Exploring Ecclesiastes

An Expository Commentary

John Philips, Jim Hasting

• Publisher: Kregel Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780825425615
• eBook ISBN: 9780825476372
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Sound, practical exposition of Ecclesiastes The John Phillips Commentary Series is designed to provide pastors, Sunday school teachers, and students of the Scripture with doctrinally sound interpretation that emphasizes hands-on application of Bible truth. Working from the familiar King James Version, Dr. Phillips not only provides helpful observation on the text but also includes detailed outlines and numerous illustrations and quotations. Anyone wanting to explore the meaning of God's Word in greater depth--for personal spiritual growth or as a resource for preaching and teaching--will welcome the guidance and insights of this respected series.Dr. Phillips wrote most of this volume before his death and the manuscript was later completed for publication.

PART 1

The Preacher’s Subject

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11

PART 1: THE PREACHER’S SUBJECT (1:1–11)

A. The Preacher (1:1)

1. What He Was (1:1a)

2. Who He Was (1:1b)

3. Where He Was (1:1c)

B. The Problem (1:2–3)

1. The Great Quotations (1:2)

2. The Great Question (1:3)

C. The Process (1:4–11)

1. A Frustrating Sequence (1:4–10)

a) Anthropology Does Not Have the Answer (1:4a)

b) Geology Does Not Have the Answer (1:4b)

c) Astronomy Does Not Have the Answer (1:5)

d) Meteorology Does Not Have the Answer (1:6)

e) Oceanography Does Not Have the Answer (1:7)

f) Sociology Does Not Have the Answer (1:8a)

g) Psychology Does Not Have the Answer (1:8b)

h) Archaeology Does Not Have the Answer (1:9)

i) Philosophy Does Not Have the Answer (1:10)

2. A Frustrated Sequel (1:11)

a) The Frustrating Incompleteness of Our History Books (1:11a)

b) The Frustrating Inference of Our History Books (1:11b)

PART 1: THE PREACHER’S SUBJECT (1:1–11)

A. The Preacher (1:1)

1. What He Was (1:1a)

2. Who He Was (1:1b)

3. Where He Was (1:1c)

“The words of the Preacher …” (1:1a). Kings are rarely noted for being preachers. Warriors, statesmen, law givers, yes! But preachers? No! The Hebrew word Solomon uses to describe himself is koheleth, from kahel—“to call,” “to assemble,” “to gather together”—he proclaims himself to be a collector of wisdom to speak to the people.

Solomon had adopted this role at the beginning of his reign (1 Kings 8:1, 2, 5) when he gathered his people together to lead them in a prayer and proclamation at the dedication of the Temple. It was a role to which Solomon now returned at the end of his wilderness wanderings in the pursuit of pleasure, power, and praise.

There can really be no doubt as to who the preacher was, to whom we are introduced at the very beginning of this twelve-chapter sermon. He tells us himself he was “… the son of David” (1:1b). Nor can there be any question as to what he was. He was “king.” Furthermore, there can be no doubt as to where he was: “king in Jerusalem” (1:1c). True, Solomon did not actually sign this book, but we know that the one who was king in Jerusalem was Solomon.

Long before the time of Christ, this book found its way into the Hebrew Bible. The universal consent of antiquity attributed the authorship to Solomon. The Greek and Latin Fathers agreed. Jewish commentators entertained some doubts concerning the contents but never disputed its authorship. It was Martin Luther who first ridiculed the traditional view and stated it was his opinion that the book was composed by Sirach in the time of the Maccabees. Very little attention was paid to Luther until, at the close of the nineteenth century, his opinion attracted the attention of the German destructive critics. We reject out of hand the idea that some centuries after Solomon an unknown writer impersonated him because of his vast and varied knowledge of human nature, thought, and circumstance in order to secure an audience for his own thoughts and opinions. Such a view is incompatible with the revelation and plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture, which is the hallmark of all the Bible.

