Eat, Drink, Work—Enjoy!

By Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Life is unfair and nothing in this world makes sense. At least that’s the way it looks without a biblical perspective. See what the wise teacher in Ecclesiastes has to say about it all, and learn to enjoy God’s gifts as God intended. “Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward” (Eccles. 5:18). So fear God, keep His commandments, and enjoy your life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312815551

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Eat, Drink, Work—Enjoy!

Eat, Drink, Work—Enjoy!

A devotional commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes

Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Copyright © 2014 by D. Lance Waldie

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphical, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-312-81555-1

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission (www.Lockman.org).

Preface

Eating, drinking, and working are not just mundane events of everyday life; they are gracious gifts from God to be enjoyed. And we need to enjoy them while we can. All of us are born into a world of sin and death. No matter who we are or what we do, one thing is certain—we will all die.

There are no guarantees how long any of us have before that happens. Someone who is considered by the world’s standards to be a good person might die young. Yet someone who commits atrocious crimes might live to an old age without ever being brought to justice.

The book of Ecclesiastes addresses these perplexing situations and many others. Nothing in this world makes sense apart from God, who is sovereign over all. He does what He does for His reasons, and knowing that is true wisdom.

By presenting the bad news about the emptiness of life under the sun, Ecclesiastes sets the stage for the good news of Jesus Christ, who is above the sun. Only He can fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts, for Christ is the explanation of God, the Eternal Word who became flesh (John 1:1–2, 14, 18).

Everything of true value comes from Him. Nothing the world has to offer can satisfy or give lasting joy. So I pray that this devotional commentary will help you move more from the horizontal world to the vertical world—where we look to God for the meaning of life and for the wisdom to enjoy it.

Lance Waldie

Introduction

The author of Ecclesiastes uses various terms that are crucial to understanding the book.

•       HEVEL: a visible vapor

- When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you. But the wind will carry them up and a HEVEL will carry them away (Isa. 57:13).

- Men of low degree are only HEVEL, and men of rank are a lie. In the balances they go up; they are together lighter than HEVEL (Isa. 62:9–10).

- The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a driven HEVEL, the pursuit of death (Prov. 21:6).

- I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is HEVEL (Eccles. 1:14).

- I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is HEVEL (Eccles. 2:17).

•       YITHRON: something left over; what remains

–      Used only in Ecclesiastes, rendered as advantage; profit in the NASB

•       What YITHRON does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? (1:3).

•       Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no YITHRON under the sun (2:11).

•       What YITHRON is there to the worker from that in which he toils? (3:9).

•       For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no YITHRON for man over beast, for all is vanity (3:19).

•       After all, a king who cultivates the field is a YITHRON to the land (5:9).

–      Whereas HEVEL refers to a vapor that disappears, YITHRON refers to something left over after some process.

•       KA’AS: frustration, griping—from the trivial to the profound

–      KA’AS is the feeling when:

•       Playing cards you consistently get bad hands.

•       You are stuck behind a slow driver and change routes only to get stuck behind another.

•       The rains finally come and it rains without stopping so that you are unable harvest your crops. Then they rot and you lose your investment. Or, there is a famine and you lose your crops.

•       You find out you have cancer and have to watch your life slowly ebb away.

–      KA’AS is rendered in Ecclesiastes as grief (1:18), grievous (2:23), anger (5:9), vexation (5:17; 11:10), and sorrow (7:3) in the NASB.

•       Because in much wisdom there is much KA’AS, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain (1:18).

•       Because all his days his task is painful and KA’AS; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity (2:23).

•       After all, a king who cultivates the field is a KA’AS to the land (5:9).

•       KA’AS is better than laughter, for when a face is sad a heart may be happy (7:3).

–      So, remove KA’AS and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting (11:10).

Overview of Ecclesiastes

•       Title: Combining Teacher; Preacher (Heb. Qoheleth) with the Greek ecclesia, the title essentially means one who calls an assembly.

•       Author: Though some view this as a work of King Solomon, I view it as written by an unknown wise man teaching his son about life from the words and life of Solomon. He thus calls himself the Qoheleth—the Teacher or Preacher.

•       Date: Ecclesiastes was probably written sometime after the death of Solomon in 930 BC.

•       Outline:

–      Introduction of thought: All is vanity! (1:1–11)

–      Main body of thought: In a world without God—having a worldview that disregards or ignores Him—both the quest for foolishness and the quest for wisdom is pointless and absurd.

–      Conclusion: Those who know God and trust in Him must stand in awe of Him, worshiping Him through obedience to His Word (12:13).

