Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 12:1-5

Solomon balances youth to old age; remembering the brevity of life with death awaiting us all (unless the Lord returns).  He provides these metaphors for the physical decline of old age; its trembling hands, weakened muscles, arthritis pain, stooped back, lost teeth and failing eyesight and hearing.  These are marked as 'the days of trouble'. 

The blossom of the almond tree is white giving a picture of gray hair in our older years. This is quickly joined with the feeble grasshopper struggling to get around.   'Desire' is translated from the Hebrew word for caper; a fruit used to stimulate sexual desire.  Desire fails also.  All this moves toward that day when we go home. 

Ecclesiastes 12:6-8

A silver cord is pictured as supporting a bowl and pitcher.  When the cord breaks, the pitcher and bowl are broken, no longer holding water (life).  The well is no longer accessible to retrieve new water (life).  Life runs out, drys up and our bodies return to dust and our spirit returns to the Lord.  Spirit is the word 'ruach' meaning wind or breath.  This came from God and will return.

The preacher repeats the opening phrases of the book.  All of life seems senseless and absurd to Solomon. 

Ecclesiastes 12:9-14

This passage is the epilogue to this book.  It establishes the that the teacher, the preacher was not just a wise man but also an educator and writer.  He did in depth research and study; he weighed the words out and set them in a systematic order.  'Just the right words' was a search for joyful meaning.  He wanted to find an encouraging message to share and bring meaning to life.  But life is hard and sometimes frustrating.  So, the message is simply summed up as upright and true.

Too often words fail miserably.  Words alone cannot express the vast expanse of emotions and feelings of life; the depth of pain, the emptiness of losing a loved one, seclusion of loneliness, the weight of depression, the frustration of confusion.  In a similar way, words cannot adequately describe the true love between a God-ordained marriage, seeing the birth of your child, the forgiveness of sin, freedom from its bondage and feeling the love of Christ Jesus.   It is by these we are able to endure the reality of life.

The words are compared to a goad – a pointed stick used to move cattle, or a nail driven deep into the wood.  These are the words of a father to a son, a teacher to a student; words meant to be embedded in our life in a way they can't be removed and that the words would move us and form our thinking.  These truths he passes along that his son might not spend his life doing his own research and writing his own book of truth. 

After all the research, the verdict is in.  All this frustration, absurdity, meaninglessness, vanity and fruitless search yielded a definitive answer.  We can do no better than to fear God and keep His commandments.  He reigns sovereign and supreme knowing the end from the beginning while our understanding is limited, flawed and weak.  We are to enjoy life in the context of the boundaries our Lord put in place because there is a day of judgment coming. 

One commentator summed it up this way (Kidner):

"This is how the book will end. On this rock we can be destroyed; but it is rock, not quicksand. There is the chance to build."   

Our life has meaning when lived in the context of eternity.  It's the hope of returning to the garden for which we were made, to do that for which we were created; to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism)

¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

A Puritan sat down to his meal and found that he had only a little bread and some water. His response was to exclaim, "What? All this and Jesus Christ, too!"  Contentment is found when we have a correct perspective on life.²⁴⁸[1]

©2018 Doug Ford