Ecclesiastes Week 1: Life Is Fleeting

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

We are going to do something different for a while, a sermon series on the Book of Ecclesiastes.

This is not a book that I gave much thought to before I went to seminary. Sharon and I attended Evangelical Seminary in eastern PA, and our favorite professor was Dr. Dorsey, the Old Testament professor. And Ecclesiastes was his favorite book of the Bible, so we spent a fair amount of time on it, and I grew to appreciate it. Sadly, Dr. Dorsey passed away about ten years ago. His daughter, who was a classmate of ours at Evangelical, is now the Old Testament professor.

Dr. Dorsey worked in biblical translation, as well. He was one of the translators of the New Living Translation, which is what I typically use for preaching. He also translated Ecclesiastes, and Evangelical published his translation, which is what I’ll be using for this sermon series.

Let’s start with the basics: What is Ecclesiastes? It’s part of the Old Testament called the Writings, which consists of five books: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Song of Solomon. Psalms is primarily hymns of praise and expressions of religious thought, like repentance, grief, thanksgiving, and so on. The rest of the writings are sometimes referred to as Wisdom Literature. The authors are seeking answers to the big questions of life: What does it all mean? Why is there suffering in the world? How does a person live well? Is it all just meaningless? That’s the subject of this book.

Where does the title, Ecclesiastes, come from? Well, like some of the books of the Old Testament, it’s Greek, from when the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the second century BC. The title in Hebrew is QOHELETH, and it derives from the Hebrew word meaning “assembly.” The QOHELETH is the one who addresses the assembly, so teacher, or even, preacher. Ecclesiastes comes from the Greek word for assembly or congregation, which is also the Greek word for church, hence, preacher might be a good title.

Who wrote Ecclesiastes and when was it written? Most people look at the first verse, “son of David, king in Jerusalem,” and figure it was obviously Solomon. Not necessarily. The word “son” in Hebrew could also mean descendant. It could have been written by any of the kings in the line of David. But honestly, there’s no good reason to think it’s anyone other than Solomon.

Solomon famously asked God for wisdom to be a good king. He was renowned for his wisdom, and especially noted for his interest in the natural world. QOHELETH devotes a lot of attention to the natural world. So, Solomon is the most likely author. And it would seem that it was written near the end of Solomon’s life. The very fixation on the shortness of human life almost certainly means it was written near the end of his days.

Solomon was someone who seemingly had it all. He had wealth, power, fame, and accomplishments. He ruled over Israel at the height of its power. David had conquered most of surrounding nations that posed a threat to their peace and prosperity, and Solomon enjoyed the fruits of that, even extending their control to the Euphrates River, encompassing most of modern day Syria.

And yet, for all that he had going for him, he found these things did not ultimately bring satisfaction. Part of his conclusion in Ecclesiastes is that if we try to find lasting satisfaction and fulfillment in earthly things, we end up disappointed.

In the big picture of Scripture, we know that this world is not as it should be. The presence of sin corrupts everything. We call the entrance of sin and corruption into this world The Fall. The world is fallen away from its original goodness. Frustration abounds in this world. The things of this world all pass away, including all human accomplishments. Only God offers the hope of fulfillment. Only a God-centered life can bring lasting meaning.

The key word in the book of Ecclesiastes is the Hebrew word HEVEL. Readers of the King James translation of the Bible know it as “Vanity!” “Vanity! Vanity! All is vanity!” Other translations render it as “Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!”

It’s a hard word to render into English. Its literal meaning referred to a fine mist that disappears in the morning sun, or a puff of smoke that vanishes when the wind blows. It refers to something very fleeting. Life is fleeting. QOHELETH is lamenting the transitory nature of life. And the fact that life is fleeting can make it feel as if everything is insignificant. All that we work so hard to accomplish can just disappear in a moment. “What do we have to show for all our labor on earth?”

We can invest our whole lives into things in this world: Our work. Our hobbies. Our family. Our home. Our charitable causes. Our pursuit of the things that bring us happiness. But meanwhile, the world just keeps going, unchanged, from our perspective. The sun rises and sets. The wind blows this way in one season and that way in another. All the rivers of the world run and yet the ocean never fills up.

We don’t even have enough time to see and experience all there is in this world. And Solomon was writing that at a time when the world was a whole lot smaller than it is now! Not literally, of course, but they almost certainly didn’t know about four of the earth’s entire continents. I’d like to think I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in my life, but I know I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the places I’d like to see!

Each generation seeks after new things. And yet, there really is nothing new. That “undiscovered place?” Someone’s been there before. I was watching a YouTube channel with two guys from Ontario who do wilderness canoe trips. They were on a month long trip way up in the north of Canada. They stopped for the night at a good spot, and as they were exploring, they found the remains of a First Nations encampment. That spot that seemed so remote had been visited by people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Nothing new under the sun. We might think of something as new, but it’s really just a new spin on something that’s been around: We use emojis; the ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics.

In the ancient world that Solomon knew, it was common for kings to devote themselves to doing something new, so that they and their reign would be remembered. But often these “new” accomplishments were building a new road, or a new temple, or conquering some neighboring kingdom. None of those were really new, Solomon observes. Plenty of roads and temples have been built. That kingdom was probably conquered five times before.

And nothing that we do in this world brings a lasting sense of satisfaction or fulfillment to the human condition. At the end of our lives, the world will still pretty much be like it is now. And this can make us feel as if we and our lives are insignificant. The human condition seems to be a matter of trying to find meaning in life but instead experiencing frustration. Our work is thwarted in some way. We may accomplish things only to see them go up in flames, maybe literally.

This will lead QOHELETH to his ultimate conclusion: Only one thing endures. Only one thing does not disappoint. Only one thing brings a sense of fulfillment that lasts. And it is God.

And for the next couple months, we’ll accompany QOHELETH on that journey of discovery.