"1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains for ever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."
Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
The phrase used in our introductory Note, 'a critique of secularism' is a very apposite one in describing Ecclesiastes, and it serves to indicate the relevance of its message for our own day and generation. For the prevailing philosophy of our time - existentialism - is one that is characterised in its essence by meaninglessness and despair. One writer, analysing it, refers to its 'anguished version of the implacable absurdity of the universe', and its 'idea of total uncertainty, not mere social or personal disorientation, but the fundamental and irreparable loss of all the co-ordinates that used to give men their bearings in the world'. Another writer speaks of the sense of waste in life, and man's fear of anonymity, of being born, suffering through his small span of years, dying and being forgotten, so that in a short time the record of his passing through the world is extinguished; and that the anguish lies in an awareness that life - for some at least - can be pleasant, but that the shortness of the good years makes nonsense of the whole life experience; that the shortness of life, the anguish of love, or the agony of a man trapped between a reluctant birth and an unknown end, constitutes at once man's real struggle and his despair. All this certainly reflects the theme with which the Preacher deals in these chapters before us. Ecclesiastes is very conscious of the twin facts of evil and death, and the whole book has been described as an exposition of the curse of the Fall, evil and death. As one commentator writes, 'Bracket the whole of life under the sun with a negative sign and defy all attempts to force it to yield either sense or satisfaction by itself'. 'Vanity of vanities' is not his verdict on life in general, but only on the misguided human endeavour to treat the created world as an end in itself.