What Ecclesiastes teaches us about life

•       In this world, misfortunes occur both to the righteous and the unrighteous.

•       All things under the sun are hevel—the accumulation of wealth, our plans, and the pursuit of worldly wisdom as an end in itself. 

•       Riches and the ability to enjoy them are gifts from God.

•       In lieu of the fact that nothing in this world under the sun can satisfy our souls, let us work day by day, use wisdom like a sharp axe to make work easier, and see good in the work itself rather than in what our work produces. In short, let us eat, drink, work, and enjoy what God has given to us. When misfortune occurs, that too is from God, and we must use the situation to draw nearer to Him and see His glory in our difficulty. 

–      Joy in our labor and its fruits comes only as a gift from God (2:24–26, 3:13; 5:19–20; 9:7).

–      Enjoyment comes only to those who please God (2:26), who fear Him (8:12), and whose enjoyment of life is tempered by the recognition that God will judge their deeds (11:9).

What Ecclesiastes teaches us about God

•       God is in control of all things (3:11; 6:10; 7:14; 9:1). Everything has its time (3:1–8).

•       God is mysterious in His dealings (3:11; 8:17). Man cannot comprehend all that God does, but he can give glory to Him in all circumstances.

•       God is unpredictable (7:14; 8:7; 9:1; 10:14). Hence, there are no guarantees in life except that there are no guarantees.

Eat, Drink, Work—Enjoy!

Ecclesiastes 1:1

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Commentary

The author is called "the Preacher [Heb. Qoheleth], the son of David, king in Jerusalem (cf. 1:12). David’s son was Solomon. Solomon reigned in Jerusalem, had great wisdom both before and after God blessed him (1 Kings 2:6, 9; 3:7–12; cf. Eccl. 12:9), wrote many proverbs (1 Kings 4:32; cf. Eccl. 12:9), and had a reputation as a wise teacher who attracted all the kings of the earth" to his courts (1 Kings 4:34).

Thus, Qoheleth (pronounced ko-hel´-et), a term denoting someone who addresses an assembly, would be a pseudonym for Solomon. Possibly, he was speaking just as a teacher and not a king. This could be the reason the book offers advice and reflection as opposed to decrees.

Although Solomonic authorship may seem certain, arguments against his authorship are prevalent. First, any descendant of David could be called the son of David since Hebrew has no word for grandfather or great-grandfather. Even Jesus is called the son of David (Matt. 1:1; Mark 11:46; Luke 18:38), yet 1000 years and many descendants separated them.

Second, the claim in 1:16 where the author says that he had increased in wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me sounds odd for Solomon since only his father David preceded him as king in Jerusalem. Indeed, this sounds more like a distant descendant of David than Solomon.

Third, contrary to what is known about Solomon’s peaceful and lucrative rule in Jerusalem, the author of Ecclesiastes speaks of sorrow for the oppression of the weak (4:1), corruption in government (5:8–9), the proper attitude to the king from the subject’s point of view (8:2–5; 10:20), one man ruling over another to their hurt (8:9), and unworthy rulers who do not properly distinguish good subjects from bad (9:1–2). If Solomon, as king, felt so convicted about these problems, why did he not right the wrongs?

Finally, it is questionable why Solomon would use a pseudonym while acting as a preacher. When he penned Proverbs for wisdom and instruction (Prov. 1:2–3), he called himself by name (Prov. 1:1). And like Ecclesiastes, the Proverbs are a king’s teachings rather than decrees.

Many scholars have railed against Solomonic authorship on the basis of linguistic clues, saying that Solomon would never have used certain Persian words and phrases as he does in Ecclesiastes. But against this is the fact that Solomon was more than privy to the trade and culture of his day. He had vital contacts with Egypt where wealth and wisdom literature abounded, complete with poetry and philosophy. He was even married to an Egyptian woman. As a man known throughout his world as the wisest of men, it is unmistakable that Solomon listened to, read, and collected literature from those who brought tribute to him.

As to the problems in his kingdom, it is known that Solomon had many officers serving him (1 Kings 4:7–19) who may have oppressed the people in ways that Solomon regretted. It is also known that Solomon became a morally corrupt man as he grew older, serving his pagan wives (1 Kings 11:4–6) and mistreating his subjects (cf. 1 Kings 12:14). Possibly, Solomon knew his sins but never genuinely repented of them by turning from them and making things right.

