Ecclesiastes 4:1-3​
Christian Standard Bible
4 Again, I observed all the acts of oppression being done under the sun. Look at the tears of those who are oppressed; they have no one to comfort them. Power is with those who oppress them; they have no one to comfort them. 2 So I commended the dead, who have already died, more than the living, who are still alive. 3 But better than either of them is the one who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil activity that is done under the sun.

This passage goes with the passage from yesterday with "The Mystery of Injustice and Death."  Solomon further reflects on the oppression that he saw around him (including from the people that are supposed to be the people of God).  He looks at those who are oppressed who are crying for justice, much like the children of Israel did when they were in slavery in Egypt.  Will not the LORD also hear the cries of these victims and judge the wickedness done against them even if it has been done by the hands of "His people"?  The prophets will have much to say about this later.

The rich and powerful are often the oppressors of the poor and powerless.  Those who are oppressed feel they have no one to turn to, no one to comfort them, and no one to help them--especially if they have this "under the sun" worldview and don't believe in God.  With this "under the sun" worldview, it seems like the dead who are in the grave would no longer be subject to this pain and suffering, especially if they simply cease to exist.  It would seem preferable in many ways to end this cycle of pain and suffering if (and that is a big if) there is no afterlife.  Again, Solomon is carrying this worldview to its logical conclusion to test it--he is not saying that this is true or worth believing.  Solomon says it is better yet to have never been born and never know this suffering at all, for the dead at least had to endure it before theoretically being at peace and having rest (there is no peace or rest for the wicked though who will endure eternal torture, torment, and punishment for their rebellion against God and their refusal to accept His plan of salvation for them).

These are hard things that Solomon is saying, but it is a logical viewpoint for someone who is starting from the Atheistic worldview that says there is no God, no heaven, and no hell.  There is just "under the sun," while that lasts.  If we truly believed like that and there was all this inexplicable pain and suffering, why would we want to bring children into this world if there was no hope of a better life or an eternal life with God?  Many in the world feel this way, and it is why they refuse to get married and have children.  They live in the moment for themselves to make their short lives as pleasing as possible and they look forward to retirement when they believe their toil from work will end, but by that point in their lives, their bodies are breaking down, and they have little time left to enjoy things.  The older they get, the more they look forward to death when they will no longer deal with the problems of the world and pain and suffering of a broken-down body.  If they believe in God, they have hope for a resurrection and eternal life, but even the wicked think they will have relief when they die.  Little do they know that the suffering they experienced here will pale in comparison for what is in store for them.  This is just one of the many lies that Satan tells the world so that they will suffer the same fate as him and the angels that rebelled with him.

Solomon speaks again from an earthly perspective to say that it looks like the righteous aren't any better than the wicked, and he expects judgment to come on both groups of people if there truly is a time for everything, as the LORD's time of overlooking sin will end and there will be a time for judgment to come.  For the wicked, they would bear the judgment for their own sins, but for the righteous, another would bear the punishment for their sins.  Solomon is incorrect if he is assuming the "righteous" will pay the penalty for their own sins, but this is the way that the world thinks.

Solomon's justification for this is that man along will all the animals have been affected by the curse of sin, which is death.  They all received the life that God breathed into them (though I would argue that man was different as he received an eternal soul when God's Spirit was breathed into him).  Solomon says that there is no evidence that a scientist could study that would prove that animals don't have souls and only get buried in the ground and that men and women, though they die and are buried, have an afterlife in a place of blessing or a place of judgment.  That is not to say that Solomon doesn't believe in these things, but he's trying to restrict his arguments to those that he can make from an "under the sun" materialistic or humanistic perspective.  Though he mentions God here, he only does so to say that maybe God intends to let man know they are nothing special (that the Humanists are wrong).  He seems to favor the Naturalist position here that man is just another animal.  Again, we have to know that Solomon is arguing for a bad set of premises and coming to bad conclusions on purpose.  We're supposed to bristle up when we hear this and say, "Wait a minute!  I know the book of Genesis, and that's not true!"  We know the truth because God (who is not "under the sun") has revealed it to us, but what if He had not?  We might be about to infer his existence as Creator (see Romans 1), but would we really be able to infer everything about man being made in His image, that we were eternal beings, that there was sin that needed atonement, and that atonement needed to a blood sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty, and there was no innocent man that could take our place? I don't think we could reason much of this once our mind was corrupted by sin.  Solomon is taking the point of view of one of these people with a depraved and corrupted mind (maybe his son is still one of those people) and trying to argue on their level how they should know there are better answers than what their worldview has to offer.  I promise we will eventually get to a point where we come back to a biblical worldview where we consider God has Creator and the one who will judge the living and the dead, but we must hang on for many more chapters before we get there.

