Chapter 2

2021 - The TCR/ESV title before vss 2:1-11 is "The Vanity of Self-Indulgence".

Solomon's search first turns to pleasure of all kinds.  He tries to find fulfillment and meaning in pleasure.  Pure hedonism I think.  He denied himself nothing that he might like.  He indulged.  Here is the definition of hedonism from Merriam-Webster:  the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life.  Solomon experimented with making this so in his life.  It failed.  He is trying to extract meaning from these things.  To find some worthy "end" or objective to a man's life.  Something enduring.

Interestingly, though, he includes building houses, gardens, vineyards in this version of hedonism.  He built gardens so that he might sit and enjoy them perhaps, vineyards that he might enjoy his own wine, and so on.  He accumulated massive wealth of all kinds, however measured - quantity, quality, and so on.  This verse:

[Ecc 2:10 ESV] And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

Solomon had everything, and more.  He owned fields and slaves and had concubines, and herds and flocks. 

This verse is a key verse to the book:

3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine--my heart still guiding me with wisdom--and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. [Ecc 2:3 ESV]

In vs 11 Solomon concludes that all seeking after pleasure is just vanity.  No substance to it.

2021 - TCR/ESV calls vss 12-17 The Vanity of Living Wisely.  Now that is an interesting title.

Next, he tries living wisely.  vs 13:

13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. [Ecc 2:13 ESV]

But then, the fool and the wise will both be forgotten.  There is no enduring difference between them. 

This is indeed depressing...and is it quite right?  We remember Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived.  We remember his name.  We don't remember the fools who lived in the same era.  Do we? 

2021 - Vss 18-26 are called The Vanity of Toil

So he tries working himself hard.  Toil and labor.  This was not fulfilling either, because all he accomplished with that toil he would someday leave to someone else who had not toiled for it.  AND, there was no way to know if the one who "inherited" what you built would be wise or be a fool.  So you can't even know if what you've intricately, brilliantly, wisely done will even be appreciated by the one who takes it over. 

But there is vs. 24:

24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, [Ecc 2:24 ESV]  Because this kind of living keeps everything current?   You aren't "creating" much, but you aren't leaving what you've built, or accumulated or earned to someone who didn't do a day's work for it.  No regret about who inherits, no regret that the unappreciative spray paint what you built.  A days work, eat dinner, drink wine, and go to bed.  Do it all again tomorrow.  This is as good as it gets.  This is existentialism it seems to me.  But I think Solomon demeans that as a philosophy a bit later in the book.   Perhaps he means that after having tried pleasurable living and wise living, it turned out that physical work, and the simple daily things of life, are the best that can be had.  Ties in with those verses in the NT about Christians working with their hands to provide for their own needs.

2023 - Pride in today's  accomplishments might be a better way to say it.  If I get to the end of a day and can say "look at that, it shows my work...today", then I feel very good about that day.  Perhaps toil, a day at a time, is the best it gets.  Building.  Mowing.  Flowers.  Pretty cars.  All those things that "show" are worthwhile, too.

2021 - No, there is a lot more to this paragraph - a conclusion, a summary that I had not noticed before:

[Ecc 2:25 ESV] for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

[Ecc 2:26 ESV] For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

What Solomon found out was that our best life comes if we toil for God, if we are wise for God, if we do all for the purpose of pleasing God rather than of elevating ourselves in the eyes of men,   If we do this right, God's blessings accrue, and we have peace and pleasure in our existence.  But if we ignore Him, there can be no satisfaction with toil and no accomplishment is ever going to be enough, NOR will we be remembered if we strive ONLY for ourselves! 

Who do we put up statues for?  Men who made themselves rich by walking on the backs of others?  No.  People who bettered mankind in some way.  Penicillin comes to mind.  We wouldn't remember Pasteur if he'd only cured himself and his own family.  He cured the world.  Salk and polio.  Ahh...but did these men do it for God's glory?  Maybe we are back to the wise and foolish being equally treated by history.  Maybe the point is that how history treats us is irrelevant because it treats all alike.  What endures is what we do for God.  The important things are those that God Himself will reward us for doing.  In those we find our fulfillment, not just in this life, but eternally.  Yes.  This is the point being made.

2023 - If we use the tools God gave us to bring glory to the one who gave them, then we are blessed with peace of mind and a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.  Each day is its own reward.  Maybe.