Read through this book a number of times; you will find modern translations especially helpful. It is God’s commentary on human life outside of Christ, which explains the keyword — vanity, or meaninglessness. King Solomon wrote it, and gives us his testimony after he had tried everything there was to know. His conclusion is that outside a relationship with God there is no reason to live: all is meaningless.

“Absolutely pointless!” says the spokesman. “Absolutely pointless! Everything is pointless.” What do people gain from all their hard work under the sun?

Ecclesiastes 1:2–3  ·  God’s Word

As you read, let it tell you about the empty world through which we passed to find life and meaning in Christ — and then consider the rich, full life we have now that we are born again. To understand the author’s perspective, read the life of Solomon in I Kings 2–11 and II Chronicles 1–9.

The man who is speaking, and what his verdict cost him

So what is the meaning of life? How would you have answered that question? Is there even an answer — and if there is, does it matter?

Ecclesiastes is one man’s answer to that question, and the reason to take it seriously is who he was. So it is worth knowing his story before you read his conclusions.

Solomon was David’s son by Bathsheba — her second child, born after the very public affair, after David had her husband killed to marry her, and after their first child died (II Samuel 12:24). Whatever else he inherited, he inherited that.

His name is the word for peace. In Hebrew it is Shelomoh, built on the root of shalom — peaceful. And his reign was exactly that: a long, unbroken national peace, the only one Israel ever had.

His father’s last instruction to him was not about statecraft “I’m about to leave this world. Be strong and mature. Fulfill your duty to the LORD your God.” (I Kings 2:1-3).

And he began well. God offered him anything, and of everything he could have named, he asked for the one thing this book is about “What can I give you?”… “Give me wisdom and knowledge so that I may lead these people…”… “So wisdom and knowledge will be given to you. I will also give you riches, fortunes, and honor like no other king before or after you.” (II Chronicles 1:7-12).

He asked for wisdom and was given wisdom and everything he had not asked for. Hold that in mind: the wealth in this book is not something Solomon grabbed. It was handed to him, on top of a right request.

The temple, and the house he built next to it

David had wanted to build the temple and was refused — I Chronicles 22:8: “You have caused a lot of bloodshed and fought in a lot of wars. You must not build a temple for my name.” So David gathered the materials, and the building waited for his son. Solomon built it, and it is what he is most remembered for.

But read the building dates together and something uncomfortable shows up:

Twenty years of a forty-year reign (I Kings 11:42) went into building — and his own house took nearly twice as long as God’s. Nobody in the text comments on it. It is simply recorded, in order, for anyone who reads carefully. And the man who lived in that house is the one who later wrote that he built himself everything he wanted and found it pointless (2:10–11).

Then the appetites

His fame spread everywhere — “People came from every nation to hear his wisdom” (I Kings 4:34). The queen of Sheba travelled to test him with riddles and left saying she had not been told half of it. And then “King Solomon loved many foreign women… They came from the nations about which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “Never intermarry with them.” (I Kings 11:1-3).

He built altars to their gods to please them. And the verdict came “Because this is your attitude and you have no respect for my promises or my laws… I will certainly tear the kingdom away from you… But I will not do it in your lifetime because of your father David.” (I Kings 11:11-13).

Solomon was the last king to reign over a united Israel. When he died the kingdom split, and it was never reunited. The wisest man who ever lived ended his reign by losing the nation.

Why his verdict carries weight and mine would not

Here is why the story matters before the book. If I tell you that no amount of money will satisfy you, you may fairly ask what I know about money. If I tell you pleasure will not tell you what life means, you may reasonably ask what I would know about that either.

Solomon is not open to that reply.

• The gold alone. “The gold that came to Solomon in one year weighed 49,950 pounds” (I Kings 10:14) — about twenty-three metric tons, every year, worth somewhere between one and three billion dollars at modern gold prices. That is the gold. It does not count the silver, the trade, or the tribute the next verse adds on top.
• A thousand women (I Kings 11:3).
• The whole known world travelling to admire his kingdom (I Kings 4:34).
• And wisdom — given by God, by name, in answer to prayer.

He had every experiment funded, and the intelligence to run them properly. He says so himself: “I’ve used my mind to understand wisdom and knowledge as well as madness and stupidity” (1:17). Both ends of the range, deliberately.

And his report is: pointless. When a man with nothing says money will not satisfy you, it can be sour grapes. When this man says it, there is nowhere to put the objection.

Three books, three stages of one life

Solomon is credited with three of the wisdom books, and the traditional reading puts them at three different ages — which is itself worth knowing before you read any of them:

• Song of Solomon, in his youth — passion and romance, and steamy enough that some circles have discouraged young readers from it.
• Proverbs, in his middle years — wisdom for the ordinary decisions of a life being actively lived.
• Ecclesiastes, at the end — the same man looking back over everything he tried, and telling you what it came to.

Two words that never appear in this book

Now something about the book itself that changes how you read every page of it.

First: the covenant name is not in Ecclesiastes. Not once. Everywhere else in the Old Testament God is the LORD — small capitals, standing for the name He gave Moses. Across twelve chapters here, that name appears zero times. The book says God about forty times, and the word behind it is always Elohim — the general word for God, the Creator of everything, very often with the definite article: the God. Not the God who cut a covenant with his father. Just God, as a fact about the universe.

Second: Israel is barely here. The word occurs exactly once, in 1:12 — “I, the spokesman, have been king of Israel in Jerusalem” — and there it is a return address, not a theology. It says which throne he sat on. There is no exodus in this book, no Sinai, no law, no tabernacle, no sacrifice, no promised land, no chosen people. Four verses later he introduces himself again and drops the word altogether: “than everyone who ruled Jerusalem before me.”

