Podcast 91 Ecclesiastes, “Pt 6, Ch 6”

It is very common in scriptures for the prophet to make a sweeping statement in the beginning upon which the rest of the chapter follows, giving specific detail explaining its meaning. It moves from general to specific. In English we call it a thesis statement, a purpose statement, or topic sentence. In other words, the prophet raises a question and then answers it thoroughly. Notice the first verse of Ecclesiastes 6:

Ecclesiastes 6:1

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:

Now we may expect King Solomon to expound or answer his own question: What is that evil common to man? His object, of course, is to persuade us to avoid that evil; otherwise, our lives, regardless of how outwardly successful we may appear to be, will be in vain. Consistently Solomon has the eternal perspective in mind. The key words in Chapter 6 are good vs evil. The first two verses speak of evil. In verse one he said, “There is an evil…under the sun.” It is set apart by the fact that the evil is ‘common among men.’

Ecclesiastes 6:2

A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

First of all, Solomon acknowledges that all good things come from God, but it is what we do with those good things that matter. When Solomon said, “God giveth him not power to eat thereof’ he is saying that God does not create a glutton, which, as all Christians know, is considered one of the seven deadly sins. Why then is it vanity? Why is it an evil disease? It is evil because he does not use the wealth God gave him to do good. He hoards it. Christ addressed the same issue.

Luke 12:15-21

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

Part of the genius of the grammar of scripture is both its concreteness and its economy. Real life becomes a parable, a type, a model for us all to strive for or to guard against. Consider the following example given by Solomon.

Ecclesiastes 6:3

If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

Though Solomon may well have had a hundred children, it is not the common lot of man. But hyperbole serves his purpose. And he appears to be saying that it is better not to have been born than to not fill our lives with good. Again, Solomon has his eyes on eternity. The vanity and vexation he speaks of is of the temporal or mortal world only. Again, we rely upon the words of the Savior.

Mark 8:36

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?