Deeper Commentary
Ecc 9:1 For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this-
This continues the theme of the preceding verses, where we saw
Solomon abrogating the wisdom given him by God, which he didn't reach by
any personal intellectual process. But now he has rejected that, and seeks
to know wisdom from his own observations explorations and intellectual
process ["laid to my heart"]. And that wisdom was associated with his
heart turning away from God and to the nihilism of idolatry.
Hezekiah was 'left' by God so that he would know what was really in his heart, and here we have it written down.
That the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God-
This must be associated with Solomon's conclusion in Ecc. 8:14 that
there is no real advantage of the righteous over the wicked and foolish
because they all die the same death. Here Solomon seems to say that
righteousness is only anyway part of some predetermined behaviour and is
not therefore morally culpable. The idea may be as in
GNB "that God controls the actions of wise and
righteous people, even their love and their hate". Secular people at the
end of their lives often come to the conclusion that everything is somehow
overruled by God, to the point that human behaviour is pretty much all
Divinely determined and enforced. Solomon at this point had turned away
from Yahweh, so he may refer to "God" in a more general sense of some
higher power. But he fails to accept the basic thesis of the book of
Proverbs; that human actions can be controlled, we have election, and love
and hatred are choices. And thereby we are accountable for our actions and
to Divine judgment. But Solomon didn't believe in this, and so it led him
to conclude that human behaviour isn't that significant
and is somehow all
orchestrated by some higher hand than our own. See on Ecc. 11:3.
Whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before
them-
The idea may be, as discussed above, that love or hatred,
righteousness or sin, has no eternal consequence seeing that all die the
same death. GNB "No one knows anything about what lies ahead". This is a
frequent lament by Solomon, that he doesn't know the future. He wrote this
at the end of his life, and the future in view was death. And yet the
promises to David and Abraham clearly offered the resurrection of the body
and future eternal inheritance of the earth. Even throughout Proverbs,
Solomon sees wisdom as largely just good for this life. He has no eternal,
Kingdom perspective, nor does he strongly factor in the final day of
judgment. He considered himself the Messianic king, and his kingdom to be
God's promised Kingdom. And now he was himself facing death, he realizes
that the future is a fearful unknown.
Ecc 9:2 All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous
and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who
sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice-
Solomon is again writing autobiography. He had built the temple of
Yahweh, but now at this point in old age his heart had turned away from
Yahweh to idols, and he was no longer sacrificing to Yahweh but to the
idols, whose temples he had built near Yahweh's (1 Kings 3:4-8). He sees
no problem in his choice because he has convinced himself that sacrificers
to Yahweh die the same death as those who worship idols. Both
Solomon and Hezekiah are noted for offering many sacrifices. But they
conclude it was all meaningless because death is so final.
The man who didn't offer sacrifice was Abel, and things did
indeed go differently for him. It is perhaps no coincidence that the
Hebrew word for "Abel" is of the same consonants as that translated
"vanity" [hebel] so often in Ecclesiastes. There could be the
implication that the outcomes for both Cain and Abel was death and
therefore whether or not they sacrificed acceptably was irrelevant. This
would then be another of those points in Ecclesiastes where koheleth
verges upon the blasphemous.
As is the good, so is the
sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath-
GNB "one who takes an oath is no better off than one who does not".
I suggested above that the first half of this verse refers to Solomon's
building of Yahweh's temple but not now sacrificing in it. I noted on Ecc.
5:1-3 that Solomon there comments upon how he had built Yahweh's temple
simply because David had made an oath to build it, and that oath became
binding on Solomon to fulfil it. He sees the temple which he had forsaken
as irrelevant because the builders and users of it would meet the same
death as the idolaters. Hezekiah had vowed to serve God
quietly the rest of his days- and he now sees that oath as meaningless.
