ADAM; HIS RELATION TO THE THEME
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quietly the limitations of our present position, fret not ourselves because of evil doers, but wait patiently for Him.
This we indicate for the student and pass on.
3:10 to 4:16.
A 3:10.
Travail for exercise.
B 3:11.
Full enquiry baffled.
C 3:12,13. GOOD.
A 3:14-15. God's work - for the age.
B 3:16-21. The one event - `as the beast'.
C 3:22.
NOTHING BETTER.
A 4:1.
Oppressions and power.
B 4:2.
The dead and the living.
C 4:3.
BETTER.
A 4:4.
Travail and envy.
B 4:5.
Folly eats own flesh.
C 4:6.
BETTER.
A 4:7,8.
Labour without object
Not a second.
Sore travail and vanity
B 4:8.
C 4:9-12. BETTER.
C 4:13.
BETTER.
B 4:14,15. Poverty and prison.
The second child.
A 4:16.
Fickleness and vanity.
Chapter 5 brings us to the sanctuary, and bids us keep our foot, be not rash with our mouth, `For God is in
heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few'. From this standpoint, as with Asaph (Psa. 73), the
writer can view many distressing prospects with calmness and hope.
`If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province' - play the
man, act the citizen, champion the right, raise rebellion, overthrow the tyrant, assert the claims of humanity - so
speaks the man of this world, and even the believer who imbibes its wisdom and traditions repeats the same; such
however is vain, the crooked cannot be put straight by such means. `Marvel not at the matter, for He that is higher
than the highest regardeth'. What we have to do is to regard our foot when we go to the house of God (5:1), regard
His commandments (12:13), and to remember that `He that regardeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep' (Psa.
121:3,4), `And there be higher than they', concludes Koheleth. This thought is carried over to 6:10, where we appear
to have reached the heart of the whole book.
Chapter 7, as we have previously pointed out, echoes most of the expressions of chapters 2, 3, and 4, and is in
the second half of the book, when question begins to give place to answer. Right there, at the junction of the two
parts of the book in chapter 6:10, is placed the solution of the enigma, viz.:
`What is he who hath been?
Long ago his name was given
And it is perceived what (that name indicates)
It was ADAM; neither may he judge Him that is mightier than he'.
The vanity of this life, all the strange and perplexing dealings of Providence are all traceable back to the nature
and fall of man. The NATURE of man as much as the FALL of man.
`The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening (life-giving) spirit. Howbeit that was
not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the
earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven' (1 Cor. 15:45-47).