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

by Douglas Wilson

Our word profound comes from the Latin profundus, which means deep. Most cheerfulness in the world is quite the opposite of this—superficial and shallow. Thump it hard and it will be sure to make a hollow sound. Of course we must also note that much deep thinking is melancholy. From these data we might conclude that deep is doleful and everything cheerful is a superficial waste of time. 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.

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.

Throughout the book, two great refrains can be heard. When we come to understand the meaning of these refrains, we will then know that the meaning of life cannot be found by fumbling in the dark. Instead of viewing the book as a series of disjointed and sometimes contradictory statements, we must first listen for those themes which integrate all the teaching of the entire book. These themes are pervasive throughout all four sections. 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. A wise man will always consider and reflect upon what occurs “under the sun.” Work has no profit there (1:3; 2:11; 2:22); nothing is really new (1:9); everything is vain (1:14; 4:7); work is distressing (2:17); labor is hateful because someone else gets the fruit of it (2:18); a fool might receive the benefit of a man’s work (2:19, 20); church and state are together corrupt (3:16); men are oppressed, of course (4:1); the unborn are at a distinct advantage (4:3); popularity is in constant flux (4:15); riches destroy their owners (5:13); the wealthy are unable to enjoy their wealth (6:1); future generations are unknowable (6:12); men rule others and destroy themselves (8:9); work is incomprehensible (8:17); both good and evil men die (9:3); our emotions perish with us (9:6); time and chance happen to us all (9...

But another theme, another refrain, is equally marked, and this one is missed by the cynic. This is the refrain which sings the great gift of God. 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.

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 these things are done by those who fear God under the sun, just as the miserable will constantly sweat and labor under the sun. But the distinction, as always, is to be found in the sovereignty and grace of God. 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.

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.

vanity does not refer to an absolute meaninglessness. We see now that it refers to an inscrutable repetitiveness.

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. Every morning folly comes up over the horizon. Again. Morning, sunshine. Time to put the coffee on. Again. 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. If the book of Ecclesiastes presented vanity to mean utter and ultimate absurdity, then it would have had much less argumentation in it and more references to buttered toast, rainbow trout, along with veiled prophecies of attempts at poetry by Walt Whitman. This would be far more consistent with the “absurdity worldview,” which would, of course, make it inconsistent. 2. I am greatly indebted to Walter Kaiser for this procedure and for his treatment of the translation issues in Ecclesiastes 2:24–26. See his small but very fine commentary on Ecclesiastes (Walter Kaiser, Ecclesiastes: Total Life [Chicago: Moody Press, 1979], 43–45).

The fool thinks he is chained to a dungeon wall; the intelligent knows that it is actually a labyrinth. Pleasures, delights, sensations, and all their cousins, will only send a man, first on this fool’s errand, and then on that one.

the ubiquitous laugh track behind all our sitcoms provides a fitting commentary for our times—it is nothing but a great comedic cattle prod, which considerately tells the herd when it is supposed to overflow in jovial mooing. Time to laugh, says our invisible master. But the laughter is empty and the jokes necessarily hollow. Those who joke with us either don’t know the situation under the sun, in which case they are stupid, or they do know how bleak everything is, in which case they are not very funny. Humor under the sun can only keep its sense of . . . humor . . . through a blind foolishness.

Solomon acquired male and female musicians, and every kind of instrument (2:8). These court musicians were no doubt pretty good at what they did. But when they were done, it was in fact done and the room filled up with a silent emptiness again. We in our day have tried to solve that problem by refusing to allow silence anywhere, but silence can still intrude at inconvenient times. But we labor manfully onward. We surround ourselves with pleasant noises at all times. 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.

Joy is a crowning gift of God in this meaningless world. The seraphim experience joy in the presence of God, but honestly, that is to be expected. It is not the angels He helps. We are given the privilege of experiencing joy here, in the midst of ongoing disobedient and imbecilic chaos. Joy, yes, but mirabile dictu, the joy is here.

In one of his songs, Bob Seger says there are two holes in the head where the light is supposed to get by. And so, does it? How can an unexamined piety differ from the blind gropings of the fool? 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.

So this famous passage does not contain marching orders for us. It is no agenda. Rather, this is a description of God’s determinations. We are not being told that it is time to sow now, and a few months later, that it is time for us to hustle up, to get out there and reap. 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.

"this famous passage," i.e., Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

In the last analysis, scientism can only measure how fast we rot. Knowledge of the final judgment and how men as men will stand there before a great throne does not come from dissecting frogs.

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. Unscrupulous demagogues then arise and promise to make the rich pay their “fair share.” This is a complex and long-standing ritual in which the poor are fleeced in the name of fleecing the rich. 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. A wise man hates all forms of envy. The answer given by Solomon is that the gift of God bestows satisfaction in your own toil.

Fools do not understand patience or frustration. The righteous are not those who never get angry. But the righteous certainly are slow to anger. Men who are quick to anger have posted their mailbox by the road, a box which says “a fool lives here” (v. 9). A quick-tempered man is simply a walking display case of folly. “A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame” (Prov. 12:16). We are called to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Our Lord was angry in the incident of the man’s withered hand, but the end result of His anger was a healing and glory given to God. The end result of man’s anger is broken crockery.

Sometimes the good old days were not really that good. And even when they were, we must not revolt against God’s wisdom in His providence. He is the one who decreed that those days would come to an end.

The religiously self-righteous are, to use the great words of John Randolph, like a dead mackerel on the beach in the moonlight. They simultaneously “shine and stink.” What religious men esteem is not what God esteems. Our prayers need to be prayed for. Our tears need washing. Our repentance needs to be repented of. God made us upright; we have sought out many schemes. The righteousness of Another is the only answer.

The ungodly king Ahab had a righteous cabinet minister, whom some believers would dismiss as a craven compromiser. How could a godly man serve in the government of such a man? The reasoning may seem good to us, but the Bible goes contrary to our reasoning. And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. . . . Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly: For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.” (1 Kgs. 18:3–4) The courtier is a mist giving advice to a king who is a mist—no one knows absolutely what will happen in days to come (v. 7). Everyone, king and courtier alike, is in a war with death. No one can keep the spirit contained in the body; no one is able to obtain a discharge from that coming fight, and all will lose it (v. 8). All political battles must therefore be kept in perspective. No one is able to fight the final war between light and dark here under the sun, and no one should pretend to try.

The language of sentimental romanticism is not the language of the Bible. When men understand the futility of earthly existence, and they understand it in the way Solomon presents it to us, they are then equipped to enjoy their bread for perhaps the first time. They may consider the redness of the wine and laugh over it with a wise and contented joy. They may turn to love their wives, not because sexual love is forever, but rather because it is not. In the world of creatures, we may only enjoy what we do not worship.

always remember that Ecclesiastes is at war with the folly of self-sufficiency. The key to wisdom is coming to understand what we do not know.