painful facts to fill us with doubts and misgivings. Nothing can arise to dull the pure splendour of this Divine gift. The glory of it only increases as all that is precious in life is fading away. We can only be saved from the fate of oblivion when we seek the “honour that cometh from God only,” when we are “confessed before the angels,” and our names inscribed in the Book of Life. All who are truly wise shall be fixed in the regions of immortality—shall “shine as the stars for ever and ever.”
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 2:12. Whatever we desire to understand, it is necessary that we should not only look upon it, but behold it—there must be a prolonged look. The object must not only be seen, but seen through. All men are bound to see what lies in their way, but few see with the eye of intelligent observation. The wealth of the mind comes not as a sudden gift of fortune: it is gathered slowly.
He who contemplates human nature must be prepared to find it a mixed scene of wisdom, madness, and folly. There are wise men who govern their conduct by reason, and maxims gained from experience and observation. There are others who have some intellectual power, but it is rashly applied. There is no sufficient guiding principle—their conduct is madness—power wasted in an irregular manner, without order or plan. There are simple men who are easily led, and become the willing dupes of cunning craft.
The evils of the world are incurable by human means. We can only expect that the future will be as the past. The dream of human perfection is not realised. The paths of sin and folly are old and well worn. Generations to come will be content to travel in them.
Posterity may forget our wisdom, and destroy the fruits of our labours. But he who works with eternity in view will find the grave a place of restitution.
How vain are those possessions which the most foolish of mankind can disperse as chaff before the wind!
It is well noted by Hugo, that first he looked upon wisdom as thereby coming to behold madness and folly. For as he speaketh—“No one goeth to darkness that he may see darkness; but he cometh to the light, that by the light he may see, not only light, but light and darkness also. First therefore the Preacher saith he beheld wisdom, so that he might behold in wisdom itself what itself is, and by itself madness and folly, which wisdom itself is not” [Jermin].
The utmost comfort that creatures can yield, when happiness is sought in them, may soon be attained. It is no such depth but that it may be sounded by those who will put it to the trial. One man may in a short time find out so much thereof as that he may defy others after him to find more. Whence appears a manifest difference between heavenly and earthly consolations, the heavenly being still upon the growing hand, and incomprehensible by any of the saints till in heaven they be filled with all the fulness of God. For here Solomon professeth himself to have been at the bottom of earthly delights, so as none after him could go deeper. “What can the man do who cometh after the king?” [Nisbet].
Ecclesiastes 2:13. There are endowments of human nature, and improvements in character, which, though not distinctly spiritual, have high absolute value. Moral virtue and practical wisdom may beautify and adorn the character so as to win Divine commendation. The young man in the Gospel fell short of the highest excellence, yet “Jesus beholding him, loved him.”
There is great variety in the courses which natural men take in the pursuit of happiness. Some employ the highest prudence and caution, others are abandoned to the most reckless folly. There is all the difference between darkness and light in human conduct, even when it comes short of the highest requirements.
Let us not despise the natural beauties and graces of character. All light should be welcomed. The Gospel has an attraction for all that is pure and lovely in human nature.
It is the property of good things that they do not need an external praiser, but themselves when they are seen do testify their grace. It is a greater excellency which is approved by sight, than that which is commended by speech [St. Ambrose].
It is of human wisdom whereof I conceive him to speak, which therefore, though he could not be free from vanity, yet doth he prefer before folly, as much as light before darkness. Now light hath God himself for the praiser of it, and it is the first thing that God praised. “Let there be light,” is the first word that God ever spoke; and that “God saw the light to be good,” is the first praise that God ever gave. As soon as God made the light, He divided the darkness from it, as if he would not have the excellency thereof to be dishonoured by the company of it. Let it therefore be our care also to divide wisdom from folly. The society of the one doth much shame the other, and indeed most unworthy is folly, so much as to be joined in comparison with wisdom [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:14. Sensual pleasures dim the light of reason, and weaken man’s power to direct his way.
When the animal in man surmounts the rational, the eyes which should be the light of the body, are degraded to the dust, and blinded.
The superior light, which the wise man of this world holds aloft to illuminate his path in life, does not prevent him from taking his last step into the darkness of the grave. The light that comes from beyond the sun can alone pierce that darkness.
A fool hath not his eyes in his head, but in his heels. For when the comtemplative power of the soul is busied in worldly things, the nature of the eyes passeth to the heels, which the serpent pursueth and biteth with his teeth [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:15. Thoughts on the dread humility of dying will betimes oppress the most favoured and exalted of men.
The terrible realities of our troubled life must sooner or later come home to the individual,—“So it happeneth even to me.”
In the voyage of life, our fellow passengers are marked by a great variety. There are rich and poor, obscure and noble, wise and foolish, good and evil. But one fate awaits us all—total shipwreck. We must all sink into the gulf of death. Our only consolation lies in the hope that we shall be supplied with Divine strength to climb up the other bank of life.
To the wise man of the world, there is humiliation in the thought of the disgraceful necessity of death. But Jesus has passed through the tomb and sanctified it, so that for the Christian, death becomes the gate of life. No one who has learned the knowledge of the holy will have mournfully to ask when his last hour draws near—“Why was I then more wise?” For such a man, the tree of knowledge becomes the tree of life.
A man is placed in a high situation, receives an expensive education at school or college, and a still more expensive one of time and experience. And then, just when we think all this ripe wisdom, garnered up from so many fields, shall find its fullest use, we hear that all is over, he has passed from among us, and the question, hideous in its suggestiveness, arises—“Why was he then more wise?” Asked from this world’s stand-point—if there is no life beyond the grave, then the mighty work of God is all to end in nothingness. But if this is only a state of infancy, only the education for eternity, then to ask why such a mind is taken from us is just as absurd as to question why the tree of the forest has its first training in the nursery garden. This is but the nursery ground, from whence we are to be transplanted into the great forest of God’s eternal universe. There is an absence of all distinction between the death of one man and another. The wise man dies as the fool with respect to circumstances [Robertson].
The Preacher objecteth, that although the wise man seeth so far into the nature and condition of things, yet that one event happeneth to them all. And, as to this objection.
1. He granteth it, “Then said I in my heart,” I said that it was so, and in my heart confessed it to be true.
2. He applieth it, “As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me.” I cannot deny it in myself, of whom it cannot be denied that my wisdom is the greatest of any.
3. He repineth at it in these words, “And why was I then more wise?” Why did I so carefully search into the nature and condition of things, forecast the events of things?
4. He delivereth his sentence, “Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity.” Then I concluded of it, and said so in my heart when I had considered of it [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:16. It is always a startling thing to see the rapidity with which the wisest and the best are forgotten. We plough our lives in water, leaving no furrow; two little waves break upon the shore, but no further vestige of our existence is left [Robertson].
The footprints we leave on the sands of time are soon washed away by the advancing tide.
The words, “And how dieth the wise man?” in the original are an exclamation—“But O, how is it that the wise man dieth as the fool!” This is not the conclusion of a cold and severe logic, but the expression of deep emotion. Beneath all the glory of this life, there is an unutterable sorrow. There are truths too deep for words. They are only to be uttered with a gasp and a sigh.
Faith alone can cure the terrible melancholy with which this view of life afflicts the soul. The intellect, the throne of human wisdom, is part of the Divine image, and God will not suffer it to die in imperfect rudiments. Man has in him some resemblances of the Eternal God, who will not leave His image in the grave, nor suffer this spark of Him to see corruption.