on every hand (4:1-3), but Ecclesiastes does. To limit our observations within handy compass we note the many

things `done' in this practical experiment, as indicated in chapter 2. Each reference is to the same original word:

`Till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under heaven' (2:3).

`I made me gardens and orchards' (2:5).

`I made me pools of water' (2:6).

`I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that

of all sorts' (2:8).

`Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do' (2:11).

`What can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath already been done (2:12).

`The work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me' (2:17).

Here is an array of doings, and the result - `very grievous'. In our `text' the things done are defined as `sore

travail'. This is an expression which we meet several times through the book. The question is asked, `What hath

man of all his labour?' The answer is:

`All his days are sorrows, and his travail grief' (2:23).

`He giveth (to the sinner) travail (namely), to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before

God' (2:26).

`I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it' (3:10).

`There is one alone ... he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour ... this is also vanity,

yea, it is a sore travail' (4:8).

`A dream cometh through the multitude of business (travail)' (5:3).

`Riches perish by evil travail' (5:14).

`The business (travail) that is done upon the earth' (8:16).

These references show that the `things done' by the sons of men, those things which constitute `business', are a

`sore travail'. Sorrow and grief, heaping up for another, whether the good before God, or for someone else because

one has neither child nor brother, disturbing one's very sleep so that the daily business demands the activity of the

restless brain at night, the transient character of these hard-earned riches, and the baffling mystery of it all - these

constitute one of the causes for vanity and vexation of spirit. There is, however, in all these intricacies the

redeeming feature of a purpose. This sore travail is given to the sons of men `to be EXERCISED therewith'. So

fundamentally true is this, that the same Hebrew word that gives us `travail' gives us `exercise'. This word comes in

many passages of Scripture, e.g.:

`Before I was afflicted I went astray' (Psa. 119:67).

`To humble thee, and to prove thee' (Deut. 8:2).

This second reference well illustrates the teaching of Ecclesiastes:

`Thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to

humble (exercise) thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His

commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou

knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only,

but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live' (Deut. 8:2,3).

This is parallel with the teaching of 1 Corinthians 10:13:

`God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also

make the issue, that ye may be able to bear up under it' (Author's translation).

And again, in Hebrews 12:11 :