Though Solomon did not actually sign the book, he identified himself plainly enough with his opening verse. Thus, it is that we have in our Bible, a book divinely inspired by the Spirit of God and authored by a man of wide experience of life to show us the folly and futility of worldly-mindedness, living solely “under the sun.” This is a book given to us by God to expose once and for all the total inadequacy of the perspectives, plans, and prospects of the unsaved individual and the backslidden believer, as well as such people who have their day and then the end comes as it came to the dismayed and disillusioned Solomon, king in Jerusalem.

The book is of great importance and incalculable value. God allowed Solomon to have everything this world could offer. He had wealth and power. He had a brilliant mind and vast experience. He had a rich spiritual heritage and commanded wide respect and influence. Consider, for instance, the city and country over which he ruled. Jerusalem had a growing population and attracted an ever-flowing stream of talent and enterprise. Solomon’s first great undertaking, the building of the Temple, revealed him to be a capable leader and a born administrator. The royal palace he subsequently built covered an area four times that of the Temple.

Solomon fortified the nation he inherited, fully aware that he was not the warrior-king his father, David, had been. Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, Baalath, Tamar, and Beth-horon were all strategically located. These fortress cities were supplemented by other important cities for his chariots and cavalry. His love of building seemed to grow as time went on. His trading expeditions brought him ever-increasing wealth and ever-increasing oriental luxury in the beginning. It was a development that was not only demoralizing but also dangerous, especially as his polygamy soon knew no bounds.

Before long, strangers, formerly regarded as heathens, poured into Jerusalem. Solomon absorbed their ideas, became familiar with their customs, married hosts of their women, seemed to tolerate their religions, and, eventually, practically turned Jerusalem into Babylon. This was all the more inexcusable because God twice appeared personally to Solomon, something he never did to David.

This was “the preacher.” He certainly did not lack for source material for his sermon. Of all the kings of Israel and Judah, only Solomon had the means, the experience, and the motivation to write this book that is supremely concerned with materialism and the high cost of backsliding.

In this sermon, Solomon proves from experience, observation, and deduction that a life lived without God is futile, empty, and pointless. Nothing ever lasts. We become bored with our works. Pleasures satiate. Philosophy raises more questions than it answers. Disappointment comes. Death appears on the horizon. All these somber threads are woven into the tapestry of this preacher’s sermon. Gloom and doom lurk everywhere. Nothing “under the sun” satisfies the deepest longings of the human heart.

Solomon would have agreed with the poet Lord Byron. On the day he completed his thirty-sixth year, he cried:

My days are in the yellow leaf,

The flowers and fruits of life are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone.¹

B. The Problem (1:2–3)

1. The Great Quotations (1:2)

“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). The nation of Israel never recovered from the damage Solomon did to it. There was oppression on the one side and abomination on the other.

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. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. (1 Kings 11:4–8)

No wonder God’s anger was kindled against the king. He had taken a tour of the city. He had seen these various abominations, dedicated to whoredom and child sacrifice—here, there, and everywhere throughout the city. The worship of Baal and Ashtoreth was consummated with a temple harlot. The worship of Molech climaxed in the placing of a living child on the red-hot lap of the idol while the drummers worked themselves into a frenzy to drown out the screams of the victim. In 1 Kings 11, God is essentially saying, “For David’s sake, I’ll wait until you’re dead. I’m going to tear your kingdom to pieces” (see vv. 11–13).

At first, Solomon was angry. He was astute enough to know where his danger lay. He had an ambitious young administrator, thoroughly capable and influential, by the name of Jeroboam. He was the one to watch. The people, fed up with Solomon’s exactions, would turn to open rebellion given the right leader, especially the northern tribes.

Then came word that Ahijah the prophet had graphically conveyed to Jeroboam that he was destined to rule over ten of the tribes. Solomon decided to have Jeroboam put to death. The plan failed, and Jeroboam escaped to Egypt and bided his time (1 Kings 11:40).

In time Solomon resigned himself to the fact he had thrown away an empire, sold his birthright, indeed, for a mess of this world’s pottage. It was only a matter of time. He viewed his empty-headed son Rehoboam with a jaundiced eye. Rehoboam was a fool, and Solomon knew it. All of Solomon’s proverbs regarding fools are given added potency by the fact that Rehoboam was incapable of learning from any of them. Doubtless Solomon could envision in his mind’s eye the kind of idiocy which would pass for statesmanship with Rehoboam once he was on the throne.