Solomon cynically concludes that the wicked and the righteous all die the same death, and so, he concludes, there is no great advantage in righteousness (Ecc. 9:2). This contrasts with Solomon's huge emphasis in Proverbs upon the difference between the wicked and the righteous (e.g. Prov. 11:18). But it seems he got to that wrong conclusion because he assumes that the blessing for righteousness is in this life, and likewise the curses for wickedness. He totally fails to think in terms of the future judgment and eternal life of God's future kingdom. And so as he himself got older and approached death, he concluded that death means that all effort towards righteousness is therefore vain. He made the same mistake as the false teachers of 1 Cor. 15:19, who likewise considered that "hope in Christ" was only helpful for "this life", because they rejected the resurrection of the body and future judgment and reward.
In the end, Solomon felt that for himself, it was as well to be righteous as to be wicked, for in death there was no further difference (Ecc. 9:2,5,9). He knows judgment will come (Ecc. 11:9), at least for the young people, but he reasons as if it won’t- at least not for him. He knows, but he doesn’t know on the personal, experiential level. This is why there are apparently contradictory statements in Ecclesiastes. For example, the wise dies as the fool, with no more eternal remembrance than the fool (Ecc. 2:15,16). This, Solomon, says, is what he himself believes in his own heart. But in Ecc. 7:12 he says that wisdom gives life to those who have it. But then again in Prov. 9:16-18 he observes that although wisdom can help, it’s benefits are easily undone, so easily as to make it useless. I don’t see these different perspectives as being the difference between life in the world and life in the spiritual realm. They are all spoken with conviction by Solomon, which, to my mind, ruins the idea that he himself believed the Truth but was simply outlining what life is like without God. He advocates both ways. My resolution of this is that he knew and preached God’s Truth, but for him personally, it meant nothing at all. And therefore in practice he advocated the life of self-enjoyment, acting as if all the other truth of wisdom was not operative in practice.
Ecc 9:3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is
one event to all: yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to
the dead-
Solomon sees death as a great evil; GNB "is as wrong as anything that
happens in this world". Yet according to Genesis, death was created by God
as a punishment for human sin, and the consequence of sin. Had Solomon
accepted the message of resurrection of the body and future judgment, he
would not have portrayed death so harshly; nor effectively charged God
with abusing man by allowing death to happen. What a contrast with Paul,
who earnestly desired to "depart" (Phil. 1:23), and the generally hopeful
approach to death found in the faithful of the Biblical record.
This verse is to be connected with Ecc. 8:11: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil". The sentence against evil may refer to death; for in Ecc. 9:3 Solomon repeats the phrase "the heart of the sons of men is full of evil", blaming this on the fact they are alive and not dead. This is nihilism at its worst. Solomon blames the evil heart of man on the fact he doesn't die from the womb. This is quite wrong reasoning, and reflects how Solomon indeed "hated life".
Ecc 9:4 For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a
living dog is better than a dead lion-
A "dog" is a term repeatedly used in the Bible for the immoral. And
this is the context in this chapter, arguing that righteousness or
wickedness has no eternal consequence. An immoral man yet still alive is
"better" than a dead lion of a man, morally and politically king of all.
For Solomon refuses to accept any conception of resurrection.
In passing, it needs to be noted that the LXX uses the word koinonio here. We are in a sense in fellowship with the world in that we are human- we are "joined (LXX koinonio -fellowshipped) to all the living" (Ecc. 9:4); we are guilty in some way for the rejection of God's Son- we turned away from Him, and esteemed Him rejected of God (Is. 53:3,4). But we can do nothing about being members of the human race. We cannot exit from humanity, as we cannot exit from the body of Christ. Guilt by association, if we must use that phrase, is something we can do nothing about.
Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know
anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for their memory is
forgotten-
Solomon may mean that their memory is forgotten by men. Throughout
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes he seems to think that leaving a good memory is
the best outcome that can be hoped for from living by "wisdom". But he now
accepts that over the passage of time, even that will fade. He fails to
accept that the
memory of the righteous remains with God, and is the basis for their
eternal judgment. Again we see how having a
permanent, positive memorial in society was so important for Solomon. Even
in his book of Proverbs, he sees the advantage of wisdom as being in that
men will think well of the wise, and they progress in society. But now
Solomon is struck by the reality of the fact that ultimately, memory of
all the living will be forgotten as the generations pass. He fails to
factor in that it is the wicked whose memory is forgotten (Ps. 49:11), but
the memory of the righteous will be preserved (Ps. 112:6; Mal. 3:16).
Solomon refused to accept his father's teaching on this, even though he
claims to glorify him.
Hezekiah of all men knew he would die. After 15 years. He reasons here as if because death is unconsciousness, therefore they have no more reward and will just disappear in memory. That is a studied rejection of the possibility of resurrection, even though resurrection of the body was clearly implicit in the promises in Eden, to Abraham, David etc. and was believed in by Job. Resurrection changes everything- and the Lord's resurrection enables it. Hence the huge significance of His resurrection.
Ecc 9:6 Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long
ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done
under the sun-
Solomon has much to say about the evil of envy (e.g. Prov. 14:30;
23:17; 24:1,19; 27:4). But true as his condemnations of envy are, he
surely has in mind the way that Ephraim envied Judah, and envied his
throne (s.w. Is. 11:13). This all came to full term after his death, when
Ephraim departed from Judah under Jeroboam. Again, Solomon is harnessing
Divine truth to his own agenda of self justification. And we who claim to
hold His truths must take warning. But as he faced death, he came to
realize that all such envy is as nothing before the reality of death,
which he understood as the end of life, as he had assumed this life was
the time for reward and expresses no personal hope in a resurrection of
the body (Ecc. 4:4; 9:6).
He considers that all the love and hatred, the good and the bad done by the righteous and wicked, is meaningless because they die the same death. Again he refuses to accept his father's understanding, that it is the wicked who only have a portion in this life (Ps. 17:14). But the righteous have an eternal portion, which God's true Israel can look forward to receiving at the last day.
Koheleth seven times repeats the idea of having your "portion" now, in the small blessings of human existence such as a happy marriage (Ecc. 9:9; 2:10,21; 3:22; 5:18; 9:6,9; 11:2). The totality [seven times] of our "portion" is petty blessing now in this brief life. Koheleth's argument is that man may as well enjoy these petty blessings, because this life is all you get and there's nothing further to come after death. But under the old covenant, the "portion" of the faithful was an inheritance of land, for eternity (Gen. 31:14; Num. 18:20). But koheleth never mentions "Yahweh". He had left covenant relationship with Him and had no hope for the future. So all he saw was kingdom now- and as he observes, it isn't much, and is dwarfed for him by the eternal finality of death. He is sure that there is no "portion" in the future for all who are dead (Ecc. 9:6). If we have the Kingdom Hope surely held in our minds, that that is our "portion", then we will not focus upon the presence nor absence of any "portion" now in life under the sun.
Ecc 9:7 Go your way- eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a
merry heart; for God has already accepted your works-
We must remember that this was written at a time when Solomon had
turned away from God. He has just been arguing that whether a man lives in
righteousness or sin, in love or hatred, it makes no difference because he
dies the same death. He considers God incapable of resurrecting and
judging a man after death (Ecc. 3:22). So I would take this as Solomon
saying sarcastically: 'Get on and enjoy your life, make your heart merry
with wine, and don't worry, 'God' accepts you whatever you do'.
But the Hebrew translated “accepts” means
literally to satisfy a debt, and is elsewhere translated ‘to reconcile
self’. It could be that he saw works as reconciling man’s debt to God, rather than
perceiving that grace is paramount. He keeps on about David his father;
and yet there was a crucial difference. David perceived the need for grace
as the basis of man’s reconciliation with God; whereas Solomon thought it
was works. David wrote that God wants a broken heart and not thousands of
sacrifices; yet Solomon offered the thousands of sacrifices, but didn’t
have the contrite heart of his father.
