For what will man have of all his labour and of the striving of his heart, wherewith he hath wearied himself under the sun?
Solomon has just described the sleepless work of a lifetime, and now he asks what a man takes home after all that effort and strain. He leaves the question hanging on purpose, and everything turns on four words — "under the sun."
The phrase Solomon repeats through the book sets the limits of his question. He weighs everything on earth, using only what a man can see and work out for himself.
The next phrase 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 — that is, the natural man. The book describes the things under the sun. It shows that all man does — his pursuits, his work, whatever he takes up and everything tied to it — is nothing but vanity and frustration of spirit. It never satisfies. It is full of sorrow and confusion. In all his searching he does not depend on God's revelation, on what is above the sun. He reaches his results by the light nature gives, and his resources are inside himself.
If anyone could have escaped this verdict, it was the man who wrote it.
What gives it particular point is who the Preacher is. If anyone could look at man as he is on the earth and not feel the misery of it, you would have expected that man to be king Solomon. What lies before us is his appraisal in the Spirit, so that faith might profit by all he tells us. It is not from lack of power, interest, or research, any more than of capability or resources.
The strain Solomon describes was not part of the world as God made it.
Because of Adam's sin the ground was made to bring forth thorns and thistles, and from then on man must eat his bread in labour and toil, in the sweat of his face. That is to say, labour and toil began with sin — the keeping and dressing of the garden was neither labour nor toil, in the language of Scripture.
The question bites because a man is cut off from his own results. Death arrives before the harvest.
What a trouble death is — an unwelcome visitor whom nobody can keep out of his house. It comes uninvited, at a time man thinks is wrong, and it strips its victim of everything... The thread of a man's life unrolls in front of him. At one end is his birth; at the other, his exit from the world by death. All he sees is the short life of a mortal born to die. So we can understand the reason for that cry: "What has a man from all the toil...?"
Solomon names two things in the verse: the toil, and the striving of heart. The second points to what Solomon was really after.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says that all is vanity and a striving after wind. Why so? To him, self was seeking its own satisfaction. Here, then, was no rest, no peace; it could not be otherwise. No human object could satisfy an immortal soul, nor could a dying man find rest in what he was to die out of. Yet when thinking of himself it was all I, I, I; I did it, and I found it vanity.
Solomon asks his question inside a closed circle. The answer must come from outside it.
But is there something else that satisfies? Is there a higher wisdom and knowledge? There is, but the book of the natural man does not reveal it. What satisfies, what is not vanity and frustration of spirit, is what is above the sun, not under it. From above the sun He came, who is the wisdom of God, the Son of God... That which alone can satisfy is Christ.
That changes what a working life can come to. The same work, done for the Lord, belongs to an order death does not end.
We have the strongest reason for hard work in the Lord's interests: we know that "in the Lord your labor is not in vain." It may look useless as far as man and his little world are concerned. But in the Lord, and as part of the order of things established in resurrection, it is not in vain.
- The question. Solomon asks what a man's toil and mental strain leave him with. He gives no answer, because inside the limits he has set there is none.
- The limit. "Under the sun" means on the earth. A man works it all out by his own resources, with no revelation from above, and inside that circle everything comes back empty.
- The cause. Labour and toil began with sin and the cursed ground; the garden work before that was no toil at all.
- The verdict. Death strips a man of everything just as he sits down to enjoy it. And no object on earth was ever big enough for a soul that outlives it.
- The answer. It comes from above the sun, where Christ came from. Work done for Him is not lost, because it belongs to the order of things established in resurrection.
For all his days are sorrows, and his travail vexation even in the night his heart taketh no rest. This also is vanity.
Solomon has just watched his life's work slip toward an heir he did not choose. Now he adds up the cost: painful days, and a heart that will not switch off at night. Is this despair God approves, or the honest report of a man measuring life by what he can see?
This verdict comes from a book that stays inside what a man can see for himself. One repeated phrase marks that limit.
Another word we notice is "under the sun." This expression is found twenty-nine times in this book. Now that which is "under the sun" is on the earth. There is, of course, something which is above the sun, that is heaven, the heavenly things. Ecclesiastes deals with earthly things — with what man does apart from God, that is, the natural man. The book describes the things under the sun. It shows that all a man does — his pursuits, his labours, whatever he undertakes and everything tied to it — is nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit. It never satisfies, and it is filled with sorrow and perplexity.
The sorrow here is not vague sadness. It grows out of what came just before.
A feeling of despair came over all his toil, as he thought of an heir who had not toiled. For what was there but pain and vexation in his employment, even in the night his heart refused him rest.
Behind the heir stands death. That is why he must hand the fruit to someone else.
It mars pleasure, it chills enjoyment, for it cuts off man just when he would sit down after years of toil to reap the fruit of his labour.
The toil in this verse is not ordinary work. One writer explains the word behind it, and points to where that drudgery finds its answer.
Then the other word, "perverseness," is rather "labour," or "travail." It is the word which, as we have seen, gives us the first part of the name "Amalek" — amal. It is not work: man in Eden was to work; but toil — the drudgery of work, above all the drudgery that a heart away from God drives us to... And from this the grace of God in Christ would draw us away: "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Two things keep him awake. What he owns is too small for his soul, and he must leave it behind.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says there is no good thing under the sun, and that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Why so? To him, self was seeking its own satisfaction. Here, then, was no rest, no peace; it could not be otherwise. No human object could satisfy an immortal soul, nor could a dying man get rest in what he was to die out of. Yet, when thinking of himself, it was all I, I, I, I did it, and I found it vanity.
Some readers stumble over a verse this bleak. Commentators draw a line between what God records and what God Himself asserts.
The explanation lies in the difference between revelation and inspiration. Not all Scripture is direct revelation from God. Some of it is history in which the sayings of evil men and even of Satan are recorded. A book like Ecclesiastes is largely the record of Solomon's thoughts, reasonings and disappointments. He was looking for happiness in satisfying his natural desires. Yet all is given to us by inspiration of God. The accounts of what was done or said are divinely accurate. God led Solomon to record his mental struggles with such divine fitness that they profit us for warning and correction.
If the night gives no rest, the answer is not harder effort. Commentators point to the opposite of this restless night: rest that comes as a gift.
The obvious contrast is between securing something by our own efforts and looking for it as God's gift... Quiet of mind and restful enjoyment can never be gained as the fruit of our own toil. God is the giver of all repose to His beloved. Once they accept this simple truth, they stop being anxious and stop their worried labour. He keeps them in perfect peace, whatever the outlook, with their minds resting on Him.
- Standpoint. "Under the sun" marks the whole search: earth only, natural reason only, and therefore sorrow and perplexity as the result.
- Cause. The grief starts with an heir who never toiled, and behind him with death, which cuts a man off just as he sits down to enjoy the harvest.
- Word. The term is not "work" but toil — drudgery driven by a heart away from God, the very thing Christ invites the weary to bring to Him.
- Sleeplessness. No earthly object is big enough for an immortal soul, and no dying man rests in what he must die out of.
- Answer. Effort never earns rest of mind; God gives it. That is why the record of Solomon's despair stands in Scripture, to warn us.