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8Don't be surprised if the poor of your country are abused, and injustice takes the place of justice. After all, the lower officials must do what the higher ones order them to do. 9And since the king is the highest official, he benefits most from the taxes paid on the land.
10If you love money and wealth, you will never be satisfied with what you have. This doesn't make a bit of sense. 11The more you have, the more everyone expects from you. Your money won't do you any good—others will just spend it for you. 12If you have to work hard for a living, you can rest well at night, even if you don't have much to eat. But if you are rich, you can't even sleep.
13I have seen something terribly unfair. People get rich, but it does them no good. 14Suddenly they lose everything in a bad business deal, then have nothing to leave for their children. 15 They came into this world naked, and when they die, they will be just as naked. They can't take anything with them, and they won't have anything to show for all their work. 16That's terribly unfair. They leave the world just as they came. They gained nothing from running after the wind. 17Besides all this, they are always gloomy at mealtime, and they are troubled, sick, and bitter.
18What is the best thing to do in the short life God has given us? I think we should enjoy eating, drinking, and working hard. This is what God intends for us to do. 19Suppose you are very rich and able to enjoy everything you own. Then go ahead and enjoy working hard—this is God's gift to you. 20God will keep you so happy that you won't have time to worry about each day.
Don't Depend on Wealth
1There is something else terribly unfair, and it troubles everyone on earth. 2God may give you everything you want—money, property, and wealth. Then God doesn't let you enjoy it, and someone you don't even know gets it all. That's senseless and terribly unfair!
3You may live a long time and have a hundred children. But a child born dead is better off than you, unless you enjoy life and have a decent burial. 4-5That child will never live to see the sun or to have a name, and it will go straight to the world of darkness. But it will still find more rest than you, 6even if you live two thousand years and don't enjoy life. As you know, we all end up in the same place.
7We struggle just to have enough to eat, but we are never satisfied. 8We may be sensible, yet we are no better off than a fool. And if we are poor, it still doesn't do us any good to try to live right. 9It's better to enjoy what we have than to always want something else, because that makes no more sense than chasing the wind.
10Everything that happens was decided long ago. We humans know what we are like, and we can't argue with God, because he is too strong for us. 11The more we talk, the less sense we make, so what good does it do to talk? 12Life is short and meaningless, and it fades away like a shadow. Who knows what is best for us? Who knows what will happen after we are gone?
Reflect
Helpless beings in a meaningless world: this is Solomon’s appraisal of the human race. Again and again throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, these are adjectives he uses to describe us, slaves and kings alike. We stumble about, blind, naked and without understanding. With all our art we try to conjure a meaning behind our lives. With all our science we try to save ourselves from our sickness and the inevitability of our dying. In both enterprises we fail miserably. Where it matters, we are helpless.
This is Solomon’s thesis, and he defends it with merciless precision. Despite our efforts to control our circumstances, fortune and disaster still befall us, unexpected and inexorable. More disturbingly still, there is a consciousness that exists outside ourselves, and that is not helpless but possesses both might and understanding. We live at the mercy of a great and unknowable power.
Solomon reminds us of a terrible truth that is easy to forget, immersed as we are in the joyful splendor of the grace revealed in the New Testament: God did not have to be good to us. He could have been cruel and merciless, and we would have had to serve him just the same. We could have been nothing more than slaves and playthings, and all our rebellion would be just as futile. Solomon didn’t know the nature of his God, only that he was God, that he must be glorified simply because he was glorious. But he is also good.
This is the good news of the gospel: that this great and alien intelligence chose to make himself known to us, and to tell us that the meaning behind the story of the universe was simply that he loves us, and wants to share his existence with us.
Respond
Dear Father God, You are great and I am small and have nothing to offer you, yet you love me. Let me know you better and love you more perfectly today, that I might live in more perfect relationship with you as you desire. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Mike Bonikowsky
Mike Bonikowsky began looking at books as soon as he could sit up. Eventually he learned to read them, and has not been able to stop. One day he realized that people wrote the words in the books, and he began to write his own. He has not been able to stop that either. He lives with his wife and child in Melancthon Township, Ontario, where he writes his words in the basement.