We can picture Solomon sitting moodily in his library brooding over his misspent life. Surely, he had built the Temple, but that had been David’s vision, not his; even so, it was the Temple written into the archives of heaven. But he had also set in motion the forces which would one day pull it down. Was there nothing he could do? The pangs of remorse and regret gnawed at his heart. Was there nothing he could do to undo the damage he’d done?

We can see him open the scroll. It is a copy of the Hebrew hymnbook. In Solomon’s day, almost all the psalms bore David’s name. It was the voice of his dead father speaking to him from beyond the grave. We can see him running his eye from psalm to psalm until suddenly it is arrested by the word “vanity!” He found that word in what we know as Psalm 39. The word smote him twice:

Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth;

and mine age is as nothing before thee:

verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. (v. 5)

To which David added the word “selah,” which, translated into our vernacular, simply means, “There, what do you think of it all!” Old age! Vanity! It must have smitten the aging Solomon right between the eyes. Then came the second punch:

When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. (v. 11)

And, again, there follows that word “selah.” “What do you think of that!” The word “vanity” itself refers to that which soon disappears. It embodies the idea of a vapor, something which appears for a little while and then “vanisheth away” (James 4:14). Someone has suggested paraphrasing the idea behind the word as “chasing the wind.”

The word David used for “iniquity” must also have troubled Solomon’s thoughts. It suggests perverseness, being bent out of shape, and it, too, must have arrested his attention. Haunted by two words “vanity” and “iniquity,” Solomon sat there and pondered.

It was the word “vanity” that finally gripped him the most. It summed up the course of his life. In his pursuit of knowledge and power, pleasure, and happiness, he had ended up chasing the wind. He had squandered the wisdom given him by God. The light that was in him had been turned into darkness, and how great was that darkness (Matthew 6:23). At last there was a gleam of light in the darkness. He could not change the past, but he could lay hold of the future. He could write another book. He could give his testimony. He could warn young people. He could unmask worldliness and carnality. He could preach! But to preach, he needed a text. He found a text. He found that text already in his hand, a one-word text: Vanity! It so gripped the soul of the repentant Solomon, so summed up what he wanted to say, so well stripped the world of its pretentions that, one way or another, he wrote that word “vanity” some thirty-six times into his sermon. It was his predominating text.

Solomon would remember the first time the thought behind the word occurred in the Scriptures. It was immediately after the fall. God had appeared in the garden to pass judgment on Adam, Eve, and the serpent. But judgment was tempered with mercy, for God promised that “the seed of the woman” would one day “bruise the serpent’s head.” Eve believed God. When her firstborn son arrived she called him Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man from the LORD” or, as some have suggested, “I have gotten a man, even Jehovah” (Genesis 4:1).

The boy began to grow, manifesting the fallen Adamic nature and so much so that by the time Eve’s second son was born, she was so disillusioned that she called him “Abel,” which means “vanity.” So Solomon found his text. He began at once on his topic: man under the sun.

2. The Great Question (1:3)

“What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” (1:3). There speaks the businessman. Solomon was a very successful businessman, at least at first. And like all successful businessmen, Solomon kept his eye on his profit and loss statement with special attention directed to what we now call “the bottom line.” For years Solomon had been chairman of the board of a number of commercial enterprises. He knew the importance of making sure that every venture turned a profit. And, like so many others engrossed in turning a profit, Solomon lost sight of eternal values. He was the rich fool (Luke 12:16–21) of the Old Testament, for toward the end Solom...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Summary Outline of Ecclesiastes
• Introduction
• Tribute to Dr. John Phillips
• Part 1: The Preacher’s Subject (1:1–11)
• Part 2: The Preacher’s Sermon (1:12–10:20)
• Part 3: The Preacher’s Summary (11:1–12:14)
• Appendix: Chasing the Wind: A Summary Message of Ecclesiastes by Dr. John Phillips Preached in 1999
• Notes