The poem in the beginning of this passage was used by the Byrds to make their song "Turn, Turn, Turn" that focused on "a time for peace" (they were against the Vietnam War).  Not only is Solomon saying there is a time and place for everything, but also that history has a way of repeating itself.  We are in a cycle that we cannot escape from.  We know this is the conclusion he intends us to draw because this poem is stuck between two different times that he talks about the worker toiling and struggling and gaining nothing.

Though work was something that God gave Adam before sin and the Fall, it became harder, more toilsome, and less fruitful because off the Fall.   Solomon's opinion of it is that work is there to keep us busy and occupied.  God has made this cycle that repeats itself so that we will long for eternity that frees us from this endless cycle that seems meaningless.

No one was there to see the good work that God did in the beginning or that He continues to do now.  Only He can reveal that to us through the Scriptures.  The godly (those who belong to God) don't worry about this cycle and they rejoice and enjoy life because they know that He has something better in store for them.  Life now and the everlasting life that He gives for all eternity (which starts now) is something that is meant to be enjoyed It is not meant to feel toilsome ore burdensome (thought this life sometimes does feel that way)

God's perfect work that He does (to save people and make them like the Son of God, Jesus) will last forever.  It will not be like the things we see affected by sin and death that are in a cycle of decay and ruin.  No one can add to the good work that God has done, and no one can take away from it.  He doesn't need our help to perfect us or make us righteous.  He does that all on His own.  To God the past, present, and future are all the same.  He is outside of time.  I love Solomon's statement that God works so that people will be in awe of Him (and give Him the worship that He is due).  Even though we expect everything in this life to continue as it has been until Jesus comes to set up His Kingdom, we know there will be a time when the LORD will make everything right and will get justice for the oppressed.  He will not like the cycle of victimization continue forever.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-26​
Christian Standard Bible

The Emptiness of Work
18 I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. This too is futile. 20 So I began to give myself over to despair concerning all my work that I had labored at under the sun. 21 When there is a person whose work was done with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and he must give his portion to a person who has not worked for it, this too is futile and a great wrong. 22 For what does a person get with all his work and all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? 23 For all his days are filled with grief, and his occupation is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.

24 There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, 25 because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him? 26 For to the person who is pleasing in his sight, he gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and accumulating in order to give to the one who is pleasing in God’s sight. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

You may already be getting the idea of why so many people don't like to read and study Ecclesiastes.  It's hard and challenges us to have rethink what things we call good and why we call them good and what is important and valuable, and why those things have import and value.  This passage today is especially difficult for us as we know Solomon has already said many times in Proverbs that the wise man will be a prudent and hard worker, and the fool will be slothful.  So then, why does Solomon say in this passage that work is vain and empty?  We have to remember the context of Solomon writing this book.  He is asking what value and meaning anything has apart from God whereas in Proverbs, we knew that wisdom came directly from the LORD and because the LORD Himself said that work was good, then we also value the good work that He gives to us.

However, if we're just looking at the cycle of life to grow up and mature learning things so we can put them into practice to have a job and make money so that we can pay our expenses and afford to have children so that they can repeat this cycle and we all eventually end up dead without the ability to take our treasure that we've worked for with us, then what did we really accomplish with all the work that we did?  Few of us will be remembered in history and most of those for not very long (we are not going to have stories like Moses or Jesus that will be told all over the world through all generations).

The wise man and the fool, the diligent worker and the sluggard--they come to the same end.  So what advantage is there to being wise and working hard? Death cannot be cheated because you are wise enough, strong enough or powerful enough.  The more Solomon considered this the more the despaired (probably not for himself as much as for those who had this worldview and had no eternal perspective to give them hope).  This kind of despair and depression is the logical end of Atheism and Nihilism.  It is no wonder that the things that promote these worldviews tend to lead to higher cases of self-harm and suicide with people saying that they felt dead inside and needed to feel pain so that they were sure they could feel something, or they even somehow believed it would be better to be dead than to be alive and experience the pain and suffering of this world (unfortunately they did not know about the eternal pain and suffering that await those that die outside of Christ that makes any pain and suffering this world has to offer pale in comparison).  One of the greatest lies that Satan tells the world is that they will "Rest in Peace" when they die if they die outside of Christ.  There is no eternal peace apart from the Prince of Peace--that is Jesus.