Both absences point the same direction, and they are the key to the book. Ecclesiastes is deliberately stripped of Israel’s particular revelation. It is arguing from what any human being anywhere can see and check.

“Under the sun”

Which is why the phrase you will meet over and over is under the sun. It is a Hebrew expression, and it fixes the vantage point deliberately: the realm every one of us actually lives in, whether or not we believe there is anything beyond it.

And Solomon’s repeated verdict on our pursuits inside that realm is that they are like trying to catch the wind — the picture of a vapour, there for a moment and then gone. The Hebrew word is hevel — breath, vapour, mist. The older translations render it vanity, the newer ones meaningless, and God’s Word pointless; what the word itself says is that a thing is real but it will not hold still “I have seen everything that is done under the sun. Look at it! It’s all pointless. It’s like trying to catch the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

So this is a book of practical wisdom about what it is to be human — about finding meaning in the common, ordinary world all of us share, and its advice holds whether or not you have come to faith yet. That is why it can speak to anyone. It is also why, working only with what can be seen under the sun, it can never arrive anywhere better than pointless — until the last page reaches past its own method and says fear God and keep his commands.

The case  ·  1 – 6  ·  Every road tried, and every road closed

The statement  1:1–3

It becomes obvious as the book goes on that this is the conclusion of a man who had everything he wanted and to whom all things were available. Having experienced all that life had to offer, his verdict is emptiness. The only meaning in life is to know God through Christ; then what was empty before takes on meaning and fullness.

An empty repetition  1:4–11

He sees a man’s life as the passing of a shadow, and everything he does as without significance. “Whatever has happened before will happen again… There is nothing new under the sun” (1:9).

The fact of the fall  1:12–18

Man craves order. He wants everything to fit, because he knows it should. As Solomon investigates he finds that instead of fitting, life is twisted and lacking. The fall has made nonsense of our existence, and only Christ, the wisdom of God, can bring sense and meaning to it.

The foolishness of following the senses  2:1–2

If one cannot find meaning, then forget meaning and live for the sensual moment. But that brings its own emptiness and its own dead end.

The dead-end road of culture  2:3–23

Solomon seeks all the riches of life — its pleasures, its wisdom, its activities — and settles on finding his pleasure in hard mental work. His conclusion is that it is not worth the work and the sweat, since death is going to wipe it out anyway. Apart from a relationship with God and a context of eternity, there is no foundation for hard work.

God’s wisdom in the midst of vanity  2:24 – 3:22

Read this alongside I Corinthians 2:7 and Colossians 2:3. “It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

That verse explains the whole book. A sense of eternity has been set in us, and the view under the sun cannot satisfy it. The restlessness Solomon is documenting is not a defect in him; it is the shape of the ache.

Life is not just  4:1–16

He covers all the contingencies of life — our work and our idleness, our private and our social hours, our days of popularity. Outside a relationship with God, all of them leave us craving a meaning we cannot reach.

Empty worship  5:1–9

Having considered all of life, Solomon comes to religion. Religion that originates with man seeks to use God for its own ends and comfort. Such a human religion has many words, and lacks God’s Word.

The foolishness of trusting in riches  5:10–20

The folly of making the hoarding of wealth the pursuit of a life. If we have only riches, we have an empty and hollow life.

All mankind is destined to pass on  6:1–12

There is nothing a man can do in this passing life to endure. All his works ultimately pass away.

The counsel  ·  7 – 12  ·  How to live once you have admitted it

Facing death  7:1–14

He refuses to live as though there is no end.

Humility and restraint  7:15–29

As he considers the practice of a godly life, he realises that all of it is conditioned by the fact that he is human and a sinner. Through man’s own “wisdom” he has brought about his own downfall.

The unfathomable providence of God  8:1 – 9:18

Life is not fair, and when we try to fathom it with the natural mind we draw a blank. “The race isn’t won by fast runners, or the battle by heroes.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

Compare this section with Job — the man who knows God has the Answer even when he is lacking answers. The two books ask the same question from opposite ends: Job from inside the suffering, Solomon from inside the comfort. Neither gets an explanation. Both are given God.

The upside-down world  10:1–20

Again, life is not fair. Fools reign while the righteous are discounted.

The wise giver  11:1–6

It is of significance that in his observation of life, the one who gave generously received from God in abundance. The Scriptures bear out that the open-handed giver is the one who receives.

Counsel to the young  11:7 – 12:8

In the light of everything he has understood so far, Solomon turns to the young. Life is yours. Love it — but make your Creator the centre of it, and so live a full one. “Remember your Creator when you are young, before the days of trouble come and the years catch up with you.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

Conclusion  12:9–14

After all his research into life, this is where he lands:

After having heard it all, this is the conclusion: Fear God, and keep his commands, because this applies to everyone. God will certainly judge everything that is done. This includes every secret thing, whether it is good or bad.

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14  ·  God’s Word

Notice that the answer is not an argument. Twelve chapters of investigation end with something no amount of investigation under the sun could have produced — and with a judgment, which means the accounting Solomon could not find in this life happens somewhere else.

Going deeper

Three questions to sit with, or to use with a group:

• How would you personally have answered the question “what is the meaning of life?” Answer it before you read the book, and again afterwards.
• Do you find yourself thinking you would be happy if…? What practice could help you find contentment in the circumstances you are actually in?
• Which part of Solomon’s story do you most identify with? And how should that shape a decision you are facing now?