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| What Solomon, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, Says Regarding the Things Which Happen Alike to Good and Wicked Men.
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Chapter 3.—What Solomon, in the
Book of Ecclesiastes, Says Regarding the Things Which Happen Alike
to Good and Wicked Men.
Solomon, the wisest king of Israel,
who reigned in Jerusalem, thus commences the book called
Ecclesiastes, which the Jews number among their canonical
Scriptures: “Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, vanity of
vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor
which he hath taken under the sun?”1317
And after going on to enumerate,
with this as his text, the calamities and delusions of this life,
and the shifting nature of the present time, in which there is
nothing substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails, among the other
vanities that are under the sun, this
also, that though wisdom
excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness, and though the eyes of
the wise man are in his head, while the fool walketh in darkness,1318
yet one
event happeneth to them all, that is to say, in this life under the
sun, unquestionably alluding to those evils which we see befall
good and bad men alike. He says, further, that the good suffer
the ills of life as if they were evil doers, and the bad enjoy the
good of life as if they were good. “There is a vanity which is
done upon the earth; that there be just men unto whom it happeneth
according to the work of the wicked: again, there be wicked men,
to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous. I
said, that this also is vanity.”1319
This wisest man devoted this
whole book to a full exposure of this vanity, evidently with no
other object than that we might long for that life in which there
is no vanity under the sun, but verity under Him who made the
sun. In this vanity, then, was it not by the just and righteous
judgment of God that man, made like to vanity, was destined to pass
away? But in these days of vanity it makes an important
difference whether he resists or yields to the truth, and whether
he is destitute of true piety or a partaker of it,—important not
so far as regards the acquirement of the blessings or the evasion
of the calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in
connection with the future judgment which shall make over to good
men good things, and to bad men bad things, in permanent,
inalienable possession. In fine, this wise man concludes this
book of his by saying, “Fear God, and keep His commandments:
for this is every man. For God shall bring every work into
judgment, with every despised person, whether it be good, or
whether it be evil.”1320
What truer, terser, more
salutary enouncement could be made? “Fear God, he says, and
keep His commandments: for this is every man.” For whosoever
has real existence, is this, is a keeper of God’s commandments;
and he who is not this, is nothing. For so long as he remains in
the likeness of vanity, he is not renewed in the image of the
truth. “For God shall bring into judgment every work,”—that
is, whatever man does in this life,—“whether it be good or
whether it be evil, with every despised person,”—that is, with
every man who here seems despicable, and is therefore not
considered; for God sees even him and does not despise him nor pass
him over in His judgment.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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