Vanity, Vanity All is Vanity!
There has been no one who has surpassed Solomon in wisdom, wealth and honor among men. But, both the height of power and depth of degradation of mankind are seen in him. His prayer at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem is unsurpassed in giving thanks, praise, honor and glory to the One God of creation. Yet the worst of the corruption of worship among men is seen in his later life.
“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem: Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; vanity of vanities! All is vanity! What is the profit to a man in all his labor which he labors under the sun?” – Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 Solomon had wealth, power and wisdom, yet he was incapable of ascending to Godliness, despite all these merits. There is a sin debt inherited from Adam that no one is capable of paying on their own.
“Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise have eyes in their heads,
while fools walk in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
Then I said to myself, ‘The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?’ I said to myself, ‘This too is meaningless.’ For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For people may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to others who have not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
People can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” – Ecclesiastes 2: 12-26
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” –Ecclesiastes 12: 13,14
“King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love” – I Kings 11:1,2 “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father I Kings.” – I Kings 11:4
Yet, despite all of this God raised up the promised Messiah/Mediator through David’s line. Israel went down a rugged slope – an avalanche of decadence – after its zenith in David and Solomon. This too is proof of God’s patience and perseverance. His plan to bring about the perfection of His creation will not be deterred, despite what men do. The establishment of a perfect ruler, Jesus, the Christ is a surety.
Had Solomon taken the lessons of the oldest book of scripture, there might have been a little hope injected into this gloomy bit of scripture. Job knew about and remembered the promise of the “daysman” (Messiah), who would come “in the latter days upon the earth.” It would have given the most wise, rich and powerful king the insight he needed. Although the book ends on a somewhat upbeat note, it leaves out the necessary blessing of the Messiah which would eventually come from his lineage; a blessing his father David wrote about many times.
Curiously, Solomon suffered from one of the things he warned his own son against. It is the very thing that we, as a wealthy generation ourselves, suffer from today; “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18
Humans are seeking the utopia promised by God; but, they want that utopia on their own terms, by their own manufacturing. Mankind will never reach the utopian dream by their own merit, through their own machinations. Humans not only lack the knowledge, they also lack the will. Utopia arises through the eradication of the cancer of sin, but a state of sinlessness is the direct antithesis to the idea of utopia men seek. In his arrogance, Solomon began to rely upon his wisdom, forgetting that the wisdom he had was not his own, but was given to him by God. And so we also have taken on self-sufficiency and believe ourselves to be wise through our amassing of knowledge.
Yet, mankind is cursed with (among other things) finite knowledge. He lacks omniscience, which is necessary to avoid the pit falls which are the direct result of an uncertain future. This is why mankind will never achieve a “Golden Age of Man.” Instead, this process of creating a new and better world will inevitably end in the destruction of the world by exactly the same means that Israel was destroyed. History is a witness to the truth of this assertion.
As followers of Jesus we should take great pains to understand this simple truth; “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18 “But the meek shall inherit the earth, and they shall delight themselves in abundant peace.” – Psalms 37:11
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