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"When I applied mine heart to know wisdom and to see the travail that is done upon
the earth, how that one doth not see sleep with his eyes by day or by night. Then I beheld
all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun,
because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a
wise man think to show it, yet shall he not be able to find it."
Again in 3: 10, 11 the sore travail and its legitimate exercise is contrasted with the
"far off" and the "exceeding deep" things which wisdom cannot explore:--
"He hath made everything beautiful in its season: also He hath set the age in their
heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the
end."
Revelation alone can make us know the work that God maketh from the beginning to
the end. What is revealed we know, what is unrevealed all our wisdom will never supply.
We shall but make our folly manifest and ultimately be found wresting the scriptures to
make them fit our theories. Again in another parallel with the opening section we read:--
"Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which He hath made
crooked (the vain attempt is seen in every department of life to-day, from theology
downwards). In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider that
God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing
after him.......neither make thyself over wise" (7: 13-16).
Solomon, therefore, when he gave his heart to know wisdom and madness and folly,
was simply asking to:--
"perceive vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief (or mortification): and he
that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (1: 17, 18).
This result he arrives at in 2: 21-23:--
"The man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge and in equity.......all his
days are sorrows and his travail grief."
It is impossible to attain to a knowledge of the world and its ways without
experiencing the utter failure of man to save himself or reform the crooked world.
Wisdom also fails us to make plain the work that God doeth from the beginning to the
end. Faith in His written Word is our only safety and rest. We have already indicated
that the word experience is the word enjoy. "I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove
thee with mirth, therefore look into pleasure." What was the result of the investigation?
"This also is vanity" (2: 1). His experiment with "mirth" was very thorough. It is set out
in detail in the verses that follow. In verse 10 Koheleth says, "I withheld not my heart
from any joy (mirth)".
"Therefore look into pleasure."--This word pleasure is rendered "good" twenty-four
times in Ecclesiastes, besides "better" and "well". Koheleth did not "plunge into
pleasure" here, but "investigated good", as he repeats in 2: 3. Here he examines mirth,
there he interrogates folly with the same object in view. All that he could say of laughter
was that it was mad. In chapter 7: 3, 4, we find (as we have found before) his sober
judgment on the matter:--