Ecc 9:8 Let your garments be always white, and don’t let your head lack
oil-
The idea is as discussed on :7, to get on and enjoy life and not to
let ourselves "lack" any pleasure, because this life is all we have, and
there will be no judgment from God; so
Solomon thought. White garments and oil were worn to festivities,
so the idea is that man may as well party every day.
Ecc 9:9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your
life of vanity, which He has given you under the sun, all your days of
vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labour in which you
labour under the sun-
Elsewhere Solomon concludes that life is vain and pointless, and one
may as well have been a stillborn child or never have existed. He "hated
life" (Ecc. 2:17). But he concludes that one may as well live joyfully
with one wife, not be righteous over much and not be overly wicked, in
order to have a reasonable experience. His idea is that our "portion" is
only in this life. He disregarded his father David's sense that Yahweh was
his portion (Ps. 16:5 s.w.), and the huge emphasis that the eternal
inheritance of the earth in the future Kingdom of God was the "portion" of
the true Israel, as promised to Abraham and repeated in the Biblical
record. But Solomon blacked out, as it were, all that. He saw this life as
our portion and nothing more.
He exhorted to live joyfully with “the wife” (singular) of youth, knowing full well that he in his old age was a polygamist whose many wives had led him astray. This is typical of how Ecclesiastes is so packed with reflections of the contradictions within Solomon's mind. They arise because Solomon knew and perceived God’s truth, and yet felt it meant nothing to him personally. Thus he teaches truth in Ecclesiastes, but intersperses it with his own personal depression and sense that none of it really has any meaning for him personally. The themes of labour, vanity, sleep and children which are found in Ecclesiastes all occur in Psalm 127, a Psalm of or for Solomon- where the message is clearly given that unless the Lord builds the temple, all this labour is in vain. And yet knowing this Solomon did labour for it so hard, and then came to the conclusion that it was indeed in vain. If only he had believed the words he earlier composed and sung in Ps. 127, he needn’t have had to come to that sad conclusion.
The allusion is clearly to the curse in Eden- labouring under the sun, "until you die" being the implication. the author doesn't go on to the hope of release from that curse offered through Messiah (Gen. 3:15). Instead he appears to wallow in it, advising only to try to endure it as cheerfully as possible, not least through a good marriage.
Ecc 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there
is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are
going-
Koheleth believes that the work of a man's hands is enjoyable
in this life, but will not survive death. By contrast, Is. 65:22 argues
that God's people will "long [eternally] enjoy the work of their hands"-
the work they did in this life for God will have eternal fruit and
enjoyment.
But koheleth has no Kingdom perspective.
This comment that there is no wisdom in the grave suggests that he saw wisdom as only helpful for this life. And this is implied a number of times even in the book of Proverbs. We note that Solomon understood sheol as the grave, a state of unconsciousness. There is no Biblical support for the idea of "hell" as a place of conscious punishment or existence.
Much of the Preacher's message is built on the tragic finality of death being an imperative to present action. And this is true, even though Solomon meant it in the context of his wrong belief that there is no future judgment nor Kingdom of God. He has some fine images of this finality; the silver cord breaks in just one link, and the beautiful bowl of life, of this body, crashes to the dusty floor and smashes; the rope holding the bucket breaks and it plunges irretrievably into the well; and as David observed, in death we are as water spilt on the ground on a hot day, which cannot be gathered up. We are as children who have dropped their precious sweets in the dust, fraught with the realization they are spoilt for good and there are no more. They may look up to us for more, and with as much pain in our eyes as is in theirs, we turn out our pockets to show there are no more. And so the tragedy of the human experience teaches us to live life in the Lord's service to the full, not frittering it away on the time-wasters of this world. Moses pleaded with God to make time-frittering Israel see the implications of their mortality; having eloquently spoken of the tragedy of our mortality, he concludes: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).