Though there are no passages in Ecclesiastes that rule out Solomonic authorship, Tremper Longman’s view seems most plausible for those who doubt that Solomon wrote it. He says:

No one can deny that the author of the book of Ecclesiastes alludes to Solomon as he describes Qoheleth’s search for meaning in the first part of the book (1:12–2:26). After this section, the allusions stop and indeed Qoheleth speaks of the royal office as an outsider (8:2–8). The pseudonym is better explained as a literary device employed by a skeptical wise man who seeks meaning in life under the sun. He, in effect, pretends that he is Solomon as he considers wealth, pleasure, and philanthropy as sources of meaning … A fair and natural reading shows that there are two voices within the book: Qoheleth and a second wise man … the narrative voice in control of the book.

Ecclesiastes 1:2–3

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. ³ What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?

Commentary

Qoheleth sets the tone for the book in the words, All is vanity. To say vanity of vanities is to use an extreme form, like holy of holies. He is not saying that something is just vain or worthless, but that it is as worthless and vain as it can possibly be. The Hebrew word is hevel, and although it means vapor or breath, it has a full range of meanings. In Ecclesiastes 8:14, for example, Qoheleth pronounces as hevel both the injustice of the righteous receiving the reward due to the wicked and the unrighteous receiving the payment of the righteous. In this sense, hevel does not mean meaningless or vain but absurd. It is absurd not only that the wise and the fool share the same fate of death (2:14–15), but that the world should operate in such an immoral way (2:18–21). Clearly, he believes that everyone should get what they deserve.

In Isaiah 57:13, hevel is parallel with wind, and in Proverbs 21:6, it is a fleeting vapor. The word can refer to that which is fraudulent or hopeless, especially as used of idols (Jer. 16:19; Zech. 10:2). Railing against pleasures in 1:1–2, Qoheleth is not saying that pleasures are absurd, but that they are a waste of time since all of them fail to fully satisfy. Thus, they are foolish. Elsewhere, he says, The more the words, the less the meaning (6:11; cf. 5:7). This is not absurd or vain; rather, it lacks any real significance.

Thus, to translate hevel as meaningless or vanity throughout Ecclesiastes is to miss the meaning of the word in its various contexts. We must view the context and understand the wide range of synonyms before settling on the meaning. Much like agape (Gr. love) or koinonia (Gr. fellowship), hevel itself may need to be imported into the English vocabulary, defining it in various contexts for its various usages.

Right off the bat, the writer seems depressed, angry, and frustrated—an experienced skeptic. Yet as the pages turn, this is not the case. He is simply someone who has seen the vanity of living life under the sun—a phrase used 29 times in reference to a horizontal life that fails to look to God above—for his own gain or pleasure. He sees everything as fleeting and having no lasting value.

People living life in a horizontal manner with no concern for God are, without realizing it, like animals caught in a trap. Their pursuits of worldly pleasures are as ridiculous as they are absurd. They are living a lie without realizing it, and Qoheleth sees this as vanity. We might surmise that the world the apostles and Jesus speak of in the NT, with all of its ungodly pursuits and pleasures, is synonymous with Qoheleth’s use of hevel throughout Ecclesiastes.

In Mark 8:36, Jesus asked, What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul? In verse 3, Qoheleth also wondered what advantage there was for all of man’s work under the sun. His use of advantage is Hebrew for that which remains or is left over. It is a term drawn from the business world. Reflecting on the hevel of it all, Qoheleth’s thought is profit, for there is no lasting benefit or return from all of man’s labors under the sun.

Yet we must not conclude that Qoheleth believed absolutely everything in the universe is hevel. Rather, he believed that all pursuits under the sun are hevel. He knows that God is above the sun, and he stands firm on the fact that anything of true value comes from Him. The benefit of his teaching is that he strives to move the reader from the horizontal world to the vertical one.

Food for thought

Qoheleth would have agreed with Paul, who said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). Work that attempts to glorify God alone is never in vain. Therefore, let us as Christ’s slaves work and strive to please Him and not ourselves.

Ecclesiastes 1:4–8a

A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. ⁵ Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place it rises there again. ⁶ Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; and on its circular courses the wind returns. ⁷ All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. ⁸ All things are wearisome.

Commentary

Qoheleth begins by explaining what he means in verses 1–3 in that all things under the sun are hevel, offering no advantage to mankind. He uses a poetic picture of the earth and of nature, depicting them and all they contain as a repetitive cycle of boredom with no grand finale.

Beginning with earth’s inhabitants, he speaks of their endless cycle of life. Whereas someone might say that a generation comes and goes, Qoheleth says it backwards—a generation goes and comes—so as to picture the replacement of one generation