03/12/2021 – Day 299 – Ecclesiastes 1 – 2 // Solomon, the penitent Preacher, with much to teach us from his life lessons.
I am going to share with you a summarization of the book from Matthew Henry’s commentary , as well as an instructive note from the first 3 verses from the the book. Then at the end , I would like to address two areas for context that I think are largely left out, not only by Matthew Henry, but in general when we are trying to discern God’s truth through this book of the Bible.
I will delve right into Matthew Henry’s three paragraph summary, most of which I will include:
“The account we have of Solomon’s apostasy from God, in the latter end of his reign (1 Kings xi. 1) 1), is the tragical part of his story; we may suppose that he spoke his Proverbs in the prime of his time, while he kept his integrity, but delivered his Ecclesiastes when he had grown old (for the burdens and decays of age he speaks feelingly, chapter 12), and was by the grace of God, recovered from his backslidings. There he dictated his observations; here he wrote his own experiences; this is what days speak and wisdom which the multitude of years teaches.
I. It is a sermon in print; the text is (ch 1, 2), Vanity of vainities, all is vanity; that is the doctrines too; it is proved at large by many arguments and divers objections are answered, and in the close we have the application, by way of exhortation, to remember our Creator, to fear Him, and keep His commandments. There are indeed many things in this book that are dark and hard to understand, and some things which men wrest to their own destruction, for want of distinguishing between Solomon’s arguments and the objections of atheists; but there is enough easy and plain to convince us of the vanity of the world, and its utter insufficiency to make us happy, the vileness of sin, and its certain tendency to make us miserable, and of the wisdom of being religious, and the solid comfort and satisfaction that are to be had in doing our duty both to God and men.
II . It is penitential sermon; it is a recantation sermon, in which the preacher laments his own folly in promising himself satisfaction in the things of this world, and even in the forbidden pleasures of sense, which now he finds more bitter than death. His fall is a proof of the weakness of man’s nature: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, when Solomon himself, the wisest of men, played the fool so egregiously; nor let the rich man glory in his riches, since Solomon’s wealth was so great a snare to him, and did him , a great deal more hurt than Job’s poverty did him. (*a) His recovery is proof of the power of God’s power of God’s grace, in bringing one back to God that had gone so far from Him.
(*a) – another paradox within God’s Truth. On the surface it appears to be a grave contradiction, but it is in reality, anything but..
III. It is a practical profitable sermon. Solomon, being brought to repentance, resolves, like his father to teach transgressors God’s way (Psalm 51, 13). The fundmental error of the children of men is the same with that of our first parents, hoping to be as gods by entertaining themselves with that which seems good for food, pleasant of the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. Now the scope of this book is to show that this is a great mistake, that our happiness consists not in being as gods to ourselves to have what we will and do what we will, but in having him that made us to be a God to us. Solomon, in this book, assures us that to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole of man. He shows the vanity of those things in which men commonly look for happiness, as human learning and policy, sensual delight, honour and power, riches and great possessions. He prescribes remedies. Though we cannot cure them of their vanity, we may prevent the trouble that they gave us, by sitting loose to them, but laying our expectations low from them, and acquiescing in the will of God, especially by remembering God in the days of our youth, and continuing in his fear and service all our days.”
And now I share with you a partical commentary from the top of the first 3 verses of chapter 1:
“I. An account of the penman of this book; it was Solomon, for no other son of David was king of Jerusalem; but he conceals his name Solomon, peaceable, because by his sin he had brought trouble upon himslef and his kingdom, and broken his peace with God, and therefore, was no more worthy of that name. Call me not Solomon , call me Marah, for, behold, for peace I had great bitterness. But he call himself,
- The preacher, which intimates his present character. He is Koheleth, which comes from a word which signifies to gather. (1) Koheleth is a penitent soul, or one gathered, one that had gone astray like a lost sheep, but was not gathered in from his wanderings. The spirit that was dissipated after a thousand vanities is now collected and made to centre on God. It is only the penitent soul that God will accept, the heart that is broken, not the head that is bowed down like a bulrush only for a day. And it is only the gathered soul that comes back from its by-paths. (*b)
(*b) – Now that is one pithy paragraph!
Note – my own comments to soon follow here…
Ok, here are two points that I believe are lightly covered when exploring the context of Solomon’s life:
- Estimates are that that Solomon had 700 wives and roughly 300 concubines. As the link article below points out, these were foreign wives outside of the Jewish worldview faith. Maimonides, perhaps the most renowned Torah scholar in the middle ages , a Separdic Jewish Philosopher , pointed out that all of Solomon’s wives had to convert prior to marrying Solomon. But suffice to say, this was largely a formality and a show.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/women-of-solomon-bible
So either the number or the foreign worldview would be enough to progressively spin a devout believer into a terrible long term depression. But put the combination together, and you have a disaster. As the article points out: Deuteronomy 7:3 specifically forbids marriage with foreign women. Why? Well, verse 4: “For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” I thought surely I could find how many Jewish wives Solomon had but I might have been wrong on that one.
2. Another major factor we have discussed is that the Jewish faith lacked a belief in an afterlife all the way to around 150 b.c., with the beginning of the Pharisees. I don’t know how one can be anything but in a “what does it all mean” spin, unless they believe in salvation by God’s grace and a heaven. Yes, the old testament describes a sheoul , but that is really ill-defined. And the Jewish faith today is still absent a clearly defined belief in a heaven.
Soli Deo Gloria!