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wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat
thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease."
How many failures may be attributed to the lack of recognition of this principle! The
present economic situation is slowly revealing to the mass of men that money is a false
standard of value, and when we remember such words as Hag. 1: 6 we can see that to
earn much and yet to put it into a bag with holes is indeed vanity. Yet such was the
condition of those who in their selfish greed put their own house first and forgot the
Lord's. We have still to do with the same Lord who fed the prophet and the widow
during famine with the last handful of meal, and who could multiply five loaves and two
fishes so that they would satisfy thousands. Chapter 5: 19 tells us that this "power" is the
gift of God, and a gift it is verily.
Verse 7-9 introduce another aspect of unsatisfied desires. "All the labour of man is
for his mouth, and yet the soul is not filled." So Prov. 16: 26, "He that laboureth,
laboureth for himself: for his mouth craveth it for him". As we analyze the speeches of
those who have pleaded for better conditions for labour, have they not insisted that the
man who labours week in week out shall earn something over and above the mere
satisfying of his mouth? Do not they speak of a higher standard of living within reach of
some of the intellectual refinements of life? True it is there is nothing new under the sun.
Koheleth strikes the same note here. There is no true satisfaction in merely satisfying the
craving of the mouth.
Nevertheless Ecclesiastes is in advance of many of his self-appointed teachers.
"Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the soul"--for seek as he will and
where he will man will never escape the curse of vanity except by Him Who is the true
and living way. Both Ecclesiastes and Christ say "a living WAY". Man will believes in
"a living WAGE!" "This also is vanity and vexation of spirit."
Chapter 7: 6 sums up the senseless laughter of fools as so much crackling of thorns
under a pot--mere vanity. Koheleth's opinion of laughter and mirth, expressed in 2: 2,
remains unchanged. He also reviews the burial of the wicked with all the pomp and
splendour that may accompany it (see 6: 3). They had "come and gone". There is no
"complex figure of Ellipsis" here. It is the observation of Ecclesiastes throughout the
book. "One generation passeth away (same word gone) and another cometh (same word
come)." "He cometh in vanity", and "goeth to his long home". "To come and go" is the
summary of human activity. They had conducted their business in the very shadow of the
holy place, yet "what shall it profit a man?" "This also is vanity."
Finally, the apparent lack of equity that goes to make up the lives of men, the
prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous, this further emphasizes the
unsatisfactory nature of things and cries aloud for the conclusion of the matter", viz., a
definite hereafter for the rectification of all that now is crooked.
We have not exhausted the preacher's statement (we have limited ourselves to the one
expression "this also is vanity") giving, as it does, a series of investigations or
observations and results. Who is there, taught by the Scripture, that will say that