Perhaps the Lord was speaking in a kind of soliloquy when He mused that
"the night comes, when no man can work", and therefore man should walk
and work while he has the light (Jn. 9:4, quoting Ecc. 9:10). He was
speaking, in the context, not only of His own zeal to 'work' while He had
life, but also applying this to His followers.
It’s only when faced with death that we realize the crucial and
wonderful importance of every hour which we’ve been given to live. Facing
death as he thought, Job reflected upon the tragic brevity and speed of
passing of human life, and the true meaning of the Hebrew word nephesh:
“My days sprint past me like runners; I will never see them again. They
glide by me like sailboats…” (Job 9:25). Life is indeed racing by; time
management, and freeing our real selves from all the myriad things which
compete to take up our time, becomes of vital importance once we realize
this. There is only one ultimate thing worth studying, striving after,
labouring for, reading about, working towards… and grasping the mortality
of man inspires us in living out this understanding. TV, novels, endless
surfing of the internet, engagement in pointless communication and
discussion in this communication-crazy world… all this beguiles us of life
itself.
Ecc 9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor
yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but
time and chance happen to them all-
This continues Solomon's impression that wisdom and righteousness is
of no ultimate value because the wise and foolish all die the same death.
"Time and chance" may be an idiom for death. Whether wise
(spiritually) or strong or swift, the same thing, "time and chance",
happens to all; i. e. death. Ecc. 9:12 backs this up: "For man also
knoweth not his time (i.e. of death)... as the birds that are caught in
the snare (i.e. killed); so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them". The context back in :4,5 is clearly
talking about the universality of death. "Chance" does not mean 'random'
or uncontrolled events. The Hebrew root by contrast implies something
specifically ordained- often by God. In this case, death.
Or it could continue the sense Solomon has that there are factors in life which control our behaviour and experiences, well beyond the effect of living a righteous or foolish life. "All men" in Ecc. 9:11 in the context seems to mean "all men" literally- it does in Ecc. 3:20 and other 'mortality of man' passages. But it we take "time and chance" on face value as a translation, Paul appears to deconstruct this negative take on life by noting that for the believer, "all things work together for good". "All things" therefore delivers us from any fear that we are at the whim of random "time and chance". Whereas Solomon seems to here reject his earlier wisdom of Prov. 13:15, concluding life is just a random sequence of events.
The race not being to the swift is perhaps Solomon's take on his father's swift enemy Asahel being slain due to his speed.
"Time and chance happens..." seems to be saying that success or
otherwise in life is all a question of 'luck at the right moment'. He is
totally devaluing moral choice, obedience, spirituality. Without God and
future judgment in the equation, luck and random chance become dominant
deciders in human destiny. And this leads to a totally depressive, anemic
outlook on life.
Ecc 9:12 For man also doesn’t know his time-
As noted on :11, the "time" in view is the time
of death. This is a far cry from the Hezekiah who did know
his time of death, but by grace was given extra time- so that in fact he
did know the time of his death, 15 years after his terminal illness.
As the fish that are taken in
an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are
the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them-
This language of snares and entrapment was often used by Solomon's
father David, asking to be saved from such snares (Ps. 141:9) and
rejoicing that he and God's people had been (Ps. 124:7). But Solomon seems to
be cynically commenting that all men are finally snared in death. In
Proverbs, Solomon is continually alluding positively to his father's
words. But now he alludes to those words cynically. He was no longer
living out parental expectation, although it took him until older life to
individuate. And when he did, he is revealed as having no real personal
faith at all. Earlier Solomon had
warned about avoiding spiritual snares (Prov. 7:23; 22:5), but finally in
Ecc. 9:12 he concludes that death is the unavoidable snare; and therefore
all attempts to avoid being morally snared into sin are ultimately vain.
He came to this perspective because he failed to fully grasp the hope of
the resurrection of the body at the last day. He thought he would have the
Kingdom now, and this led to his rejection of the Gospel of the Kingdom
and its moral implications.
