Joy at the End of the Tether: The Inscrutable Wisdom of Ecclesiastes

by Douglas Wilson

The great Hebrew philosopher who wrote this book called Ecclesiastes calls us to joy, but to a joy which thinks, a joy which does not shrink back from the hard questions. He calls us to meditation, but to a meditation which does not despair. And as he points out repeatedly, shutting off every avenue of escape, only believers can enjoy the vanity which surrounds us on every side.

This Solomon was given great wisdom by the Lord, but nevertheless, during the course of his life, he also fell into great enormities. During the time of his apostasy, he introduced the idolatry of some of his foreign wives into the public life of Israel. The book of Ecclesiastes was written in his old age, a repentant rejection of his previous apostasy. Still, that apostasy was grievous and its effects

We also see the horrible consequences which afflict Israel in the centuries which follow Solomon. We see this sin from the inside, and the repentance following, in the pages of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes has four basic sections, or divisions. In the first, Ecclesiastes 1:2–2:26, we see that Solomon’s experience shows that satisfaction cannot come from anything within the power or competence of man. In chapters 3:1–5:20, he shows that God is sovereign over everything. He then goes on to answer objections to this (perennially offensive) doctrine. Third, Ecclesiastes 6:1–8:15 carefully applies this doctrine that the sovereign God alone gives the power to enjoy this parade of vanity. Without an understanding of the Almighty, and without seeing His attributes, nature, and character, the world is nothing but an ongoing vexation of spirit. And finally, Ecclesiastes 8:16–12:14 removes various obstacles and discouragements, and addresses numerous practical concerns.

The first refrain is summed up in the phrase under the sun—the phrase occurs numerous times and is extremely significant. “Under the sun” is the realm where vanity reigns and should be understood as this world, considered in its own right.

Under the sun, vanity is God’s scepter (5:18; 8:15; 9:9). For those who fear Him, He gives the gift of being able to actually enjoy this great big marching band of futility—the tubas of vanity bringing up the rear. God gives to a wise man the gift of watching, with a pious and grateful chuckle, one damn thing after another. All things considered, the furious activity of this world is about as meaningful as the half-time frenzy at the Super Bowl. But a wise man can be there and enjoy himself. This is the gift of God. The wise will notice how this point is hammered home, throughout the book, again and again. Slowly it dawns on a man that this is really a book of profound . . . optimism.

“I know that nothing is better” (3:12–13); “So I perceived that nothing is better” (3:22); “Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting” (5:18–19); “So I commended enjoyment” (8:15); “Go, eat your bread with joy” (9:7–9). All

This is why the doctrinal foundation for joy—joy that lives at the end of the tether—must first be understood. When he understands, and not until then, a man may eat his bread, drink his wine, and rejoice.

He may work hard, digging a hole that another will someday fill up. If he is a wise man, he will know that this work is vain and he will rejoice in it anyway. This is the gift of God. How is it possible? The subject is worth considering.

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. JOHN 7:24

Christians need to resist two errors of interpretation as they seek to understand this small book of wisdom. The first is that of treating the word vanity as modern existentialists would treat it, meaning absolute meaninglessness.

Existentialism Sucks

if Solomon were arguing the absolute meaninglessness of absolutely everything, then why should we trust his argument? It too is under the sun. How could anything, or any word, mean utter meaninglessness? Whenever anyone announces that there is no such thing as truth, a listener should always wonder if the speaker believes his expression to be true.

Solomon is a wiser man than to fall into the idiocy of modern existential relativism. So vanity in this book does not mean final and ultimate absurdity; something else is in view, which we will consider in its place.1

the other error, common among the devout, is to rush headlong to pious and edifying conclusions before letting the force of Solomon’s observations and argument work into our souls. We must not hasten to heal this particular wound lightly. The meaninglessness of all things, as Solomon presents it, must work down into our bones. We should let the...

It can be a painful experience to read the work of devout commentators working manfully away as they try to sandpaper the rough spots in Ecclesiastes—it has to be smooth to be edifying.

There is not a good [inherent] in man that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, apart from Him? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. (Eccl. 2:24–26)

So the message here is twofold. God is the One who gives things, and God is the one who gives the power to enjoy things. These are distinct gifts . . . just as a can of peaches and a can-opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever. The believer is given both, which is simply another way of saying that he is given the capacity for enjoyment. If we remember that this is the conclusion of this section of Solomon’s argument, it can help us understand what he intends as he lays out his premises. Blessed are they that keep His testimonies.

As we have considered, vanity does not refer to an absolute meaninglessness. We see now that it refers to an inscrutable repetitiveness. You washed the dishes last night, and there they are again. You changed the oil in your car three months ago, and now you are doing it again. All is vanity. This shirt was clean yesterday.

When the history of some group of people who lived previously intrudes upon us, we may be briefly amused or intrigued. But we do not really come to the point where we learn. Further, we should have every expectation that those who follow us will act in just the same way toward us. We will slip out of their memories, just as countless generations have slipped out of ours. This happens again and again, over and over.

the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.

