So Little Time

Ecclesiastes 9:1-3

But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. 2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,[a] to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. 3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Let's face it. This is depressing. You don't see any bumper stickers with the words, “Ecclesiastes 9:9b – And after that they go to the dead.” People don't comfort others in mourning with the book of Ecclesiastes.

Solomon, the king who asked God for wisdom, was going through some tough times while he wrote Ecclesiastes.* He wrote it just after he'd made a terrible mistake and married many foreign wives (something that God did not approve of), but just before Israel divided into two countries, Israel and Judah. Solomon was probably in a cynical mood when he wrote this book.

Let's observe verses 1-3.  In verse two, Solomon begins listing the characteristics of different people.  This doesn't mean that he's singling out the people who fall into those categories - he's using the contrast between each characteristic to help define his meaning.  Each attribute is paired with its opposite (eg. "righteous" and "wicked") to show the differences between them.  Solomon wants to show the reader that everyone - the good and the evil - are going to die.

The line "under the sun" is repeated a lot in this passage.  When Solomon uses it, he's referring to everything that exists - every living and non-living thing.  Earlier in the book, he states that there is "nothing new under the sun".

Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2, “Life is vanity.” He repeats this over and over again. In the NIV version, the line is, “Life is meaningless.” However, “meaningless” is not an accurate translation of the word originally used. The word Solomon wrote down was the Hebrew word “hebel”. It means “mere breath” or “vapor”. The main point Solomon is trying to get across is that life is short and that we will all die, whether we are good or bad, Christian or non-Christian. We're gone in the blink of an eye. We die so fast, so easily. All it takes is one car, one bullet, one cancer cell, one slip, and then we're done.

But don't worry. There is hope.

Which will be in my next post.

*Solomon supposedly wrote Ecclesiastes. No one is actually certain who wrote it, or even when. For the sake of this project, I'm assuming King Solomon wrote it during this time.