Verses 1-26
Koheleth now mentions the unusual advantages which he had possessed for enjoying life and making the best of it. His opportunities could not have been greater, he considers, had he been Solomon himself. He henceforth speaks therefore under the personated character of the wise son of David. He speaks as one who represented the wisdom and prosperity of his age.
I. "I have set myself," he says, "to the task of investigating scientifically the value of all human pursuits." This, he assures us, is no pleasant task. It is a sore travail that God has allotted to the sons of men, which they cannot altogether escape. Koheleth thought and thought till he was forced to the conclusion that all human pursuits were vanity and vexation of spirit, or, according to the literal Hebrew, were but vapour and striving after the wind. There was no solidity, nothing permanent, nothing enduring, about human possessions or achievements. For man was doomed to pass away into nothingness.
II. Having stated his position in these general terms, he now enters into the subject a little more in detail. He reminds himself how at one time he had tried to find his happiness in pleasure and amusement; but pleasure had palled upon him, and appeared good for nothing: and as for amusements, Koheleth thinks that life might, perhaps, be tolerable without them. Having discovered the unsatisfactoriness of pleasure, Koheleth proceeds to inquire if there is anything else that could take its place. What of wisdom? Can that make life a desirable possession? He proceeds to institute a comparison between wisdom and pleasure. Pleasure is but momentary; wisdom may last for a lifetime. Pleasure is but a shadow; wisdom is comparatively substantial and real. The lover of wisdom will follow her till he dies. Ay, there's the rub till he dies. One event happeneth to them all. What then is the good of wisdom? This, too, is vanity.
III. In the third chapter Koheleth points out how anything like success in life must depend upon our doing the right thing at the right time. Wisdom lies in opportuneness. Inopportuneness is the bane of life. What we have to do is to watch for our opportunity and embrace it.
IV. In Ecclesiastes 3:14 , Koheleth seems to rise for a moment into a religious mood. But his religion is by no means of an exalted type. Times, seasons, and opportunities, he says, are of Divine appointment; and, like nature's phases, they happen in recurring cycles. God doeth it that men should fear before Him. The existence of so much unrequited wisdom in the world might seem to suggest that there is no higher power. But there is. God will rule the righteous and the wicked, and reward them according to their works. There is a time for every purpose and for every work, and therefore for the purpose of retribution among the rest.
A. W. Momerie, Agnosticism, p. 190.
References: Ecclesiastes 1:13 . J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 14.Ecclesiastes 1:14 . Ibid., pp. 28, 38; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 339; W. G. Jordan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 136.
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