Koheleth now mentions the unusual advantages which he had possessed for enjoying life and making the best of it. His opportunities could not have been greater, he considers, had he been Solomon himself. He henceforth speaks therefore under the personated character of the wise son of David. He speaks as one who represented the wisdom and prosperity of his age.
I. "I have set myself," he says, "to the task of investigating scientifically the value of all human pursuits." This, he assures us, is no pleasant task. It is a sore travail that God has allotted to the sons of men, which they cannot altogether escape. Koheleth thought and thought till he was forced to the conclusion that all human pursuits were vanity and vexation of spirit, or, according to the literal Hebrew, were but vapour and striving after the wind. There was no solidity, nothing permanent, nothing enduring, about human possessions or achievements. For man was doomed to pass away into nothingness.
II. Having stated his position in these general terms, he now enters into the subject a little more in detail. He reminds himself how at one time he had tried to find his happiness in pleasure and amusement; but pleasure had palled upon him, and appeared good for nothing: and as for amusements, Koheleth thinks that life might, perhaps, be tolerable without them. Having discovered the unsatisfactoriness of pleasure, Koheleth proceeds to inquire if there is anything else that could take its place. What of wisdom? Can that make life a desirable possession? He proceeds to institute a comparison between wisdom and pleasure. Pleasure is but momentary; wisdom may last for a lifetime. Pleasure is but a shadow; wisdom is comparatively substantial and real. The lover of wisdom will follow her till he dies. Ay, there's the rub till he dies. One event happeneth to them all. What then is the good of wisdom? This, too, is vanity.
III. In the third chapter Koheleth points out how anything like success in life must depend upon our doing the right thing at the right time. Wisdom lies in opportuneness. Inopportuneness is the bane of life. What we have to do is to watch for our opportunity and embrace it.
IV. In Ecclesiastes 3:14, Koheleth seems to rise for a moment into a religious mood. But his religion is by no means of an exalted type. Times, seasons, and opportunities, he says, are of Divine appointment; and, like nature's phases, they happen in recurring cycles. God doeth it that men should fear before Him. The existence of so much unrequited wisdom in the world might seem to suggest that there is no higher power. But there is. God will rule the righteous and the wicked, and reward them according to their works. There is a time for every purpose and for every work, and therefore for the purpose of retribution among the rest.
A. W. Momerie, Agnosticism,p. 190.
References: Ecclesiastes 1:13. J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p.14.Ecclesiastes 1:14. Ibid.,pp. 28, 38; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 339; W. G. Jordan, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 136.
A profound gloom rests on the second act or section of this drama. It teaches us that we are helpless in the iron grip of laws which we had no voice in making; that we often lie at the mercy of men whose mercy is but a caprice; that in our origin and end, in body and spirit, in faculty and prospect, in our lives and pleasures, we are no better than the beasts that perish; that the avocations into which we plunge, amid which we seek to forget our sad estate, spring from our jealousy the one of the other, and tend to a lonely miserliness, without a use or a charm.
I. The Preacher's handling of this subject is very thorough and complete. According to him, men's excessive devotion to affairs springs from "a jealous rivalry the one with the other;" it tends to form in them a grasping, covetous temper which can never be satisfied, to produce a materialistic scepticism of all that is noble and spiritual in thought and action, to render their worship formal and insincere, and in general to incapacitate them for any quiet, happy enjoyment of their life. This is his diagnosis of their disease.
II. But what checks, what correctives, what remedies, would the Preacher have us apply to the diseased tendencies of the time? How shall men of business save themselves from that excessive devotion to its affairs which breeds so many portentous evils? (1) The very sense of the danger to which they are exposed a danger so insidious, so profound, so fatal should surely induce caution and a wary self-control. (2) The Preacher gives us at least three serviceable maxims. To all men of business conscious of their special dangers and anxious to avoid them he says, (a) Replace the competition which springs from your jealous rivalry with the co-operation which is born of sympathy and breeds goodwill. (b) Replace the formality of your worship with a reverent and steadfast sincerity. (c) Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a constant holy trust in the fatherly providence of God.
S. Cox, The Quest of the Chief Good,p. 140.
References: Ecclesiastes 3:2. G. Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty,p. 277; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College,vol. i., p. 57. Ecclesiastes 3:4. J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iv., p. 334; W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 81; G. Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 91.Ecclesiastes 3:6. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 107. Ecclesiastes 3:7. A. A. Bonar, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. i., p. 123.Ecclesiastes 3:9-22. R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons,p. 107.