Here he says that he suffered the fate of all men in that soon he would die, he would suddenly be caught like a bird in a snare, although he knew not his time. These are the very ideas of Prov. 7:23 concerning the snaring of the simple young man by the Gentile woman: "As a bird hastes to the snare, and knows not that it is for his life". And yet he seems to rationalize this by claiming that death is a snare brought about by time and chance; he minimalized the sin of marriage out of the faith.
Ecc 9:13 I have also seen wisdom under the sun in this way, and it seemed
great to me-
After the terrible statements of the previous verses, which I have
shown were a negation of his father's wisdom and spiritual positions,
Solomon seems to feel the need to say something positive about wisdom. But
as ever, his idea is that wisdom is indeed helpful in this life, it has
some advantages, but it still fails to give any lasting memorial. Because
over the passage of time, the totality of death destroys all such hope of
having a lasting memorial.
Ecc 9:14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and a great king
came against it, besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it-
LXX "Suppose there was a little city" makes this hypothetical. And
surely it was a hypothetical example at the time. But I have pointed out
on Prov. 25:1 that Hezekiah was particularly interested in Solomon and his
words. And it turned out to be a kind of morbid fascination, because he in
his later life followed the same path to spiritual destruction as Solomon.
The example which Solomon cites of wisdom being advantageous in this life
is so relevant to the salvation of Jerusalem from the Assyrians.
So
relevant that we could therefore conclude that just as Hezekiah's scribes
rewrote some of Solomon's Proverbs under inspiration (Prov. 25:1), so they
edited this part of Ecclesiastes to make it relevant to Hezekiah's time.
And the references to life as a "shadow" would be relevant to the reversal
of the shadow on the sundial as the sign given to Hezekiah (Is. 38:8). Or
perhaps this is an uncanny prophecy put in the mouth of the apostate
Solomon, as in Jn. 11:51. The language is all clearly relevant to this:
the few men within Jerusalem (Is. 24:6; 36:8) compared to the size of the
"great king" of Assyria (Is. 36:13) with his "great host" (2 Kings 18:17),
who besieged Jerusalem (Is. 1:8; 37:25) with siege engines (according to
the depictions on Sennacherib's prism). It seems unlikely Solomon
ever experienced anything like this. But Hezekiah did.
Ecc 9:15 Now a poor wise man was found in it, and he by his wisdom
delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man-
The poor wise man of the Assyrian siege was presumably Isaiah. But he
was not remembered with gratitude, and Jewish sources record that Hezekiah
and Manasseh persecuted and murdered Isaiah; see on :16. Solomon shared
the common view of his time that being a wise man was only ultimately
valuable and worthy if he therefore had a memorial after his death. Hence
the uninspired Book of Wisdom speaks of how "I for the sake of wisdom
shall have estimation among the multitude, and honor with the elders,
though I be young... By the means of her I shall obtain immortality, and
leave behind me an everlasting memorial" (Wisdom 8:10-13). But Solomon is
lamenting that the memory of the wise ultimately fades. And therefore
wisdom is of no ultimate value because wise and foolish die the same
death. So many of Solomon's Proverbs seem to stress the advantage of
wisdom as being in this life.
Ecc 9:16 Then I said, Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless the
poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard-
GNB "I have always said that wisdom is better than strength, but
no one thinks of the poor as wise or pays any attention to what they say".
As explained on :15, Solomon admits wisdom has some advantage, but not in
any ultimate terms. For he says that the poor wise man earned no lasting
respect for how he saved the city. Indeed, he was despised afterwards and
his further words of wisdom were disregarded, just as happened to Isaiah
(see on :14).
