Ecclesiastes 1
Everything’s a Vapor
David’s son was both the King of Jerusalem and a preacher who said:
“Empty and hollow—everything is just a vapor.”
Nothing New is Accomplished
What do we actually accomplish from all our hard work under the sun? Generations come and go while the land just sits there. The sun rises and sets only to scurry back around to the place where it rose from. The wind blows this way then that way, changing directions only to do it all over again. Streams continually flow into a sea that is never full—yet the rivers never stop flowing. Everything is tired out even when no one realizes it. No matter how much we see, our eyes have never seen enough, and no matter how much we hear, our ears are never full. Things that have already happened will happen again, and things that have already been done will be done again. There isn’t anything under the sun that is new. Is there anything that we can look at and say,
“Oh look, here’s something new”?
It has already existed for a long time before we ever noticed it. We don’t remember what happened before us, and the next generation won’t remember what happened before them.
Our Work is Temporary
I’m a collector of thoughts, and I’ve had the unique perspective of being Israel’s king, so I devoted myself to analyzing everything that people do on earth. The task that God gave Adam’s descendants to keep them busy is really distressing. I’ve seen all the endeavors that people pursue throughout the earth, and sure enough, they’re all fumes trying to catch the wind. Crooked things can’t fall into alignment, and if something is lacking, it can’t be added up.
Wisdom Just Brings More Pain
I thought to myself,
“I’ve become pretty wise and seem to have a better understanding of everything than people before me.”
So I devoted myself to distinguishing wisdom from stupidity, but then I realized that this was like trying to catch the wind too. The wiser you are, the more irritable and discontent you are. When you gain more knowledge, it just causes you more pain.
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