Ecclesiastes 11:10

THE THIRD REMEDY

This third remedy of the perplexities of life is piety, that is, the faithful worship and service of God.[17] The scriptural text that develops this extends through Ecclesiastes 12:7

"Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity."

Note this parallel:

Remove sorrow from thy heart;

Put away evil from thy flesh.

According to the genius of Hebrew parallelism, these two lines are saying exactly the same thing, namely, that the only way to remove sorrow from one's heart and to engage in all that happy rejoicing that has been mentioned, is for the youth to "put away evil from his flesh." Failing to do that, he shall wallow in remorse and misery all the days of his life and finally descend into the grave itself in wretched despair. Any person who has lived a normal lifetime has seen it happen a hundred times! There is no way to restrict what is written here as being applicable to the physical body alone; it is a strict morality that is commanded.

"Youth and the dawn of life are vanity" (Ecclesiastes 11:10b). This cannot mean that they are vanity in the sense of Solomon's earlier uses of that term in Ecclesiastes. They are not vanity because they are undesirable or worthless, or anything like that, they are vanity in the sense that they are fleeting; they soon pass away. As Wordsworth stated it:[18]

Trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy

At length the man sees it die away

And fade into the light of common day.

F. C. Cook's observation on Ecclesiastes 11:10 was, "Let the timely recollection of God's judgment and the fleeting character of youth so influence your conduct that you will refrain from all actions which entail future remorse and suffering."[19]