The jet stream runs in circles too—the natural world, it appears, runs in circles. So do we. What goes up comes down. What goes down comes up again. This is the meaning of vanity. Spinning wheels got to go round, as a fellow on the radio put it. A man may look in vain for something new in the weather. Water evaporates, rains, evaporates, and rains again, and the ocean never fills up. This whole world is a gigantic chalkboard illustration for us. Look at it as Solomon did, and learn a wearisome lesson.

We may ignore the past and say, “See, this is new” (vv. 9–11). The latest “whatever” is whooped as the savior which will lead us out of our temporary postmodern malaise, our deep blue funk.

And further, even this error is a repetition. The man who says he has found something new is being something old.

As sure as the sun rises, men will continue to make the same mistake except for those to whom God gives wisdom.

To be wise, a man must know his limitations. “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it” (v. 8). A wise believer is a man who knows the length of his tether.

Only through the wisdom which God gives can he come to enjoy this limitation, this restriction, this vanity. And while a wise man may come to enjoy this vanity, even he cannot really express it. 1.

(Walter Kaiser, Ecclesiastes: Total Life [Chicago: Moody Press, 1979], 43–45).

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? MATTHEW 16:26

And so we reason to ourselves, thinking that man by his free will has made something crooked which God cannot, for various reasons, straighten out. The problem with this idea is that Solomon states it the other way. Man cannot straighten what God has made crooked. Contrary to our modern evangelical apostles of uplift, God has given us “sore travail” (v. 13).

We assure an unbelieving world that we do not serve a God who wields natural disasters or any other kind of disaster. We have only one tiny problem with the thesis. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6). Of

Pleasures, delights, sensations, and all their cousins, will only send a man, first on this fool’s errand, and then on that one.

men figured out how to forget their troubles by seeking a pleasant buzz between their ears. Sometimes the buzz came from grapes, sometimes from grain, and, in other instances, from various kinds of vegetation. For various reasons it is hard for American Christians to sympathize with this. The first reason is that they do not really understand the problem as Ecclesiastes presents it. When a thinking man looks around at this world as it is, he should see that everybody must get stoned. When it is all over, he also sees that it didn’t do any good, but, as Solomon shows us, it was an understandable thing to try.

If Christ did not rise from the dead, then the most sensible thing to do is eat and drink and have as good a time as a meaningless bit of protoplasm can have.

In biblical times, occult activity was usually drug-related occult activity. Going from English to Greek, if we were to ask what Greek word would describe the practices

Alcohol has at least five lawful scriptural uses: the sacramental (Mt. 26:27–28), celebratory (Ps. 104:15), medicinal (1 Tim. 5:23), aesthetic (Jn. 2:10), and thirst (Jn. 19:28–30). Of these, the only lawful use for drugs is the medicinal—and the use to which everyone puts drugs is the one use denied to alcohol.

Whether this better-living-through-chemistry approach comes through liquid, smoke, needle, or straw, the result is always a vacuum. A fool will always find various ways to dig his way down, but when he gets there he is always at the bottom of a hole.

good food, good coffee, and good wine are all headed toward the same place, which in most cases is the sewage treatment plant. As a substitute for transcendent meaning, food performs just as poorly as wine. And yet, in every culture flailing after meaning, snobbery with regard to the best restaurants is always a key player.

A man might be a hedonist, looking for ultimate meaning and value in aesthetic pleasures that are not gross or ostentatious. Perhaps meaning can be found by walking in a groomed Japanese garden contemplating chess moves or geometry problems. While it is certainly more refined, still the results come up the same—and empty every time. Today

such a man, committed to building projects as he was, would be lauded for his “public spirit” and dedication to “public service.” But at the end of the day all he has done is build hollow buildings for all the hollow people

the cultivation of refinement, the aesthetic impulse.

At one time, only kings could afford to have the musicians along in order to provide that beautiful background noise, but now, thanks to technology, we can tote it everywhere. We can get that music into every empty space imaginable. We seek peace through eliminating the very idea of a moment’s peace.

in either case, meaning and purpose are not an acoustical matter.

When a lawful pleasure is indulged apart from God’s gift, nothing good can come from it. And when unlawful pleasures are permitted by God, He never gives satisfaction with it.

First division (1:2–2:26): Satisfaction cannot come from anything within man’s power.

Second division (3:1–5:20): God is sovereign over everything that is. Everyone who holds this doctrine has always had to answer objections to it, and Solomon is no different.

Third division (6:1–8:15): Doctrine is always meant for application and so Solomon applies his doctrine that it is the sovereign God alone who gives the power to enjoy vanity.

Fourth division (8:16–12:14): The last section removes various obstacles and discouragements and ...

But another issue, one that is none of the magistrate’s business either, is the loss of joy. The body is hard enough to subdue (Rom. 6:12) without giving it a bunch of extra dependencies. I will not be brought, Paul says, under the power of any (1 Cor. 6:12–13). But if his joy is not held hostage by whatever it may be, he may follow the example of many of God’s most effective servants, thank God for that fine creature tobacco, and smoke like a chimney to the glory of God.

On the edge of the abyss, we see a defiant yell from another insightful fool. But even an insightful fool cannot see very far.

He has no innate capacity to enjoy. Further, this is God’s doing—God is the one who has imposed this inexorable law upon us (vv. 24–25). Who can enjoy even his food apart from God?