That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which will be done and there is nothing new under the sun.
The Preacher has just watched the sun, the wind and the rivers run their endless rounds. Now he turns that observation into a verdict on human history itself. Does anything at all escape the circle?
The words "under the sun" run through the whole book. One writer explains what they cover:
I also think the sun works differently here from those places where the moon and stars are mentioned too. Here it expresses universality. That is how Ecclesiastes uses "under the sun" again and again: "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" "There is nothing new under the sun," and so on.
Verses 4 to 8 described nature going in circles. Verse 9 says human affairs obey the same rule, and the writer names it:
The first note of vanity is found in verses 4-11. There is a law of repetition, or circle-movement. It works in nature as well as in human life. Generation follows generation. The sun has his circle. The winds too have their currents, blowing from north to south and south to north. The waters obey the same law. History repeats itself, for what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Nothing is new; all is repetition, a monotonous unchangeableness. Man is in the middle of it, and he too is subject to this law. Everything under the sun is restless and unstable — except the earth itself, which stays forever (verse 4) — hollow and empty; so all is vanity. Here is a picture of unrest and weariness, if not of gloom and despair.
One hope is left — the enjoyment of something never tried before:
Then is there not the enjoyment of novelty? Granted, this is the moral realm, and we see it especially in what has been done. But is there not something of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? Even this has already been, or belonged to, the ages that were before us.
Why does the circle keep turning? One writer points to the man inside it:
People say that history repeats itself, and the reason is obvious: man repeats himself. Poor fallen man is in every generation only the reflection of his father Adam. And where God's grace has made a difference, even there a nature remains that keeps far too much of the likeness.
That makes the verse a test for new ideas:
"There is nothing new under the sun." An evil is corrupting the springs of religious thought and feeling across the fairest part of Europe today. It is the very same evil that laid Eve's heart in ruins in the garden of Eden. Her first step downward was to listen to the question, "Did God actually say...?" Then on she went, stage by stage, until at last she bowed to the serpent and owned him as her god and the fountain of truth.
Follow the same circle far enough and it changes shape:
The cycle the Preacher speaks of illustrates the vanity stamped on man's passing generations (Ecclesiastes 1). It also carries a higher and more comforting lesson... The cycle is no more a mere cycle. It does not, in fact, return to itself... it is a spiral rather than a proper circle... God's ways do not bring us back simply to the beginning. He does not repair the ruined past. Always a brighter and better thing comes out of it. The new Adam is not a mere repetition of the old. The new Paradise is the Paradise of God, not of man only.
- Circle. Nature turns in rounds, and human history turns with it — nothing but repetition, a "monotonous unchangeableness."
- Cause. History repeats because man repeats; every generation reflects Adam again.
- Closed. Novelty is the last hope, and it fails: what looks new already belonged to the ages before us.
- Clarity. The circle helps you spot error. What claims to be modern is an old evil in new clothes, going back to "Did God actually say...?"
- Christ. The wheel is a spiral, not a closed loop. God does not repair the ruined past; He brings something better out of it — a new Adam, a new Paradise.
Is there a thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already in the ages which were before us.
Solomon does not simply say that nothing is new. He challenges the reader to point at one thing and call it new, and his answer is that every candidate has already had its turn in an earlier age.
Here the Preacher tests one more thing that promises satisfaction: the pleasure of the new. One commentator reads the verse as a question he raises and then answers himself:
Then is there not the enjoyment of something new? What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done; there is nothing wholly new under the sun. Granted, this is the moral sphere, seen above all in what has been done. But is there not something of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? Even this has been in, or belonged to, the ages that were before us.
This verdict rests on a pattern the writer has just traced in nature, and it governs human life too:
The first note of emptiness comes in verses 4-11. There is a law of repetition, or circle-movement. It works in nature as well as in human life. Generation follows generation. The sun runs its circle. The winds have their currents, blowing from north to south and from south to north. The waters follow the same law. History repeats itself, for what has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again. There is then nothing new under the sun. Nothing is new; all is repetition, a dull sameness that never changes. Man stands in the middle of it, and he too is under this law.
One phrase runs through the whole book and marks the limits of the search. It shows where the writer stands and what he leaves out of view:
The second expression we notice is "under the sun." It appears twenty-nine times in this book. What is "under the sun" is on the earth. There is, of course, something above the sun: heaven, the heavenly things. So Ecclesiastes deals with earthly things, with what man does apart from God — the natural man… The writer makes it clear that in all his searching he does not depend on divine revelation, on what is above the sun. He reaches his results by the light nature gives, and his resources are inside himself.
If everything has been here before, why do people keep announcing discoveries? One writer traces it to forgetfulness:
What has been will be, and there is nothing new under the sun. And to complete the picture of emptiness, there is no memory of former things, and there will be no memory of the things still to come among those who come after. People in Solomon's day forgot what had gone before, and that was not peculiar to his time. It has marked, and it will mark, man in every age.
The verse also gives a test. One writer applies it to Modernism, a teaching whose very name claims newness:
We propose to put Modernism to the test. One thing is certain, Modernism, despite its name, is not modern. It is as ancient as most errors. How true are the words of Scripture: "Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has been already in the ages before us" (Ecc. 1:10).
The book itself never breaks out of the circle it describes; the escape lies outside its horizon.
There is no question here of grace or of redemption. It is the experience of a man — a king with wisdom and riches — about human life. He tries to solve every puzzle in the world while looking at it all 'under the sun.' Only the wisdom that comes from above can solve them, or leave them unsolved in peace. Only in the New Testament do we get 'new creation,' which rises above the confusion of fallen humanity and reveals 'eternal life' that is in God's Son.
That newness is of a different order from anything the Preacher surveyed:
Notice carefully that the word NEW, when used of spiritual things, means something that has never been before. In everyday conversation we use the word new in a relative sense — new as opposed to old. But when we come to GOD'S new creation, it is not just a fresh creation but one of a completely new kind.
- The circle. Nature runs in circles, and human life runs with it. The same law of repetition holds sun, wind, rivers and man.
- The claim. This verse puts novelty on trial. Whatever someone calls new has already belonged to the ages before us.
- The memory. Things look new only because people forget what came before. That forgetting marks every age, not just Solomon's.
- The test. Check anything that markets itself as modern against this verse. Errors that call themselves new are as old as most errors.
- The exit. Only above the sun does the circle break. There God's "new" means what has never existed before, and eternal life is in His Son.