​It was a sad thing to Solomon to see someone that worked hard for his wealth to have to leave it as an inheritance to one who didn't work for it, wouldn't appreciate it and would probably squander it.  He starts to think that hard work is not only futile, but a great wrong when considered only from the "under the sun" perspective (we know we have other passages that tell parents to leave an inheritance to their children and for children to take care of their parents when they reach that age in life).  All of the days of the wise men are spent with much grief and sorrow as there is more to worry about when you have much that you need to protect than when you have nothing to protect.  These troubles may even lead to sleepless nights where he was worried about investments or issues at work, and what does he get for it?  The fruits of his labors go to someone else who didn't' work for them and therefore will not really appreciate them.  Were all those sleepless nights really worth it?  The "Under the sun" perspective says "No."

So, what then would be the conclusion of someone who had this "under the sun" perspective?  We've already talked a bit about Nihilism, but Solomon turns now to Hedonism.  If your perspective is "life's tough, then you die," why wouldn't you also have the perspective of "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die"?  That seems logically consistent.  You wouldn't give much thought to working hard to preserve or extend your life.  You would instead try to maximize personal happiness in the moment with no thought of morality or ethics.  Solomon's not saying that is the right worldview to have but is saying it is the logical end of this worldview.  He wants the reader to come up against the visceral reaction that they have to this conclusion to say, "I know that's not right" and to then question the "under the sun" assumption.  Faulty assumptions will lead to faulty conclusions, even though proper logic and reasoning was used.  If you encounter a person out in the world who doesn't believe in God, the afterlife, or anything supernatural, then it is logical for them to be depressed, without hope, and to live only for themselves and for the happiness they can gain in the moment (even though that happiness is fleeting, and that fact may lead them to even deeper depression).  It should not surprise us that many of these people form addictions to sex, drugs, and alcohol and misuse things and abuse people because they are only thinking of themselves.  

The wise man realizes that every good and perfect gift (including the things that allow him to eat, drink, and be merry) come from God and are a reason to give thanks to Him and worship Him in gladness.  We are in the week of Thanksgiving here in the USA for this year (Thanksgiving Day for us is tomorrow as I am writing this).  Solomon concludes that it is one's relationship with the LORD that determines whether our lives will be blessed or curses by Him and how we will process life and find meaning in it.  The person who loves and fears the LORD will have wisdom, knowledge and joy, but the sinner has nothing to look forward to other than accumulating things and leaving them to someone else--usually someone else who is God-fearing that the LORD wants to transfer the wealth from the wicked to the righteous.  For the sinner this looks to be foolish and like chasing after the wind.  They find this vain and futile.

Ecclesiastes 2:12-17​
Christian Standard Bible

The Relative Value of Wisdom
12 Then I turned to consider wisdom, madness, and folly, for what will the king’s successor be like? He will do what has already been done. 13 And I realized that there is an advantage to wisdom over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.

14 The wise person has eyes in his head,
but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I also knew that one fate comes to them both. 15 So I said to myself, “What happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise?” And I said to myself that this is also futile. 16 For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise person dies just like the fool? 17 Therefore, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Solomon realizes he has no control over what his son will be like, be he hopes to persuade him with this book and the other books of Wisdom literature that he wrote to be wise.  Solomon concludes that wisdom, madness, and folly while all real possibilities are not all equally good outcomes.  Wisdom is superior to folly in the same way that light is superior to darkness.    This is because the wise person has "sight" that the fool does not have to truly understand what is going on in a situation--to be able to think and reason and identify truth and error.  However, the fool has a "darkened" mind that believes lies and fables and myths without giving them a second thought yet discards the truth because it offends him.  Romans 1 speaks of this.  "19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”" (John 3:19-20).

That being said, both the wise man and the fool will live and then will die (speaking of natural, not spiritual death, for the one who is in Christ will never die spiritually, and his body will live again, though it will be transformed).  So, what earthly advantage is there to being wise?  Remember, we're only trying to evaluate things from the perspective of "under the sun" in this book.  It appears that if we only focus on the here and now, there is no advantage to wisdom--in fact, it might seem to be a disadvantage as the fool may seem to have more fun in the few days of trouble that he has.  Don't worry, we will come back to consider eternity at the end of the book, but we need to be honest with those who don't believe in an afterlife and think that living for the moment is the best choice for them.  Their difference in worldview will lead them to this difference in conclusion.  However, that won't mean that both worldviews are equally valid or correct.  There will be some advantages to being wise and being a good person too--it usually goes better for you when you are moral and good, and it is harder for people to take advantage of you when you are wise.  You will have more money if you work hard and invest wisely, but none of these things can buy true happiness or salvation or eternal security.  Therefore, we need to not just be wise in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God, and we'll figure out what that means as we continue our study of this book.