Ecc 9:17 The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the cry of
him who rules among fools-
As noted on previous verses, Solomon's point in all this is that the
wise man has no lasting memorial, and is only heard in quiet and
obscurity. And for Solomon, wisdom is only worth anything if it leaves you
with fame and a lasting memorial to yourself in the eyes of men. The
problem of death, the same death for the wise and the foolish, as Solomon
things, means that there is little advantage in being a "wise man". And
Solomon was the preeminently wise man, thanks to the wisdom God gave him;
but he now abrogates all that and sees no lasting point in it.
But he may be making historical allusions. The book of Proverbs has in view a bad ruler (s.w. Prov. 28:15; 29:2,12,26; Ecc. 9:17). And this bad ruler offers deceitful food (Prov. 23:3), which Solomon in Prov. 23 advises against eating. We need to recall that eating together was seen as a sign of fellowship and acceptance of each other within the same cause. Solomon may have in view Jeroboam, who clearly sought to usurp Solomon as king. Or he may be alluding back to the various people like Absalom and Adonijah who had feasted to celebrate their apparent usurping of David's throne. The LXX in Prov. 23:1-8 reads rather differently to the Masoretic Text, and speaks much of the evil of the ruler in view.
Ecc 9:18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys
much good-
In the end, Solomon felt that for himself, it was as well to be righteous
as to be wicked, for in death there was no further difference (Ecc.
9:2,5,9). He knows judgment will come in some form, perhaps just in this
life (Ecc. 11:9), at least for the young
people; but he reasons as if it won’t- at least not for him. He knows, but
he doesn’t know on the personal, experiential level. This is why there are
apparently contradictory statements in Ecclesiastes. For example, the wise
dies as the fool, with no more eternal remembrance than the fool (Ecc.
2:15,16). This, Solomon, says, is what he himself believes in his own
heart. Here in Ecc. 9:16-18 he observes that although wisdom can
help, its benefits are easily undone, so easily as to make it useless. I
don’t see these different perspectives as being the difference between
life in the world and life in the spiritual realm. They are all spoken
with conviction by Solomon, which, to my mind, ruins the idea that he
himself believed the Truth but was simply outlining what life is like
without God. My resolution of this is that he had known
and preached God’s Truth, but for him personally, it meant nothing at all.
And faced with the problem of eternal death for all, as he thought, therefore in practice he advocated the life of self-enjoyment, acting
as if all the other truth of wisdom was not operative in
practice.
He may even have himself in view, consciously or unconsciously, in saying that "one sinner destroys much good". All the good established by his father David, and the potentials he had had, were all undone by his sin. He knows that, perceives it, but will not repent.
The rabbis perhaps correctly interpret this verse as meaning that "when a wise man becomes a sinner, many people will abandon their pursuit of wisdom by concluding that this person’s wisdom was wrong" (Rashi). This would then have particular relevance to Solomon and Hezekiah, whose collapse of faith lead to their people turning away from God.
The Hebrew can stand the translation "one sin destroys much good". This would be in line with Ecc. 10:1 "so does a little folly outweigh wisdom". The idea seems to be that wisdom isn't that great at all, because just one sin, or one sinner, can take away all the benefits of righteousness. This is a position arrived at by someone who knows nothing of the wonder of human repentance and Divine forgiveness. And even when facing terminal illness, Hezekiah doesn't show any penitence but rather just pleads what a good man he has supposedly been.
This is one of many allusions to the curse in Eden, whereby "to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). There are many allusions to the curse in Ecclesiastes, especially in the verses which speak of man's labour being in vain and just to satisfy his appetite / need to eat. Especially Ecc. 5:17 "All his days he also eats in darkness, he is frustrated, and has sickness and wrath". "God made man upright" (Ecc. 7:29), "one sinner destroys much good." (Ecc. 9:18 cp. Rom. 5:18 "for as by one man sin entered the world... so death passed upon all men"). But Genesis 3 held out the great Hope of redemption from the curse through Messiah. But the koheleth doesn't want to factor that in. Although he surely knew Gen. 3:15 as well as he knew Gen. 3:19. But he wallows in the curse rather than the long term blessing of Eden restored in the Kingdom.
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