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Chapter 3: develops a new phase of teaching. It is concerned with the set times and
seasons for all the purposes under heaven. Although a new phase is commenced, the
vanity of the creature by reason of mortality is not forgotten. What is the first couplet of
the twenty-eight statements?
"There is a time to be born, and a time to die."!
After pursuing the question of time, the writer comes back to the subject of death:--
"I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest
them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth
the sons of men befalleth beasts; even ONE THING befalleth them; as one dieth, so dieth
the other; yea, they all have ONE BREATH; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a
beast: for all is vanity. All go unto ONE PLACE; all are of the dust and all turn to dust
again....." (3: 18-20).
In 4: 8 there is still a reference to the same sad theme. He looks at one "alone"
having neither child nor brother. Yet he does not say, "For whom do I labour"? The
suggestion is, of course, that death will prevent him from enjoying the result of his labour
himself. So whether a man has an heir (2: 18), or whether he has not--"all is vanity, yea,
a sore travail". Speaking further of the accumulation of riches Koheleth observes:--
"As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and
shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a
sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that
laboured for the wind" (5: 15, 16).
"Do not all go to one place"? he asks (6: 6), and speaks of this life as
"Vain life, which he spendeth as a shadow. For who can tell a man what shall be after
him under the sun" (12)
"It is better to go to the house of mourning, than go to the house of feasting: for that is
the end of all men: and the living will lay it to his heart" (7: 2).
"The laughter of a fool is like the crackling of thorns under a pot" (7: 6).
Nothing but senseless and unbridled licence can explain why those who are aware that
"the end of those things is death" do not appear moved by the prospect and saddened at
the outlook.
In chapter 8: 4 we read, "Where the word of a King is, there is power", but verse 8
reveals the need of a greater than Solomon. "There is no man that hath power over the
spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no
discharge in that war."
Not only does the sense of vanity come to the writer as he sees all men, fools and
wise, subject to death. He contemplates the burial of the wicked and the fact that they are
forgotten with an equal sense of vanity (8: 10). Still the subject haunts Ecclesiastes.
"All things come alike to all: there is ONE EVENT to the righteous, and to the
wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to
him that sacrificeth not: as to the good, so to the sinner: and he that sweareth, as he that