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

by Douglas Wilson

The gifts are wisdom and knowledge and joy. Wisdom is grace, and knowledge is also grace, but note particularly the last of these—joy. Joy is a crowning gift of God in this meaningless world.

which only the godly may enjoy. And who will inherit all these worldly goods?

But according to faith, the answer is now plain—those who are good before God. The wicked are left to their vexations.

What is the hallmark of wisdom in this fallen world? The answer is joy at the end of the tether.

But before we can learn joy at the end of the tether, we must learn the strength of that tether. The Lord is God and we are not.

First division (1:2–2:26): Satisfaction cannot be coaxed from any created thing by man’s power or cunning. First subdivision (1:2–1:11): Nature repeats herself, again and again, for no reason in particular that we can see. Second subdivision (1:12–2:11): Solomon knows through hard experience that sensation is empty. Third subdivision (2:12–2:26): Wisdom is better, but only God knows why. God gives a wondrous gift, which is joy chained to a wall. Second division (3:1–5:20): Everyone wants God to be sovereign. No one appears to want Him sovereign in everything and over everything. Solomon insists on it anyway and answers objections to the doctrine. Third division (6:1–8:15): Because God is sovereign in all things, He has the power to give enjoyment down here. So Solomon applies his doctrine that the sovereign God alone gives the power to enjoy vanity. Fourth division (8:16–12:14): At the last, Solomon turns, as all good teachers must, to remove various obstacles and discouragements, and to address practical concerns. 1. Of course, in this vain world, he couldn’t care less means the same thing as he could care less. And don’t be surprised if he doesn’t get better means that we shouldn’t be surprised if he does. CHAPTER 5

As Solomon has shown, we live out our lives under the loom, and everything we see is vanity. So how can we see the pattern above? The only possible answer is through faith in the sovereign God.

“Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink” (Eccl. 5:18–20). The reader must never forget that this is a book of exuberant, fierce, and hard driving joy.

When Solomon arrives at his conclusions of joy, this is not because he is taking an existentialist leap into the dark.

What he says follows from his premises. The basis for this joy is the principle of divine sovereignty. Now the days of ...

So who apportions these times and seasons? All these tasks which follow are God-given (v. 10); He makes everything beautiful in its time (v. 11);

God’s inscrutable actions (v. 11) are forever (v. 14). If it is good, then God gave it. If it is travail, then God gave it also. In

A careful reader looks ahead to verse 14. God does all this that men should fear. A man who reads without trembling has forgotten the living God.

We are being told that we have been placed in a world that we did not create or fashion, and that this world has various repetitive cycles, to which cycles we have been assigned by someone else. We are under the authority of these repetitions and have been placed under that authority by the hand and purpose of God.

Of course, there is a time to be born and a time to die. Who sets these times? Who dictated and arranged for his own birth day? God appoints our birth day and our funeral day (v. 2).

This wisdom is as neglected as it is obvious. “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5).

But God is not just concerned with man. His sovereignty extends to everything and over everything. As our Lord Jesus taught, it includes the hairs of our heads and the birds on our lawn being stalked by the neighbor’s cat. Solomon here shows that the lifespan of plants in the field is determined by God. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest. God appoints the birth day of every plant and the funeral of every plant (v. 2). Because this doctrine stinks in our nostrils, we are apt to study arguments to find a way out. But God only promised a way of escape from every temptation, not from every unpalatable doctrine.

He determines when men are lifted up and restored (v. 3). Who can say that his life ended because God glanced away for a moment?

Does a man boast in his ability to go to another city and make a fortune there? He ought to say that the result depends upon the will of God (Jas. 4:13–17).

time comes to weep; a time comes around when we laugh. Our tears of grief, and the occasions of them, are from His hand. So is the laughter (v. 4). “I

am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do al...

calamity comes, and the tears follow, the Lord was in it. When rejoicing brings relief, the Lord was in it. This doctrine has a hard edge and more than one person has cut himself on it. But denial of the doctrine does not remove the light and darkness, the ...

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Ps. 127:1).

and many a millionaire will go white in disbelief. “How could this happen?” Friend, look at the world. How could it not? God enables a man to say nothing, keeping his silence.

Silence and eloquence are both bestowed by Him—and to fulfill His good purpose and will.

Relationships which form are under His sovereign will, and relationships which dissolve are all from Him as well (v.

The time for the friendships and the time for the quarrels are all appointed. Our responsibility to avoid foolish quarrels in no way threatens the Lord’s sovereignty over our obedience and our disobedience.

No man can find out the work which God does from the beginning and to the end. The believing response is to throw up one’s hands in faith (not despair) and have a good time. This cannot happen unless one of the works God is doing is the impartation of true faith to another poor sap under the sun.

Why do we want to figure it all out? God has placed eternity in our hearts (v. 11), which gives us a desperate thirst without water. But even with this thirst for the eternal, man is not the starting point of knowledge and cannot be.

The answer must be yes—we are called to remember the list which wisdom gives includes healing and killing, war and hate, mourning and laughter. God controls it all perfectly.

A man who embraces evil simply finds himself a tool in the hand of the Almighty. A man who rejects evil and follows wisdom finds himself a son in the family of the Almighty.

Those who say that a holy God cannot wield a wicked tool have come to believe the authority of their own sophistries.

The Bible tells us that God is holy, and the Bible tells us that God wields the wicked in His hand like an axe.

What should we then do? This doctrine is the foundation of joy. Rejoice, do good, eat your bread, drink your wine. Believe in the sovereign God and enjoy these inscrutable repetitions (v. 15). This is His gift (v. 13). Remember His judgments (v. 15) and sit down to your dinner.

portions of the book which are commonly misunderstood because readers try to make them stand on their own, by themselves, and not as part of the sustained argument. To understand this argument we have to remember the nature of hard questions.

Solomon’s odd kind of conclusion, this time in 3:22. “Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?” This

But the Bible prohibits establishing a ruler—whether a ruler or judge—who does not fear God.

(Exod. 18:21). Instead of this, we appoint fools and imbeciles, men who do not fear God, men who love deceit, kickbacks, and bribes, and then we wonder why our traditional values campaign always seems to bog down. “Why, O Lord, dost thou not deliver us from the secularists?” Of course, the answer is that we haven’t stopped voting for them. We are like those who want to be delivered from drowning so long as they get to stay down at the bottom of the pool.

This knowledge of ultimate justice puts every judicial monstrosity in perspective. In a day when judicial monstrosities grow like thistles in sunshine, we need the encouragement.

When a man works hard—and does well—his neighbor carps at him. “It is all very well for you to talk—you have it easy!” Of course he has it easy, because he has worked hard and is now enjoying the fruit of his labor. His neighbor sees it as unfair and vexes himself over the problem considerably.

The poor allow it to happen because they are blinded by their envy. Any man seeking control of the engines of the state, the better to accomplish his plundering, always promises to make the great businesses pay taxes—and the envious man cheers. But of course, no business ever paid a tax without passing it on to the consumer, and so the envious man finds himself paying for the pillage he ardently supports. But don’t feel sorry for him; he is an envious fool and deserves everything he gets, both good and hard.