And I became great, and increased more than all that had been before me in Jerusalem also my wisdom remained with me.
Solomon reaches the peak of his experiment here. He rises above everyone before him in Jerusalem, and his wisdom stays with him the whole way. So the verse raises a sharp question. If a man can have everything and still think clearly, what does he make of it?
Solomon's boast in this verse is not a stray remark. One writer reads it as the goal behind all the building, buying and collecting.
So much for Solomon's wisdom. But then he said, I am going "to know madness and folly." If there is any pleasure in a thing, I am in for it. He turned to wine — a dangerous thing. He married wives. He carried out great works. He gathered riches. He did not only sip; he drank deeply of every sparkling cup. He tried every imaginable pleasure. He not only ruined his testimony; he wrecked much of his kingdom. All this self-indulgence, all this piling up of every delightful thing, made everything serve himself. His aim was to be able to say, "So I became great."
The second half of the verse matters as much as the first. His judgment stayed sharp the whole way through. So no one can write off his verdict as the complaint of a man who lost his head.
Such was the wide range of pleasures, intellectual and physical, that he explored. He held back no joy from himself. Yet even while he threw himself into all that he describes, he tells us his wisdom remained with him. So he was fully able to judge what all this was worth. He had lived it, and his wisdom never left him. Would not such a man be satisfied with what this life could give? If others less favoured were disappointed, he at least had his fill of everything he desired.
The list running up to this verse is not random. One commentator traces a pattern through it. It ends at the self-satisfied pause this verse records.
Here we find first of all the king's personal experience. He experimented, so to speak, with what belongs to the natural man, a fallen nature. In that nature are found three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We can trace these three things in the opening verses… Then he made great works. He built houses, planted vineyards, and laid out beautiful gardens with fruit trees and all kinds of shrubbery. He added pools of water, springs and waterfalls — all so pleasing to the eye — the lust of the eyes. To all this he added male and female servants, with great possessions… Then he leans back, self-satisfied, and says, "So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me."
If anyone had grounds to escape the sense of emptiness, it was this king. That is why his report is worth reading.
What gives special point to it is the personal position of the Preacher. Could anyone look at man as he is on the earth and be free from the sense of misery? If anyone could, we would have expected it to be king Solomon. It is his appraisal in the Spirit which lies before us, so that faith might profit by all he tells. It does not come from any lack of power, interest, or research, or from any lack of ability or resources… The sense of its emptiness, and the sorrow over its evil, ran all the deeper in the man who could best appreciate it all.
Solomon's greatness came from what he gathered. One writer names a different gain, and it comes from a life lived before God.
Now godliness means this: being conscious of God, living under the eye of God, having God as the trust and the glory of our hearts. Godliness, with the contentment that flows from it, is great gain.
Solomon's glory did not last. Even at its height it pointed beyond itself.
Solomon's own folly soon put out the blaze of his glory. Even so, it already reminds us that "a greater than Solomon" is in the mind and purpose of God.
- Aim — Solomon made everything he built, bought and gathered serve himself, so that he could say, "So I became great."
- Advantage — His wisdom stayed with him the whole way, so he could judge what it was all worth.
- Appetite — The list traces three appetites: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It ends with a man leaning back, self-satisfied.
- Verdict — If anyone could have escaped the sense of emptiness, it was this king. Instead the man best able to appreciate it all felt it most deeply.
- Alternative — Solomon's greatness rested on what he gathered. Godliness with contentment, lived under the eye of God, is great gain. It points on to the One greater than Solomon.
And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was my portion from all my labour.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that it had cost me to do [them]; and behold, all was vanity and pursuit of the wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
Solomon stops building and starts counting. The ledger comes back empty. It raises a sharp question. If the man who could buy anything gained nothing, what are the rest of us hoping to find?
The verse is a backward glance. The writers here quote an older translation: where the ESV has "a striving after wind" and "nothing to be gained," it reads "vexation of spirit" and "no profit." One writer notices that the joy Solomon described a line earlier is already in the past tense.
Notice that when Solomon wrote about his rejoicing he used the past tense. He did not say, "my heart rejoices," but, "my heart rejoiced." Then we look at the very next verse, and we find him saying, "All was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." His disillusionment was complete.
This is not the complaint of a man who never got his chance. Solomon ran the test with resources no reader will match, and he published the findings himself.
Thank God, before Solomon ended his career God opened his eyes and led him to write this striking book. In it he puts on record the results of the experiment. Listen to what he says: I have investigated on a grand scale — on a scale that others can never touch. Others might have one per cent of it. I have had the whole hundred per cent, and the verdict is: there is not a bit of profit in it. There is "no profit under the sun."
The pleasures and building projects earlier in the chapter fall into a pattern. One writer sorts them into three appetites of fallen human nature.
Here we find first of all the king's personal experience. He experimented, so to speak, with what belongs to the natural man — a fallen nature. That nature holds three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We can trace these three things in the opening verses. The lust of the flesh in verses 1-3; the lust of the eyes in verses 4-6, and the pride of life in verses 7-8.
The failure was structural, not accidental. The pronouns in the chapter give it away — the whole survey circles back on the man who made it.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, "There is no good thing under the sun"; "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 he thought of himself, it was all I, I, I — I did it, and I found it vanity. But in the Song of Solomon we see all his blessedness, because there he speaks of Christ being everything to him. It has been said that in Ecclesiastes the heart was too great for the object. In the Song of Solomon the object is too great for the heart.
Commentators differ slightly on the register of the complaint. Others read the same verdict less as personal regret and more as an honest man feeling the wreckage sin has left in the world — "not the experience of the sinner reaping the fruit of what he has sown, but one of the old creation (though a sinner himself) feeling the ruin and disorder sin has brought on the earth" (C. E. Stuart).
"Profit" is a running word in this book, and the New Testament picks it up and turns it over.
The word "profit" occurs several times in the book of Ecclesiastes. The Lord Jesus has ruled that if a man should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul, he would not be profited (Matt. 16:26). "But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim. 6:6). The man who penned these words found more than contentment — he found satisfaction, in Christ… The things that appealed to Solomon — gold, buildings, women, and so on — had no appeal to the apostle. Having them in such abundance and combination was in the end his undoing. Poor he might be, persecuted and despised, but he delighted to say, "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Let Paul be our model, not Solomon.
If everything under the sun fails the test, the search must change direction, not effort.
Yes, the one who knew it by experience and wrote it by inspiration has called "all" — without any exception — "under the sun" "vanity and vexation of spirit." Turn where you will "under the sun" and you will not find anything on which the heart can rest. You must rise on the steady and vigorous wing of faith to regions "above the sun," to find "a better and an enduring substance."… None but Jesus can give "substance." None but He can "fill." None but He can "satisfy."
- Full test. Solomon ran the experiment at one hundred per cent, on a scale no reader can reach, so nobody needs to repeat it.
- Full verdict. His joy is past tense before the review ends. The disillusionment was complete.
- The reason. Self was seeking its own satisfaction, and a dying man cannot rest in what he must die out of.
- The word. Scripture answers "no profit" under the sun with "great gain" — godliness with contentment.
- The direction. The search is not wrong; the altitude is. Nothing under the sun can fill the heart — only Christ can.