Vanity & the Work of the Cobbler
I wish I could be paid for every time I heard from frustrated Bible teachers (both the great and the small, saying it in various ways) that the prologue to Ecclesiastes is impenetrable, irreformably “Old Testament,” so that whatever good was in it was to be gleaned from other and better wisdom the book contained, despite the pessimism of its introductory passages. The prologue was contrary to the hope and joy we were taught marked true faith and the attitude of believers—what we were in church to get and to celebrate. There was something sub-Christian, at best, about it.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
What does a man gain by all the toil at which he labors under the sun?
. . . I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem,
And I applied my mind to seek and search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven;
It is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of man to be busy with.
I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be filled. . . .
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
The speaker of this book is in the character of Solomon the Wise, “king over Israel in Jerusalem,” who by Christian reckoning holds forth here under a title of the Messiah, who as God’s royal anointed speaks his word, and is supported besides by the testimony of creation regarding a truth that (I would claim) everyone knows by intuition.
The Intolerability of the Doctrine
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S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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