We started with a summary statement of everything being meaningless, but now we're going to go through systematically as Solomon talks about all different places he tried to find meaning and joy that failed him.  The first major passage will discuss his pursuit of acquiring things, that is, material possessions

Solomon was by far the richest man who ever lived once inflation is accounted for.  He built houses and planted many vineyards that were his own.  His properties were full of every kind of tree that bore all kinds of fruit, even things not native to that region.

Building so many gardens, groves, and vineyards required a large amount of irrigation and a huge water supply, so he built reservoirs so that all of his properties could be well-watered (this probably affected the water supply of others who used to have a natural water supply and had their supply dammed up and diverted to take care of Solomon's properties.  He has had a large number of male and female servants that belonged to his household to work and manage these properties.  The king reaped all the benefit of their work without ever having to stop taking care of his royal duties.  This just added to his wealth.

Wealth was also measured in the number of livestock you had in agrarian cultures and Israel was still agrarian enough for this to be one of the kinds of wealth that Solomon reported.  He didn't even count the number of his herds and flocks because they were so numerous, but he knew they were larger than anyone else's who came before him.  It is said that the LORD owns the cattle on 1,000 hills to tell that He has innumerable means and resources, but Solomon probably would say much the same about himself even though God's resources are truly infinite.  Solomon's resources just seemed to be infinite because they were so large.  Even so, all this could not make him happy or satisfied.

Since also acquired large amounts of precious metals and gems from all over the world.  God was so plentiful in his time that silver lost its value.  He had the wealth of many nations combined as so many of the surrounding nations paid large amounts of tribute to him so that their entire treasuries were paid to him to buy peace (Solomon had a very large army at his disposal that he never had to use--the LORD just caused people to fear that he might use it against them, even though Solomon was a man of peace).

Solomon also acquired many singers to entertain him and concubines and wives to give him sexual gratification.  He defied the will of God in this matter that one man was to be married to one woman in a covenant bond that lasted as long as their natural lives.  They were yet another one of his possessions that he counted and though he probably thought he treated them well, they were largely ignored.

Though he acted foolish in all these ways, the LORD allowed him to keep the wisdom that He had given to him.  The LORD allowed Solomon to receive everything that he saw and desired--to test him and let him learn even more wisdom about how Solomon had everything he ever needed when He had the LORD and His unfailing love.  He didn't need houses, vineyards, groves, servants, wives, concubines, gold or silver to try to fill the emptiness that these things could never fill.  Only the LORD Himself could satisfy that deepest longing and need we have as human being who are made in His image and desire communion with Him.

Solomon said he struggled hard to acquire all this wealth (with the LORD's help of course since this is an unnatural amount of wealth for someone to acquire), but when he examined everything, he found no meaning or purpose in any of it.  He had more money and stuff than any of us will probably have (as we aren't going around just plating stuff in gold because we have so much of it and counting silver as completely worthless to us).  He calls this pursuit futile and like the folly of chasing after the wind.  It is striving for something that you can never catch.  There was nothing to truly be gained by this because eventually he would die, and he could not take his stuff with him, and he would have to leave all his stuff to another who did not work for it.  He'll speak more to this fact of how death is the great equalizer and, apart from God, makes everything in this life look void of meaning.  Eventually, no one will know or remember us.  Even the wealthiest man in the world could not buy eternal life or salvation, which were his greatest needs that so far were left unfulfilled by everything he sought after.

Solomon was very much a pleasure-seeker (a Hedonist).  We'll learn many of the things that he sought after that did not give fulfillment as we continue to study Ecclesiastes, but for right now he lumps them all together as seeking pleasure and the result of all these pursuits is that they too came back vain and empty.  He sought joy from laughter (comedy) and he came to the conclusion that it was madness to try to make oneself happy in this way.  What does it accomplish to force that feeling for a moment only to return to the truth that life is neither a joke nor funny--it is deadly serious.

He put much time into studying things with his mind to see if there was happiness that would come with great knowledge, but we know he said earlier that the more he knew, the more he knew about the world, the more unhappy he was because he knew how broken the world was.  He tried to make himself happy by drinking, but not enough to get drunk.  Though he thought he would be studying wisdom, he ended up studying folly because his senses were dulled.  He gained nothing from either this pursuit of education or his pursuit of having a good time.  He came to the conclusion that there were good ways for him to spend his time and bad ways for him to spend his time, for he only had a limited amount of time (even he doesn't know exactly how much time he has, for only God determines that).  He will talk more of his journey and exploration to find happiness and the discoveries he made along the way as we continue through the book.  In short though, there is no true joy or meaning or purpose apart from God and His commandments--we should know Him and His commandments and obey them while we are young.